Did you know that you could get a much higher conversion rate potentially in yahoo than you get in google? Yes, most US visitors use Google and only about 20% use Yahoo, however, for purposes of cost effectiveness, it absolutely makes sense to open a Yahoo Search Marketing Account and test it out. Be sure to use Conversion Tracking as you are hopefully using this in Google already. If not, read my post on Signs Your Might Need to Learn More About PPC - :-) or read more about conversion tracking here:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=16344
Now back to the topic at hand, Yahoo PPC is GREAT many times for B2C (business-to-customer markets) while Google typically has a stronger B2B market (business-to-business). Google tends to have the younger crowd while yahoo tends to have a slightly older demographic. Take this information into account and realize you should test BOTH for ROI.
Open Yours Here and You Get $25 in Free Clicks to try it out.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Best of The Web (Botw, Botw.org) Coupon / Coupon Codes
Coupon Code for May: MAYDAY for 15% Off Listings - Not Sure if this still works in June but if not I will post the newest one when it comes out. They usually have one every few weeks.
For those of you who have dabbled in PPC or even have profitable PPC campaigns running, you likely also have an SEO campaign, or have considered in doing so. In either case, there are a few good directories for SEO that exist currently, and BOTW is one of the best. In other words, with minimal effort you can get some good push in your organic rankings.
Best of the Web Directory (Botw, Botw.org) has a pagerank of 6, alexa ranking of just over 26,000, about 2,000 incoming links, and has been around since 1996. This is considered one of the best directories to get into as far as creating substantial increases in rankings on keywords. Fee is $99 to submit and $99 annual if accepted. Since DMOZ may take a long time to get listed, and since Yahoo is a bit steep in cost, I normally recommend BOTW as the first paid SEO directory for my SEO clients to participate in.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
5 Signs That You Have More to Learn About PPC
It's happened to the best of us; website owners, consultants, marketing experts, we have all come to the point where at some time, we were new to running pay per click campaigns. And from the moment we opened the account and started to figure a thing or two out, whether by research, trial and error, formal training, etc, we began to believe we were the perry marshall or matt cutts of pay per click. In fact, by my own admission, after managing about 10 accounts at a pay per click firm, I too thought this as well. In fact, after about every 5 accounts when I learned about something really important that made a huge difference in ROI I could achieve, at that point and every time I thought maybe this is it - maybe I am the PPC expert of the universe! After all, most people who run 1 account really normally do NOT know what they are doing, so if you have managed 20, 40, 50 accounts you would know a bit more logically.
In any event, while I may not really be the pay per click expert of the universe, I do know a thing or two and would like to share just a few thoughts on signs that you need to learn more about PPC! (or specifically these topics since they are important)
Signs You Have More To Learn About PPC (Pay Per Click):
1. 90% of Your Clients are yelling at you. Ok. Reasonably, it is normal to expect at least 5% of the population who may be semi anti social and to be angry most of the time, but if more often than not your clients are angry, frustrated, worried, you may have a problem. It may be time to do some more research.
2. You don't have any idea what conversion tracking is, and think that click through
rates are much more important than conversion data, whatever that may be. (Although click thru rates ARE important because they reflect the relevance of your ad text to keywords and the effectiveness of your targeting) If you don't know what it is, and aren't using it, this is the very first step you need to take. Conversion tracking, in a nut shell, tells you where your money is bringing returns through either the form of an online inquiry or a sale. This is done by telling you which keywords and which AD text specifically were searched and clicked on prior to a desired action on a website. Thus, you test ads side by side to determine the best jargon to use, and you eliminate keywords which don't result in anything, and expand on those that do.
Take a look at step by step instructions here on how to install conversion tracking in google:
http://www.yourwebgurus.com/adwordsconversiontracking.htm
OR simply read the Google Help Section on this:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=16344
3. You have no idea what a negative keyword is. Negative keywords eliminate erroneous traffic. For example, most ecommerce websites should employ the negative keyword of "free" so that you don't get people searching for "free + whatever you sell". You should also use a keyword tool such as
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
to find common variations of your keywords you might use so you can select negative keyword to use. Again, look in google help section about this topic as well if you are unfamiliar with it.
4. You don't know the difference between broad, phrase, and exact match keywords. Again, this is vital to understand and you should research this as well if you do not understand what the differences are. I won't go ahead and repeat what 100 different people already have explained on their blogs.
