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Posts Tagged ‘PPC’
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Google has been known for its constant testing and tweaking. As a result of this constant testing with AdWords, the Inside AdWords blog has announced that it will change the way display URLs look in AdWords ads.
Here’s what the blog says the change will look like:
Following the change, the domain portion of your display URL will always be shown in lowercase letters. For example, if your display URL is Subdomain.Example.com/Subdirectory, it will appear as subdomain.example.com/Subdirectory.
Will this subtle change make a difference in click throughs? Google is claiming that it will. What do you think?
In related news, Google has introduced a new way to manage negative keywords across multiple domain names with negative keyword lists.
What this change effectively does is allow you to more efficiently manage keyword lists for more than one domain name. Negative keywords are important to any pay per click campaign because these are keywords that generally result in high click-throughs but low conversion rates. Or they could be non-related keywords that are typically associated with your keywords.
For instance, if you are a car dealer and you sell Corvettes and one of your keywords is “red Corvette”, then you might add “little red corvette” and “Prince” to your negative keyword list because you don’t want your ad to appear for these search phrases and run the risk of getting click-throughs on non-related searches.
During this time of great change in Internet marketing, pay per click marketing is a method of advertising online that has been effective for many small businesses and Google AdWords has been a major influence in the success of many of these businesses.
Tags: adwords, google, PPC
Posted in PPC for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Do you ever feel like you are given a choice between two seats in heaven? Would you rather sit on the right or left of St. Peter?
OK, silly as it sounds, there is some seriousness to that facetious response. What’s better – SEO, traffic, or reputation? The answer, nearly obvious I think, is all of them.
There are some things you just can’t choose between. SEO is a necessity in today’s marketing culture. If you want your website to rank in the search engines then you should spend some time optimizing your web pages, but don’t think that SEO will solve all of your problems. Many a website have ranked No. 1 for their keywords only to fail to get any business.
SEO leads to more traffic. Do it right and you’ll land at the top of the search results. That will increase your traffic. But you can get traffic in other ways too. Social media is one way to drive traffic to your website. PPC is another way. If it works and closes sales then I say do it. Don’t ignore SEO just because PPC is working for you. Use them both together, if possible.
Reputation is a bit more murky. There are all kinds of ways to increase your reputation. One of the best ways is to just provide a good service. But, make no mistake, your reputation is very important.
Sometimes, marketers ask questions that have no easy answers. They don’t have to have answers. But they can make you think. When it comes to SEO, traffic, and reputation, they’re all important.
Tags: internet marketing, PPC, Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 2 Comments »
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
Many new pay per click advertisers get wrapped around the idea that their ad needs to be in the No. 1 position to be effective. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, studies show that the No. 1 position is often not the best position. For one thing, to get that position you have to pay some pretty hefty click prices for many niches. And those prices could scale you right out of your ROI.
Which brings me to my next point. The best PPC position is the one that will maximize your ROI. In other words, where will you make the most profit on sales achieved from your clicks on that position?
That’s a difficult question to answer and it can only be answered through tests. You have to raise and your lower your click bids until you arrive at the best position then fight to keep it. And the best position for you may not be the best position for someone else. It all depends on the effectiveness of your ad, the effectiveness of your landing page and the price of your clicks. Test, test and test some more.
Ideally, all of that said, the best positions for many advertisers tend to be Nos. 2-4 on page 1 of the SERP. Why are these the best positions? That’s a good question.
Typically, the first position is owned by a big brand that is in protective mode. They’re more worried about keeping their market share than increasing business. For them, the ad is as much about keeping the name brand front and center than about getting click throughs. If it achieves that purpose then they consider their PPC campaign successful even if it loses money. As a small business you can’t afford to do that.
Your goal should be to spend as little as possible on each click to obtain the highest number of conversions at the highest possible price for your product. If your product has a low profit margin then you don’t want to spend too much on click prices. Settling for a lower position may actually produce a high profit margin for you.
So what’s the best PPC position? It depends on a number of factors, all of which have to constantly be tested.
Tags: PPC, roi
Posted in PPC for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
One of the difficulties that many small businesses face is that of competing with larger businesses, especially when it comes to PPC advertising. Larger businesses often work on smaller margins so they can afford to bid a little higher for keywords. This can see smaller businesses priced out of the popular PPC markets. Social media advertising could well be an option worth exploring.
Facebook is a prime example where advertising can be targeted based on demographics rather than keywords. You will often find that social media advertising is also less restrictive when it comes to issues such as quality scores and the tight rules that search engines like Google often apply.
If you are struggling with PPC campaigns through traditional outlets like Google, then a little research in what social media sites require is definitely worth considering. StumbleUpon, while not always delivering traffic that converts, can deliver traffic at just five cents per click. Facebook traffic will be a little more expensive, but often far cheaper than Adwords for example.
There are a lot of coupons around at present offering $50 or even $75 trials of Facebook ads. If you haven’t trialled Facebook yet, or any of the other social media sites, check them out; give them a trial run (especially if you can find one of those free coupons); and compere them to your current campaigns. There are many businesses that are now reporting much better conversions and a much higher ROI when compared to traditional PPC.
We are in period where the online world has become extremely competitive. As a small business, you need to find every opportunity available to gain that edge on your competitors. While they are bashing their heads with Adwords campaigns, you could be cleaning up through social media advertising.
