10 free thoughts on E-Commerce overseas:

1. Do make sure you understand the marketplace and the customer's needs and wants yourself: If necessary, let professional marketers that know your target market(s) research the E-marketplace first and develop structures to manage marketing information beforehand.

2. Do not just use a copy of your Chinese website for an overseas market: Chinese and Westerners for example have different preferences when it comes to for example website design. Do get professional advise from a website designer / consultant that knows your target market.

3. Do not just translate your Chinese website to English: Always have a native speaker write the text for you.

4. Do develop the content of your website with the (foreign) user in mind; Even better, let your foreign customers participate in the development of your E-Commerce solution!

5. Westerners expect amongst others: guarantees, clear product information and often pricing on a website: Do provide the information they expect! If you do not want to disclose this information to your (Chinese) competitors: Work under a different brand-name in overseas markets and / or make sure your overseas website(s) are not accessible from China.

6. Do not try to imitate / copy other successful websites: It chases away potential customers and might even get you into trouble. Do realize that a good website is original: It's not inferred of any other existing website; It's unique.

7. Do develop your E-Commerce strategy consistently: Bring focus into your strategies by identifying market segmentation and making clear choices in market targeting and product differentiation and - positioning: Develop different landing sites, or even different E-Commerce solutions for different campaigns or audiences.

8. Do realize that getting or keeping a top-ranking in an overseas search engine (for example Google or Yahoo) can not be guaranteed: Do not trust any SEO consultant that makes you a promise like that. When it comes to managing your overseas advertising campaigns: For the same reason why Baidu is a better search engine then Google in China, you should always have a native speaking internet marketer manage for example your AdWord campaigns for foreign markets.

9. Do develop your E-Commerce strategy with respect for - and in mind the local culture, - history and stage of development: Do not think light of prejudices.

10. Do get in-touch with one of our Western consultants in the Internet department now: Call (020) 38905543, send an email or contact us via this website.

10 free thoughts on AdWord campaigns:

1. Number of Keywords: Don't be greedy and choose hundreds of keywords for your campaign. Not only does it make it difficult to find out which keywords work and deliver targeted traffic, but it also makes it difficult to track and manage the campaign. Instead, start with 10-15 keywords per campaign and test them thoroughly by running the campaign for couple of weeks or more. Based on the results, try to add more or remove existing keywords.

2. Keyword Match Criteria: Broad, Phrase or Exact Match? Which one to choose? Let's take an example. If we choose a keyword "carpet cleaning" and apply a broad match, it means that someone searching for "buy carpet" will see your ad listing since it's a broad match. Using the same keyword as a phrase match will show your ad listing when someone searches for "carpet cleaning methods". An exact match only shows your ad listing, when there is an exact match or someone searches for "carpet cleaning" in the example. So take this example into consideration when you choose the keyword match type.

3. Using relevant, traffic oriented and targeted keywords: Using keywords that are too generic or using keywords that may not be popularly searched will decline the performance of the campaign. The non-targeted keywords will waste your marketing dollars by attracting irrelevant traffic while the low traffic keywords will get you too little clicks. A better option would be to check the traffic on the keywords using Google Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal while choosing the keywords.

4. Improve keyword quality score: A higher keyword quality score means that your ad is more relevant to your campaign keywords and that Google is most likely going to rank your listing higher and at a lower cost per click. To improve quality score, improve landing page quality by using more targeted content, use keywords in the ad copy, set the appropriate bid amounts on keywords, and try to maintain a good click-through rate (CTR). A CTR above one percent is considered good. For the campaigns which have a good CTR historically, Google tends to shows the ads high enough on the paid listings at a lower cost per click (CPC).

5. Writing targeted ad copy: Writing simple, effective ad copy with a clear message and a call to action text works much better than including too many technical details in the ad. If it’s a regionally targeted ad, which most often cleaning companies do, try to add the region/city name in the ad. Also, try to make use of your campaign keywords in the ad copy. This will improve the relevancy and quality score of a keyword ultimately giving you a lower cost per click and higher ranking on Google.

6. Writing multiple ad copies: Writing multiple ad copies will allow Google to rotate the ads and automatically show ads which work better than the other. A simple trick may be to just change the title of the ad and re-use the two-line description ad text. By running multiple ads, you can find out which ad copy generates more clicks and retain it and remove ads which are not performing well.

7. Choosing the right geography: Be it a 50 mile service area around your office, one city, multiple cities or states or countries, Google allows you to choose the exact geography where you would like to show your ad listing. Without choosing the right geography, you will end up wasting your marketing dollars. So consider researching your service area on Google and select the geographical location where you want to target the ads.

8. Using search versus content network: Google provides an option to run your ads on search network and content network. Search networks include Google and Google partner sites like AOL.com, etc. Content networks consist of websites that have chosen to show Google Ad listing. If your target prospects/customers visit a particular website, then you can choose to show your ad listing on that site. Considering the pay-per-click model; it may not harm to add some content sites.Try to keep the number not too high as irrelevant content sites lower down the overall CTR of the campaign and raise the bid amount on keywords. But certainly consider experimenting with some sites and add sites that you think your target customers would shop on.

9. Choosing a budget: This depends on your marketing budget. Start with a smaller budget sufficient to test out your campaign and see what works. Sometimes campaigns may not give you instant return on your investment. So avoid overspending without running a test campaign and knowing what works.

10. Landing page design: The landing page or the page which the prospects see when they click on your ad listing should have enough information to be able to catch the prospects attention and make up their mind to contact you. The landing page should use relevant keywords that you have chosen in the campaign so that keyword quality score is higher.

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