5. Finally, if you are not able to produce any substantial results for yourself if you have a client base, your clients, then it's probably a good indicator that you need to learn more. Anyone who says screw ppc, it doesn't work most likely really just has failed to leverage it properly.
Good Day!
In any event, while I may not really be the pay per click expert of the universe, I do know a thing or two and would like to share just a few thoughts on signs that you need to learn more about PPC! (or specifically these topics since they are important)
Signs You Have More To Learn About PPC (Pay Per Click):
1. 90% of Your Clients are yelling at you. Ok. Reasonably, it is normal to expect at least 5% of the population who may be semi anti social and to be angry most of the time, but if more often than not your clients are angry, frustrated, worried, you may have a problem. It may be time to do some more research.
2. You don't have any idea what conversion tracking is, and think that click through
rates are much more important than conversion data, whatever that may be. (Although click thru rates ARE important because they reflect the relevance of your ad text to keywords and the effectiveness of your targeting) If you don't know what it is, and aren't using it, this is the very first step you need to take. Conversion tracking, in a nut shell, tells you where your money is bringing returns through either the form of an online inquiry or a sale. This is done by telling you which keywords and which AD text specifically were searched and clicked on prior to a desired action on a website. Thus, you test ads side by side to determine the best jargon to use, and you eliminate keywords which don't result in anything, and expand on those that do.
Take a look at step by step instructions here on how to install conversion tracking in google:
http://www.yourwebgurus.com/adwordsconversiontracking.htm
OR simply read the Google Help Section on this:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=16344
3. You have no idea what a negative keyword is. Negative keywords eliminate erroneous traffic. For example, most ecommerce websites should employ the negative keyword of "free" so that you don't get people searching for "free + whatever you sell". You should also use a keyword tool such as
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
to find common variations of your keywords you might use so you can select negative keyword to use. Again, look in google help section about this topic as well if you are unfamiliar with it.
4. You don't know the difference between broad, phrase, and exact match keywords. Again, this is vital to understand and you should research this as well if you do not understand what the differences are. I won't go ahead and repeat what 100 different people already have explained on their blogs.
5. Finally, if you are not able to produce any substantial results for yourself if you have a client base, your clients, then it's probably a good indicator that you need to learn more. Anyone who says screw ppc, it doesn't work most likely really just has failed to leverage it properly.
Good Day!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Google Content Network
The Google Content Network is NOT dead! I can't stand hearing this over and over again that it cannot be leveraged. You CAN have success, with proper targeting. The Content Network is comprised of websites who opt to have Google Adsense ad blocks appear on their sites, and google calculates where to place your ads based on how you target your campaigns. TRICK: Be sure to excluse irrelevant categories and sites from your campaign. TIP: When using keywords to target content network, build a keyword list composed of broad match keywords of 1-2 words in length, and lists of no more than 20-50 keywords. Do NOT combine Search and Content campaigns in the same campaigns. SO be sure to refer to campaign settings. Also, remember you are typically at a different point in the sales cycle with content, so leverage that by drawing attention into your sales funnel through "free ebooks" or "free guides" or "free" something or other. This will draw higher CTRs and allow you to properly leverage this traffic. You CAN also get direct traffic that results in 1st level conversions but you have to carefully target to outwit your search campaigns. Don't giveup on the Google Content Network! Thoughts?
Monday, November 3, 2008
PPC Advice: Google Adwords Quality Score
Hi Folks! It is necessary to know the importance of the Google Adwords Quality Score! This can make or break your account. The quality score is broken down in several ways as far as Google is concerned. I have learned this from talking with their optimization team:
1. Account Level Quality: This is especially important to establish when you first open an account. You do this through aggressive bids to start off, so you get highest CTR's, and through proper matching of keywords to AD text to landing pages. Once you establish the account quality, you can then work down bids a bit. But once you damage your account quality, it is hard to get it back.
REMEMBER! AD TEXT Matched to Keywords Matched to Landing Pages in tight themes! It is better to have many AD groups and few keywords in each that one or two ad groups with hundreds of keywords.
2. Keyword Quality Score: This can be viewed here in the keyword list (above) on each individual keyword level. An IMPORTANT TIP: If keywords get many impressions NO CLICKS they should be DELETED to avoid the poor account health/quality score from spreading. I usually start considering to delete a word after about 200 impressions on that word or less. You can reconsider that word, if you "peel and stick" (as perry marshall says) it into another ad group and re write new ad text that will induce click throughs on that keyword.
3. Landing Page Quality Score: Make sure you utilize landing pages that speak closest to the ad text and keyword lists in that ad group. It can make alot of sense to base ad groups around each landing page on your site!
