What is SEM, SEO and Adwords?

Elle Zhang Post in DSA Phototech SEM，Tags: , , , , , , , ,
26 August 2010
2

SEM and SEO are hot topics among today’s marketers whoever owns a website. I’ve always wanted to dig into SEM and SEO since I worked at my first job in Ogilvy China. I used to purchase keywords for Motorola China on the top Chinese search engine, Baidu.com. It worked almost the same as Google. I know how critical they are in bringing traffic to your sites and how powerful they can be in driving sales (usually also called conversion).

What are SEM, SEO and Adwords?

SEM is short for Search Engine Marketing which means you advertise on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo by purchasing keywords and bidding for your ad display spots. You can see from the picture below that when you search the phrase “light boxes”, the top three links on the search page are advertisements from different companies. There are 8 more ads on the right hand side of the page as well. The higher the position is, the more the cost is. Advertisers can choose to bid for different locations with different budget. Currently I prefer to bid for the 3rd spot and lower as they are cheaper.

ScreenHunter_08 Jun. 04 19.19
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization which means you optimize your site’s information structure and improve your site’s credibility and performance (usually with good amount of traffic) so that search engines will acknowledge your site with good quality and recognition. Then when people search the phrase “light boxes”, your site will be more likely to show up on a higher spot in the natural search section (which is below the top 3 ads). The higher quality your site has, the higher spot it will get.

Thus to be simple, with SEM you have to pay search engines while with SEO you don’t.

What is Adwords then?

Adwords is Google’s SEM service platform. Once you sign in Adwords, you can spend money to advertise your website on Google, Google’s search network and Google’s content network. The basic work you need to do is to prepare a list of keywords that are mostly related to your business. For example, the DSA Phototech company is a manufacturer of light boxes, so its keywords are mostly related to light boxes, such as LED light boxes, slim light boxes and customized light boxes, etc. Then you need to set a bid price for these keywords. But more importantly, you need to know what your goals are with SEM. Do you want customers to just simply view your site or fill in a survey form or purchase a product? After clarifying your goal, you need to embed Adwords codes into your goal fulfillment page to enable the conversion tracking. For example, if you want customer to purchase products, you need to embed the codes into the order confirmation page. So when a customer clicks your ad on Google, comes to your site and fulfill a transaction, this transaction will be recorded by Adwords.

The three simple terms can easily drive people nuts coz they are not so easy as they sound like and they require large amount of expertise in strategy planning and technical support. We will explore more later with vivid examples.

Adwords Editor’s 211 Error_small problem big headache

Elle Zhang Post in DSA Phototech SEM，Tags: , , , , , , ,
26 August 2010
1

I’ve been pissed at Google’s Adwords Editor’s error page whever I tried to post changes during the past 2 weeks. If the apps. cannot support posting change, why is it created?

After I saw my keywords could secure same performance with only half the cost compared to before, I know I can do better. I’ve read about Google’s keywords quality score and found that if I could improve my keywords quality score, I could save more money.

So I went to the search query report to see what words are people usually using the most. Then I’d like to edit my keywords based on that report. However, after I’ve done so much editing but could not post them, think about how mad I would be.

I tested the app. on anther computer but still gave me the error page when I posted changes.

Adwords Editor 211 Error page

Adwords Editor 211 Error page

I called Google’s call center and after the girl did a quick research, she told me it might be because some of my accounting setting was not supported by Editor, for example, the mobile setting. I did set my campaigns to only run on devices like computers, laptops and smartphones, not on all digital devices, simply because Google launched the phone extension feature to enable smartphones’ click to call on the ads.

I immediately turned off the feature (by resetting the devices to allow all devices for all my campaigns) and retried posting changes, it worked right away. Alas…such a small problem has frustrated me for so long. The girl told me her team is working on that and I told her they should annouce such problems while working on that. I’m sure many people are having the same confusion.

Anyway, problem solved. I hope service providers should learn a lesson, if you know you have a problem, be transparent to users. For users, don’t frustrate all alone, call them, call them and call them.

Arvixe hosting – awesome, awesome!

Elle Zhang Post in DSA Phototech SEM, Others，Tags: , , , ,
25 August 2010
1

I was so impressed with Arvixe web hosting…It’s the best customer support that I’ve ever had in the business world…

OK – I purchased a six month hosting plan on a windows server earlier this month to run my ecommerce software BV Commerce. Turned out it’s such a crappy software with so many bugs (not to mention its horrible customer support – I mean never picking up a phone and never replying an email), I’ve decided to move DSA|Phototech’s website to Zen Cart which requires a Linux server.

