May 8th, 2008 Bernie
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Pay per Click Advertising, aka, SEM, PPC.
PPC results are displayed along the top and right side. The results are paid results.
Target audience for this podcast is for marketers who are spending $1,000 to $10,000 per month in paid search advertising.
Measuring for conversions, not clicks.
Paid search is not the answer to all Internet marketing goals.
Paid search not good for Brand promotion unless you have a big budget.
Paid search is all about lead generation or direct sales on the Internet.
Know the difference between Search and Content networks.
Search network is primary Google and select other search engines fed by Google, e.g., Business.com.
Content networks are comprised of any website which chooses to display Google ads.
Results can vary greatly between Search and Content networks.
Be selective in the use of keywords.
Mix it up between competitive keywords and long tail keywords.
Do your research to identify long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords increase your probability of winning in paid search marketing.
Use Campaigns to distinguish themes.
E.g., product families
Break down campaigns by using ad groups to distinguish products within a campaign.
E.g., individual products
Set up a limited number of ads in each ad group.
3 to 5 ads per group.
Set up a reasonable number of keywords per ad.
Make sure they are relevant to the ad group or you’ll compete with other ad groups.
Test keyword variations: broad, phrase and exact.
Don’t display all your keywords as broad keyword variation.
You can use broad version, phrase version and exact version of keywords. Test each version to see which variation can produce the lowest cost conversions.
Use dedicated landing pages!!! Good landing pages can make a PPC campaign.
Generate dynamic landing pages with headlines that match the ad.
Design landing pages which are,
Uncluttered
Supported with a strong headline
Has a strong call to action
Use graphics sparingly (don’t distract)
Track conversions
Tracking impressions and click through rates don’t mean anything. Track conversions.
Use conversion tracking (Adwords) to measure results.
Test, measure, revise and repeat.
Test variables which are measurable.
Geo target if appropriate. Display your ads in the geographic regions that you want to sell to.
Stretch your budget using the ad scheduler.
Review results often, print reports, study them, get input from others.
Sweat the PPC details for improved conversions.
Tags: , conversions, Google, keywords, landing pages, pay per click advertising, PPC, SEM
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March 30th, 2008 Bernie
I often talk with marketers about the difference between SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click advertising). I remind myself that, unlike me and my team at Find and Convert (and others in our business), most marketers don’t spend their days thinking about Internet marketing strategies as we do.
So, when we look at the difference between SEO and PPC, it goes beyond the costs. After all, most marketers understand that PPC can cost a lot more than SEO. But, for so many marketers PPC (also known as SEM) is the path of least resistance.
Many marketers believe they can measure results from PPC easier than from SEO strategies. But, let’s examine some of the facts.
We spend a lot of our time producing reports for clients. These reports summarize (usually in painstaking detail) many statistics. For the sake of this blog post I’ll hone in on the most telling stats which really point to the advantages of SEO over PPC.
Time and again we see that visitors to our client’s websites which come from organic searches spend more time on the website, visit more pages and have lower bounce rates than paid search traffic. The first two stats mentioned here should be self evident. A bounce rate refers to someone who visits a web page on your site and does not visit another page, essentially “bouncing” off your site.
Moreover, when we provide reports on our PPC plans for clients, we track the cost of conversion (the desired action for the client). Such conversion costs are tracked for the ads and for the keywords. The most telling conversion cost is for the keywords we track. This metric really tells us the cost to produce a lead for the most desirable keywords.
All too often we see marketers show the most interest in the most competitive keywords. They wind up paying dearly for these keywords simply because they are competitive.
In SEO strategies, we are able to (with a lot of hard work) build optimization strategies for select keywords which are less competitive (long tail keywords). For example, we work hard for a client to rank on page one for “project accounting software.” But, the software client we represent has a product that runs only on Oracle. So, when someone searches for “oracle project accounting software,” we hit a home run in ranking and in a qualified website visitor.
So, the message in this post is to think long term with SEO strategies. Do the hard work which will require ongoing care and feeding, but can have long lasting and cost effective sales results through organic search traffic. And, don’t be afraid to target lower searched, less competitive and long-tail keywords.
I’ve always said I’d rather be found by the 10 people who are a perfect fit, than targeting 1000 people who may be a fit but are harder to reach and therefore a higher risk search strategy.
Tags: long tail keywords, pay per click advertising, PPC, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO strategies
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January 31st, 2008 Bernie
A bounce rate refers to the rate at which people “reject” a page on which they have landed in your website. Website analytics tools consider a visitor a bounce if they only see one page and leave your site. Some tools use time spent on a landing page as a bounce rate criteria, e.g., 10 or 15 seconds.