Tags: advertising, adwords, PPC, social media advertising
Posted in Social Media | 5 Comments »
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Dennis Yu has some good ideas on using Facebook for advertising. Specifically, some of the things that I like about his approach include:
- If you’re a small business then you can use these strategies to move in on your larger competitors
- Advertising on Facebook using these methods is direct targeting in ways that you can’t do off line
- It’s easy to sneak up on your competition
- You can give the impression that you are bigger than you are just by advertising
- I particularly like the “Switcher Campaign” model
Facebook has been criticized for not being as effective as PPC, but I think we may be seeing some evidence of change in how Facebook rolls out its advertising. If they can prove that Facebook advertising is as effective as PPC advertising with Google AdWords then we might see some legitimate competition in the online advertising space. At any rate, Facebook advertising looks like it could be worth a look-see.
Tags: facebook, online advertising, PPC
Posted in PPC for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
For years we’ve been preached to, and I’ve preached pretty heavily, that online marketing is about drawing people toward you. Interruption marketing doesn’t work online. In fact, if you are a Seth Godin fan then you’ve likely heard that song and dance more times than you can count.
There’s no wonder why. Interruption marketing, for the most part, is not an effective online marketing strategy. It doesn’t work for SEO, articles, blog marketing, social media, video marketing or most other free channels online. However, PPC ads are somewhat different.
Think for a second about what you are asking your PPC ads to do. You want them to attract the attention of people who landed on a specific page looking for information about a topic and get those people to click on the ad to visit your page instead. In essence, you are asking your ads to interrupt people in their browsing plans.
Great, you say. I’ve built my entire online marketing strategy on the attraction concept and now you’re telling me to interrupt people. What gives?
Nothing gives, really. It’s just a little insight I’ve gleaned from reading SEO ROI. They were speaking specifically about the content network, but the insight is relevant to traditional PPC as well. Even on the SERPs, when searchers get the top 10 results for their search query, your ad is hanging there waiting for their attention. Here’s the problem: 80% of the searchers won’t click on it. You’ve got to SCREAM at them to get their attention.
While most online marketing is about attraction, PPC advertising is about attention. Get it any way you can. Make your ads scream. They are, after all, in the business of seeking attention. And to do that, they have to be remarkable.
Tags: attraction marketing, online marketing, PPC, ppc advertising
Posted in PPC for Small Business | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Small businesses have far less room to maneuver within their budget than larger companies, making it imperative that they do their research before leaping into a new advertising opportunity. While this is also true of large companies, a small business is going to suffer a lot more for making a mistake when it comes to something like PPC advertising.
Choosing the right company to do your PPC advertising is very important. It should be one that won`t be too expensive and that allows you to experiment without being penalized. A few things to look for include:
Ability to limit spending. For example, AdWords lets you put a cap on how much you want to spend per day. You can set this to whatever your budget allows . . . $1 a day is quite affordable for any business!
Tracking. You`ll need to know exactly how well your various PPC campaigns are performing. This lets you try new ads and stick with the ones that work.
Keyword research. A research tool is very useful and if the PPC company offers one of their own, it`s going to be a lot easier to choose the right keywords.
Easy to use. You don`t have time to figure out something that takes hours to work. An easy to use format is necessary so you can get your PPC ads out there quickly.
Support. If something goes wrong or you have trouble with your account, you`ll need to be able to contact the company 24/7, so look for one that has good support and customer service.
PPC advertising can work very well when done right, but you do need to align yourself with the right company.
Tags: ads, PPC, small business
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, January 12th, 2009
You can gain a lot with pay per click advertising. It`s quite amazing what a little well-aimed publicity can do. However, if you don`t know exactly how to set up a proper campaign with PPC, you could be in trouble. It`s very easy to lose a lot of money with this type of advertising when you don`t know what you`re doing.
That`s why it can be useful to hire a pay per click expert to set up and run your ad campaign for you.
- Save money. Though you`ll be paying someone to run your PPC ads for you, you`ll be making money instead of losing it, since they will know what they`re doing.
- More efficient. It takes time and energy to sort through keywords and write great ads. You have better things to do and hiring someone to take care of this task frees you up to do other important business tasks.
- Get better results. Do you know what ad copy works best for pulling in high converting traffic? A pay per click expert does.
Pay per click ads can really help your business, but only if done properly. It`s usually worth it to hire someone to do this part of the job for you, freeing you up for other things and getting better results to boot.
Tags: ads, Pay Per Click, PPC
Posted in PPC for Small Business | No Comments »
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
If you`ve ever clicked on an ad only to end up on a website that appears to have nothing to do with what you clicked on, then you know how bad an idea it is not to optimize your landing page. Pay per click advertising can be very effective if you do it right, but even getting relevant traffic isn`t going to help if people are going to be confused when they reach the landing page.
For each targeted PPC ad that you put out there, you need to make sure that it leads back to a page that will give people what they want. For example, if you are targeting one ad at teachers and another at parents, having them end up on a page that appeals to firemen isn`t really going to do the trick.
Your landing page should also fit with what the ad is about. Using cryptic language on the your advertising will only result in a confusion once the person arrives at the landing page. The chances that they`ll click away are very high and you`ll end up paying for too many clicks that don`t give you anything in return.
Pay per click can be very useful. Just make sure that your landing page is appropriate for the ad and you`ll boost your conversion rate.
Tags: ads, landing page, Pay Per Click, PPC
Posted in PPC for Small Business | No Comments »
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