Then Arvixe really surprised me!

1, Their live chat staff can always be reached within seconds.
2, They were willing to switch my plan to Linux immediately for FREE.
3, Since Linux server is cheaper, they credited the money that I overpaid so I can use it for the continuation of my plan later on!
4, The coupon I used last time was still accepted for the switch!
5, They replied my email in one minute!

Within a few minutes, I got my plan switched and money back. WOW…Arvixe, you are an awesome team!

Google Adwords crashes on iPad! Wait for Google to fix it…

Elle Zhang Post in Others，Tags: , , , ,
25 August 2010
0

Saw a post on a new forum for iPad owners: http://www.ipadforums.net

“When trying to sign in to my Google Adwords account, it appears like it is going to open, then the screen goes dark and reverts back to the app page. Does any one know why and how to fix? …”

This is the same problem I encountered yesterday. Some of the peers obviously already reported this issue to Google.

Now we all wait to see how long Google can fix it.

Android saves Motorola!

Elle Zhang Post in Others，Tags: , , , , , , , ,
25 July 2010
3

I was very impressed by Motorola’s latest mobile phone -Droid X.

I was very lucky to find one Go-wireless store in Carson,CA that has the last one in stock. All Verizon Wireless stores only have back-orders – sounds crazy isn’t it?

It’s a simple design with a larger screen than the iPhones’. Slim finish, light weight. It also has a good touch-screen supported operating system that works just like an iPhone but named Android, made by Google.

Motorola was my first client in my marketing career since 2006 and I witnessed its falling from a 28% market share in China, the closest to the big winner Nokia ever in its history to a hopeless die-out in the mainland market and in the whole Asia. It used to have one of the largest dedicated advertising team in Ogilvy China. But today not only the Ogilvy team was cut to the bone with just a couple of people left, my old clients – the in-house marketing people at Motorola, have encountered a non-stoppable continuation of laid-off…and its digital marketing team which I used to serve was simply gone.

The reason is that Nokia was too awesome with everything, Sony Ericsson was so cutting edge for music playing, LG and Samsung looked so fashionable…and Motorola’s operating system Symbian was so terribly hard-to-use.

The Droid X is undoubtedly a very neat phone. Android really gives Motorola a 2nd chance of life!

But I have to point out another thing is that Nokia barely exists in this U.S. market and iPhone is bundled with AT&T only. In Asia, that’s a whole new world filled up with deadly competition for mobile devices. Hope Motorola can find its way to revive!

China back to Tang Dynasty

Elle Zhang Post in Society & Culture，Tags: , , , , , , ,
30 April 2010
1

While the memory of the Beijing Olympics is still fresh in my mind, my breath was again taken away by the opening show of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo which happened on May 1st, Beijing time.

shanghai expo1shanghai expo2

The moment I saw these pictures, I felt China had returned to the Tang dynasty. The “Middle Kingdom” is showing the world that it has retrieved its wealth and power. Just like in Tang times when China was a popular place among ambassadors, today more than 20 presidents or head governors attended the grand opening.

Human history has been quite ironic. A few centuries ago, China was an old and weak man being bullied by Portugal, Spain, UK, US, and even a comparatively tiny country – Japan. Now PIIGS are facing huge sovereign debt, Japan is fighting tirelessly against deflation and the US has been so hurt by the recession that the state of Arizona even passed a ridiculous law to get rid of illegal immigrants.

Morgan Stanley forecasted that China will replace US to become the NO.1 economy by 2050. This forecast might be true but I’m not happy about the way our government works towards that summit and today’s prosperity is just temporary.

In fact, no country has proved to manage its economy in a sustainable way. The greed of Wall Street, the lavish spending of some European governments and the severe corruption of developing countries stumbles many countries. China is no exception either. In fact, we probably have more problems than any other country, outrageous corruption, huge wealth gap, lapsed moral standards, just to name a few…On the way it reaches to its summit, it is also digging its own funeral. I hope we human beings can learn from each others’ failures and avoid the same mistakes in the future.

A timeline of China’s real estate bubble burst – how true it is?

Elle Zhang Post in Society & Culture，Tags: , , , , ,
14 April 2010
0

On March 26, a Chinese netizen named “Virus Killer” posted a timeline of China’s real estate bubble burst on China’s hottest BBS site, Tianya.net and since then, the post has been spread like a virus.

