Pleasing the Google Reviewer

The Google reviewer gets involved when something on your landing page raises a red (or at least a yellow) flag. These might include the coding of your site, or your participation in a high-scrutiny industry, or less-than-kosher elements of your AdWords account. After the reviewer steps in, you have to demonstrate that he should feel comfortable sending his grandmother to your site.

Most of what works for reviewers also works for prospects. The reviewer sees her- or himself as the searcher's protector. If you're as fond of dating metaphors as we are, you might think of yourself as a high school boy, your prospect as a high school girl, and Google as her father. You want to be kind and trustworthy in front of both of them, but you'd probably behave differently depending on whether Dad was watching.

Squeeze or No-Squeeze

Online marketing strategist Sean D'Souza has crafted a website — www.psychotactics.com — that still gets visitors' names and e-mails without forcing anything. Here are his (and our) opinions about opt-in strategy:

Imagine you went for a date with a person you hadn't met before. And your date wore a paper bag on his/her head. He/she refused to show you his/her face. That date refused to tell you anything about his/her past. Or let you into any information at all. Yet you had to give them information. Like your first name, last name, blah, blah, blah.

How do you feel?

Well that's exactly how the customers feel. They feel irritated, frustrated, ...

Get Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.