1. Account Level Quality: This is especially important to establish when you first open an account. You do this through aggressive bids to start off, so you get highest CTR's, and through proper matching of keywords to AD text to landing pages. Once you establish the account quality, you can then work down bids a bit. But once you damage your account quality, it is hard to get it back.
REMEMBER! AD TEXT Matched to Keywords Matched to Landing Pages in tight themes! It is better to have many AD groups and few keywords in each that one or two ad groups with hundreds of keywords.
2. Keyword Quality Score: This can be viewed here in the keyword list (above) on each individual keyword level. An IMPORTANT TIP: If keywords get many impressions NO CLICKS they should be DELETED to avoid the poor account health/quality score from spreading. I usually start considering to delete a word after about 200 impressions on that word or less. You can reconsider that word, if you "peel and stick" (as perry marshall says) it into another ad group and re write new ad text that will induce click throughs on that keyword.
3. Landing Page Quality Score: Make sure you utilize landing pages that speak closest to the ad text and keyword lists in that ad group. It can make alot of sense to base ad groups around each landing page on your site!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
PPC Advice: PPC Keyword Secrets
PPC Advice Presents Top 5 Tips for PPC Success!
1. First and foremost you must identify a conversion point on your website. It will be the "thank you" page that follows a sale or lead on your website. If you are conducting PPC campaigns for lead generation but do not have an imbedded email form in your site, and only an email link, you must install an email form, so you can have a thank you page that tracks conversion activity. Then you install the javascript code provided by google. For more on this visit this article on Installing Conversion Tracking
2. Seperate your campaigns into logical ad groups with keyword themes. Each ad group should have no more than 50 keywords, that are highly targeted and researched beforehand.
3. Keywords should match ad copy theme and landing pages to establish and keep a strong quality score, and to encourage highest conversion rates possible.
4. Impliment A/B variate split testing for each ad group for your AD copy and at times for landing pages as well. Watch conversion data until you can determine which landing pages and ADs convert best. Then delete the weaker AD copy or remove the weaker landing page and cycle in a new ad to compete with the winning ad. Keep doing this to keep ads fresh and to keep improving conversion rates. ** Using this technique you can turn 1% conversion rates into 5-10% conversion rates at times!
5. Utilize all keyword match types, including broad, phrase, exact, and negative match. For more on building effective keyword lists visit this article on Adwords Keyword Lists. Learn to use the Search Query report to identify what phrases are actually leading to clicks for you. You can see if there are negative keywords you need to add and stop wasting money on certain types of phrases. Conversely, you can identify niched keyword themes and expansions on broad keywords that google tries for you which convert at high percentages, and then create new ad groups expanded on those successful keywords.
1. First and foremost you must identify a conversion point on your website. It will be the "thank you" page that follows a sale or lead on your website. If you are conducting PPC campaigns for lead generation but do not have an imbedded email form in your site, and only an email link, you must install an email form, so you can have a thank you page that tracks conversion activity. Then you install the javascript code provided by google. For more on this visit this article on Installing Conversion Tracking
2. Seperate your campaigns into logical ad groups with keyword themes. Each ad group should have no more than 50 keywords, that are highly targeted and researched beforehand.
3. Keywords should match ad copy theme and landing pages to establish and keep a strong quality score, and to encourage highest conversion rates possible.
4. Impliment A/B variate split testing for each ad group for your AD copy and at times for landing pages as well. Watch conversion data until you can determine which landing pages and ADs convert best. Then delete the weaker AD copy or remove the weaker landing page and cycle in a new ad to compete with the winning ad. Keep doing this to keep ads fresh and to keep improving conversion rates. ** Using this technique you can turn 1% conversion rates into 5-10% conversion rates at times!
5. Utilize all keyword match types, including broad, phrase, exact, and negative match. For more on building effective keyword lists visit this article on Adwords Keyword Lists. Learn to use the Search Query report to identify what phrases are actually leading to clicks for you. You can see if there are negative keywords you need to add and stop wasting money on certain types of phrases. Conversely, you can identify niched keyword themes and expansions on broad keywords that google tries for you which convert at high percentages, and then create new ad groups expanded on those successful keywords.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
PPC Advice: Top PPC Specialists
Looking for Free SEO Advice? Great! Well you can click through to the site above, or read on here for some pay per click advice. On the site above there are dozens of free tips and tricks on SEO, Google Adwords, Pay Per Click, and internet marketing.
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