The time table essentially pointed out the “same pattern” of bubble’s life cycle between 90’s Japan and today’s China and lastly the author gave a conclusion that the bubble would pop in 2011.

bubble burst timelinebubble burst timeline

Besides Virus Killer, some investor on the other side of the world, shares the same vision. The latest Business Week features an article, “short seller Jim Chanos, red flag over China”. Jim Chanos, president of $6 billion hedge fund Kynikos Associates said China’s bubble is 1000 times worse than Dubai and went short on this market.

I am really not able to know when the bubble will blast though I tend to believe it’s not going to happen so soon. What I really like to point out is that both Virus Killer’s time table and Jim Chanos’ reasoning are not flawless.

First off, even though the macro pattern for China and Japan’s bubble growth looks similar but the two economies are indeed much different on many levels, such as structure of the economy, flexibility of currency value, government controllability, etc. An easy example is that Yen has been much more freely traded on the global market and around 1985, it appreciated twice its value just during ONLY one year! This will never happen to RMB. So to cite the appreciation of RMB as the original cause of the bubble is not so convincing. (In fact, even in Japan’s case, the cause for the bubble is not SOLELY from the appreciation of Yen.)

To look at Jim Chanos’ argument that China’s middle class cannot afford their houses just like Americans couldn’t afford theirs before 2008. I agree that the credit crisis is existing in China but comparing to U.S., it’s still not that big. As our culture teaches us to save not spend, many young people in China receive parents support (such as down payment) when they buy houses and as long as they are employed, the mass default is not easy to start. I might be wrong here but all of my friends (typical middle class people) who bought houses in China have little possibility to default. Another interesting thing is that immigrant peasants are a large part of the house-buyers who are moving to small cities and they are not taking loans but using up their cash savings. That’s why local governments are so rich (from building building and building!)

After all, whether the bubble will burst is not a question cos it surely will. The bet is when it will. That’s what people care the most and especially for shorters like Jim Chanos, the later the burst, the more he loses his money on the bet.

All I hope is that the government can find ways to minimize the impact of the burst and prevent a recession like the Japan’s lost decade.

Network vs. Guan Xi

Elle Zhang Post in Society & Culture, Useful MBA Resources，Tags: , , , , , , , ,
23 March 2010
1

Today I found another good reason for coming to U.S. for the MBA.

The amazing thing that I’ve found out about America (probably should limit to the bicoastal cities) is the people’s willingness to network and interact with others. Many well-established entrepreneurs, high-profile managers are quite accessible for junior people who are looking for their mentoring.

Even though Beijing accommodates diverse cultures and people are very open-minded nowadays, I haven’t experienced the same level of accessibility when I actively sought to upgrade my network to a higher level.

A simple explanation of “people are nicer here in the U.S.” is far from enough. I’d like to describe a little more of my experience and try to explain why there is a difference.

Difference of Network Patterns Between China and U.S.

Difference of Network Patterns Between China and U.S.


I remember seeing the graph depicting the different network patterns of Chinese and Westerners when I had my first job in Ogilvy Advertising. It tried to say that in China, doing business is all about building connections which is “Guan Xi” in Mandarin. Not just about government jobs, almost everywhere in the society, you can climb the ladder much faster than others if you have an uncle who knows your boss or your boss’ bosses. Because of that, people are often seeking help from relatives or friends to find a job or sign off a deal. On the contrast, westerners are playing less of the Guan XI games and the political and business systems are showing a larger extension of fairness.

While I’m now looking at the graph again, I totally disagree with it. I think the labels should be switched. In America, people value network a lot and parents or teachers are constantly telling kids to build up a strong networking skills to help their career. The difference is that when you are in the U.S., it’s so much easier for you to reach out and ask good people out for a chat. Even though it still requires extra braveness, more likely than not, you will get the chance to meet the person. While in China, you don’t approach a high-profile CEO or an adorable alumnus by calling or emailing him. In most cases, your requests are rejected by his secretary or simply ignored for good. In fact, after I left Ogilvy, my Cantonese bosses don’t even bother to reply my emails. Oh well, I may have done something really bad but I won’t know until they are willing to tell me…

I think one reason is that U.S. has a higher level of general trust among people because this is a wealthier and more civilized country. The other is Asian culture’s emphasis on family bonding and low level of individualism. Lastly, the traditional value of social-status division is still strongly embedded in people’s mind. So neither a government official nor a business executive will bother to meet a nobody.

Now I’m enjoying my effort in reaching out to a lot of great people in the bay area who are willing to meet with young guys and mentor us. Like I said, the money spent on a U.S. MBA got its value.

Tencent’s recruiting campaign in the U.S. – Oversea Chinese talents wanted!