Analytics tools provide bounce rate information at several levels. I’ll use Google Analytics (G.A.) as the reference. G.A. provides an average bounce rate across your entire website, plus bounce rates for each page. My favorite bounce rate metric is for keywords.
Measuring bounce rates for keywords is a very meaningful metric because you can see how well your website visitors are consuming your content based on keywords delivering traffic to your website.
If you are getting traffic to your website for your top 10 keywords, and one of your top 3 keywords has a high bounce rate, you need to examine the content. It’s possible your content is not adequately feeding your website visitors what they want. Perhaps the content doesn’t do a strong enough job of conveying the main thing about this keyword.
Sometimes, content revisions for keywords with high bounce rates can make a big difference in conversions.
Do the math. If your bounce rate improves by 10% the conversion rate impact can be substantial on leads or sales.
There are other factors which contribute to bounce rates, including where they came from. Generally, we pay closest attention to the bounce rates for keywords coming from search engines. The premise is that someone searched on a keyword phrase and landed on your website. We like to say, “this person is looking for you.” So, when they find you, did you do a good job of connecting with the visitor? Of course, not all visitors will be relevant or qualified. But, we’re talking about statistics. So, we like to maximize the statistical probability of delivering a good match between keyword searches and landing page content.
Any search engine optimization or pay-per-click strategy requires paying very close attention to bounce rates. Studying bounce rates as indicators of the connection between visitor’s searches and your content can play a big role in successful internet marketing practices.
Tags: bounce rates, Google Analytics, internet marketing, Pay per Click, PPC, search engine optimization
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October 31st, 2007 Bernie
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Download or click the play button above to listen to this podcast. You can also subscribe in iTunes in the right side navigation. Below are the Podcast show notes:
Search Engine Marketing (PPC) Tips to Minimize Cost & Maximize Conversions: October 2007
- Bullseye keywords cost the most
- Long tail keywords cost the least and produce the best results
- Ads should be direct and to the point
- Point out what your product is (the obvious)
- Include a benefit statement and call to action
- SEM (search engine marketing) has become the industry term for PPC (pay per click advertising Go after the right keywords)
- Landing pages are critical!
- The landing page is the ad
- Strong headline is a MUST
- Synchronize headlines with the ad
- Use multiple landing pages for multiple ads
- Test, measure, and revise
- Keep testing, measuring and revising as needed
- Track conversions
- A conversion in lead gen is a lead Give people a reason to convert
- Use a short form with a call to action
- Consider other creative call to actions
- Remind people what they get when they convert
- Use visuals in the call to action if possible
- Don’t ask for the conversion too soon, but
- Don’t give people too many options or distract them
- Test, measure, revise…
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October 3rd, 2007 Bernie
I just attended the Optimization Summit in San Francisco. There are several “take-aways” from this event to share…
First, I’ll state the obvious. We do search engine optimization or pay per click advertising to drive traffic to our websites so that visitors will take action (convert). Duh!
The biggest take away from this conference is that optimizing for conversion should NOT be a guessing game. In fact, there was much story telling at this conference about seasoned execs (at some large companies) whose opinions about which page design/copy, call to action, etc. would yield the best conversions on their websites. And, they were mostly wrong after testing results came in!
The theme of the conference was multivariate optimization (MVO). It involves testing several variables on a webpage. They can include headlines, copy, layout, button names, navigation style (radio buttons vs. pull downs) and of course call to action.
MVO involves taking the emotion (opinion) out of optimization through testing. It involves defining your objective, e.g., lead generation from a form submission, selecting the pages to test, defining the variables to test, running the tests and measuring the results.
I’m providing an intentionally simplified explanation of MVO. The idea is to optimize the conversion potential of a website (or landing pages). In short multivariate testing takes a quantitative and analytical approach to optimizing conversion rates. The testing numbers are telling, especially when they point to tangible ROI through improved conversion rates.
That said the software and services to do MVO is not cheap. But, if the lift in conversions is dramatic, the ROI can make it worthwhile.
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October 2nd, 2007 Michelle
So, you are ready to launch your Google Adwords PPC campaign(s). And then, just when you thought it was such a simple thing to do, you get to the keywords section.
How many keywords do I need? Which keyword variations are best? What if my keywords do not convert? What if the bid rates will cost me too much?
Here are some keyword details to consider for your PPC campaign(s):
• First, start with a few keywords (25-50) and then gradually expand your number of keywords per campaign.
• Think of keywords as investment portfolios. With our investment portfolios, some of our chosen options are winners and some are losers. We always need to rebalance our investment portfolios from time to time so that we maintain exposure and achieve business goals. We can view the keywords we use in the same way.
• Always maintain bids for those keywords that convert (respond to your call to action) and reduce or eliminate bid rates for non-performing keywords.
• Most of the time, ‘Exact’ and ‘Phrase’ keywords variations produce better results compared to ‘Broad’ variations.
• Do not micromanage or obsess over every single keyword and/or bids. Instead, focus on your opportunities and your bottom line.
• Remove keywords that draw clicks yet produce few conversions. However, do not eliminate keywords that are not directly converting but are providing an assist for a future conversion (a “bulls-eye” keyword). In some industries, visitors will research your products before converting. And, they may convert by going to your website instead of your PPC campaign(s).
Keyword management is a very important component of effective pay-per-click advertising.
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September 27th, 2007 Michelle
An important point to remember with Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaigns is “technology without a strategy is not a strategy.” We should think through what campaigns we will set up, ads to create, relevant keywords to use and landing pages needed. In other words, we need to map out a strategy, before beginning any PPC campaign(s).
However, even before starting a PPC campaign(s), implementing organic SEO is best. With organic SEO, a company usually fine tunes their SEO plan until they eventually hit a plateau. When a plateau occurs and it is hard to increase rankings any further for some keywords through organic SEO and link building, then the next best step is to initiate paid search marketing.
If your PPC campaign(s) has tens of thousands of keywords, it is best if you use an automated bid management tool to manage all of your keywords. The problem is that there are not many commercially available automated bid management tools. We don’t endorse any, in case you were going to ask us.
One crucial step to remember if you are using an automated bid management tool, is to manually review your campaigns daily or every other day. Sometimes companies put too much trust in these tools instead of remembering to manually check details, and therefore the campaigns suffer.
The bottom line is there is no substitute for human review for quality control of PPC campaigns.
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September 15th, 2007 Michelle
The key to successful landing pages for Pay-per-Click (PPC) Internet marketing campaigns begins and ends with testing, measuring and tweaking constantly. This is more crucial than ever since keyword bid rates are rising and competition is fiercer. According to Jupiter Research (www.jupiterresearch.com), 61% of small-sized companies, 65% of mid-sized companies and 72% of large companies will increase their PPC spend over the next 12 months.
Did you know it takes an average of 4-8 seconds to get a potential customer’s attention with your landing page? Not long, right? If you do not capture their attention in that amount of time with a good landing page, they will most likely leave your landing page instantly. This can cause high bounce rates to occur.
Targeting landing pages to ONE SPECIFIC TOPIC OR THEME with a CLEAR CALL TO ACTION is best! You may start your testing with 3-4 different landing page variations based on 1 main landing page with 1 specific theme. After running these landing page tests for at least 2 weeks (sometimes longer to confirm data, especially if it is not a heavy traffic industry), you can then narrow them down to just 2-4 ads with the 1 landing page that is performing the best per campaign. It is best to concentrate on landing pages receiving the most traffic and conversions. If they are not receiving good conversion rates, then I suggest pausing or deleting them.
A good place to start testing is with a sign up button. Start testing 1 simple landing page but have the sign up button be a different message (i.e. a button in red in the middle of your landing page can have 4 different messages such as “Sign Up Now!” “Start Now!” “Click Here to Learn More” “Click Here to Sign Up” and “Click Here to Read More”). You can also test 1 landing page with different simple content variations within your landing page, different text size and font and different simple headlines. You can also use specific website pages as landing pages and test them with different graphics, font, quotes, text, etc. And, you do not always have to have a form on your landing page in order for it to be successful. Sometimes, in certain industries it is better for them to read more information and then sign up if they want to by clicking to another page where a form would be located.
Now, you may ask what items should be incorporated into each landing page. Well, here are some important items as follows:
1. a testimonial or quote to validate your product/service and add credibility
2. 800 x 600 resolution size
3. create a clearly defined path (i.e. a sign up button or something like this in the center of your landing page that stands out and leads to a sign up form)
4. make your text specific to 1 particular product, not generalized to many different products
Monthly ad spend for successful results depends on your product/service, industry, competition and traffic…this is why testing is very important. Since bid rates and competition can change daily, you can count on one thing for sure, TESTING, MEASURING and TWEAKING is here to stay as a major part of successful PPC campaigns.
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