Elle Zhang Post in Society & Culture，Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
16 March 2010
0

In the same year, 1978, as China opened its door to market economy, the father of China’s economic revolution Deng Xiaoping sent 52 Chinese talents to America in December. While people asking him what if those students would run away and never come back, he confidently replied, no worries, if 10% would be gone, we would have 90% back, if 20% gone, we still keep 80%. I only know one thing to be done – send out as many as possible. In fact, the run-away counts for a much larger proportion among all of those who went abroad.

However, his wish has come true today.

Besides Baidu‘s(China’s google) genius founder Robin Li spoke at Stanford to try to lure followers from America’s top school, Chinese largest online community Tencent, more known for its IM tool QQ, has been aggressively seeking top Chinese talents who has studied or worked in the U.S.

Last Saturday, I went to their recruiting session at a Hilton in Santa Clara, the heart of the Silicon Valley. Once arriving I felt like I was in Beijing. More than 300 people attended. ALL Chinese! QQ’s recruiting team was even more impressive. There came its CTO, VP of HR, Chief Scientist, General Manager…most of them share one common trait – HAI GUI (Chinese who have lived abroad). In fact, Tencent has a large of team of people who have worked in Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, either in China office or the U.S. headquarters.

For decades, we have worried about the brain drain problem which means developed countries are draining our talent resources because few people will come back to China after their education. It certainly worries the government if the best talents are leaving the home country for good. However, as the Chinese economy has soared for 30 years, everyone now can tell a story of this Middle Country’s miracle.

Things are different now. The theme of the past Berkeley’s Asia Business Conference is “Asia: Shifting the Global Center of Gravity”. The whole conference was talking about the lucrative opportunities in Asia and Arun Sarin, former CEO of Vodaphone and a Haas MBA alumnus, told everyone in the room, if you don’t go to Asia, at least walk around on Berkeley’s campus and talk to people (Berkeley has a fairly big volume of Asian students).

It’s clear that the reverse of brain drain is happening. Thanks to a stronger national economy and also thanks to many successful local companies like Baidu and Tencent…

One sentence said by Gorgon Sun at the recruiting session amused everyone attended, “美国是好山好水好寂寞，中国是真大真热闹!” He’s lived in the U.S. for 28 years but he just dramatically changed his life by going back to China and join Tencent as a GM 6 months ago. This sentence has vividly depicted the large difference of lifestyles in China and the U.S.

The translation is:
America – beautiful mountain, beautiful water but life is so simple and lonely
China – so big, so messy but so vigorous with energy

As for myself, I will create my own opportunities to bring back the highest value of possible to my home land.

Pulkit Aggarwal talking about Berkeley's Asia Business Conference

Elle Zhang Post in Society & Culture，Tags: , , , , , ,
24 February 2010
0

I’m very pleased to have the first invited author, Pulkit Aggarwal to write a post on my blog. I think it’s a good start to offer different opinions and perspectives on my blog to entice more discussions with readers.

Pulkit is my MBA classmate at SF State University and he came from New Delhi, India last fall. My comment on him is that He’s the bright boy who gives powerful presentations. Here comes his thoughts about the Berkeley’s Asia Business Conference.

I along with all others were under the impression that developing economies are way behind in terms of growth in comparison to the developed economies. It is obvious to assume that when economies are weak then technological development is lesser, and less attention is given to being sustainable. Though I do not deny the fact that developed economies like U.S. have much more resources and technological advancement to have better industrial approach, attending the Asian Business Conference few days back changed my view towards the developing economies like India and China.

There is tremendous growth in developing nations, that it can be compared to the growth in developed nations. China, which is one of the worlds largest electronics and goods producer, was known to have environmental calamities such as acid rain. I personally doubted that it was taking a sustainable approach. But I was amazed to know that China contributes in about 69% of total ‘clean technologies’ developments. This clearly shows that developing economies are progressing slowly. The speakers accepted the fact that no nation can compare to China, because the growth there is tremendous.

The markets in the developed economies are becoming saturated, the consumer base is growing mostly in the developing economies. Therefore, most companies today cannot neglect the markets in China and India. Indian market is lucrative to the companies because the labor there is cheap, and can get the work done efficiently. Bangalore in India has become an IT hub housing many multinational IT companies. Many young and bright people spend their day developing solutions for the entire world.

There are enormous job opportunities in these nations as well. The life style is improving day by day. One can enjoy a better life in later stages of his/her life as people have tendency to save money for future. In short, it can truly be said that ‘THE CENTER OF INDUSTRIAL GRAVITY IS SHIFTING TOWARDS THESE ECONOMIES’.

Pulkit Aggarwal
SFSU MBA 2011

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