Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Google Adwords’

Beginner’s Guide to Launching a PPC Campaign

December 29th, 2009

Pay per click advertising methods are becoming increasingly attractive to many companies that want to promote their business on the Internet. Unlike organic search rankings, which take time to develop, pay per click advertising with Google Adwords can place your business on top of search engine results immediately.

Even though you are paying for this placement, you may be able to attract higher quality traffic and generate more interest in your website, product or service. Below are some guidelines for starting on pay per click campaign.

Step 1: Set your budget. Google Adwords, and other PPC programs, allow its users to set a daily or maximum ad budget. Use this option to make sure that you’ll only spend what you can afford. Set an initial low budget, just to test your market and check what types of people you are attracting. Alternatively, you can invest a lot of money in your PPC campaign and approach several different markets with different PPC ads to see what works, and what doesn’t.

Step 2: Identify your willingness to take on risks. Boris Mordkovich, in his book “Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook” states that PPC campaigns are less risky than traditional tri-media campaigns. However, he adds that search engines provide different ROIs. Advertising with the more popular search engines may be more costly so you need to decide if you are willing to take on the added risks.

Step 3: Select your keywords and key phrases. There are many free online tools that you can use to discover the most relevant keywords for your market. Invest in some time and effort in using keyword tools to ensure that you have an optimal list of keywords for your niche. You can do this with A/B testing and monitoring the results.

Step 4: Monitor the results of your campaign. Most pay-per-click search engine advertising campaigns offer real-time reports of your campaign, which means you can find out what is working – and what isn’t – relatively easily. Reports will usually include the number of clicks for each keywords, the time of day your ad was clicked, and the location of those who clicked your ads.

Step 5: Optimize your ads. After reviewing the reports and finding out what worked for your campaign, you can stop paying for the keywords that bought in little to no traffic, and focus your efforts on the keywords that offer a better return. This list of keywords will allow you to focus more on creating and optimizing your ad copies.

It is easy to setup Google Ad words campaign but each campaign must be monitored  and fine-tuned to bring in profits. Follow these five steps to get results out of Google adwords.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Avoid Common Mistakes when Using Google Adwords

December 13th, 2009

Creating an effective Google Adwords campaign can be challenging for both beginners and experts, especially if you’re just beginning to use PPC advertising. While you can spend hours monitoring the market and seeing what your competitors are doing, the real lessons are learned when you create an ad and then focus on optimizing it for performance. Still, it is easy to make costly mistakes with this strategy; if you do not know what you are doing.

The book “The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” is a must read for anyone who wants to break in into adwords.The author of the book, Perry Marshall, provides clear and concise information regarding Google advertising and direct marketing for both beginners and intermediate users who are looking to gain more from their campaigns.

The real purpose of Google Adwords is to make you a profit by bringing in qualified traffic into your website. Avoid these mistakes in order to have a successful ad words camapign.

1. Not writing keywords in your ad’s body. A lot of beginning Adwords users make the mistake of only using the keyword in the headline, and then nowhere else within the ad. Include at least 1 or 2 keywords in your ad copy for a more compelling ad.

2. Directing all traffic to your homepage.. Don’t ever send your visitors to your homepage when they click your ads. In most cases, a homepage serves to guide visitors to the different contents of a site. Those who click on ads do so for a specific content and they will immediately leave if they don’t instantly get the information they want. Give them what they’ve came for by directing them to a landing page listing your value proposition for them.

3. Relying on the ‘broad match’ function of the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool. New users only use the ‘broad match’ function in coming up with keywords in Google’s Keyword selection tool. This tool is only useful for generating an initial list of keywords. Keywords produced from phrase matches and exact matches will yield keywords that are more apt and targeted to your market.

4. Using keywords that do not get results. Discovering the exact keywords your target market uses takes time. Monitor the performance of your ads to check if your keywords bring you the kind and volume of traffic that you desire. If they’re not, look for other keywords to focus on. The Google Ad Words Keyword Selector Tool has a ’synonym’ feature you can use to produce new keywords and make the most out of your campaigns.

5. Using an ineffective headline. Make sure you emphasize the ‘ultimate benefit’ right away in the headline of your copy. Headlines are important because they catch the attention of your reader and compel them to read the remainder of the copy.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Google AdWords Tips

November 13th, 2009

Before advertising with Google, it is important that you know the basics of Google AdWords. Google has undoubtedly changed the face of the web. In fact, Google AdWords has made over 16 billion dollars for Google in 2007 alone. While that’s a big amount of money, not everyone can say that they’ve benefited from Google AdWords.

To make sure that you are successful in your endeavour with Google AdWords, you do not have to bid on expensive keywords. The keywords that you bid on must be relevant to your website, but they may not necessarily be the most expensive. Here are a few Google AdWords tips that you can put into use.

Read About Google AdWords Tips Now.

Use Your Keywords

You should include your keyword in any Google AdWords ads. An average person glance through their Google search results very quickly, so you must place in your keywords strategically to grab their attention. Otherwise, your ad will be missed and lose a chance for sale. Of course, you ad must also be appealing, compelling and make total sense. I know that fitting in all the information is such a short space can be quite difficult, but it can be done with some time and practice. Make sure that you include your keywords because if you don’t, you’re simply wasting money, time and effort.

Making Use of Bidding Strategies – High to Low Bidding

Here’s a useful strategy for bidding, but first let me explain how Google ranks your ads. Google ranks your ad by two things, your bid price and your Click-Through-Rate (CTR). When your ad is displayed and being click on, the total count is called the CTR. Being new to AdWords, your quality score is definitely low, so to be on the first page is more difficult . One way is to bid higher to get your ad shown. Most newbies bid high to get that initial exposure. When your CTR is a higher, then you can slowly lower your bid price. Ultimately, the goal is then to keep your ad on the first page with the lowest bid price possible.

Low to High Bidding Strategy

Another method of bidding is by starting with low bids. This is very useful for keywords that aren’t so competitive or popular. If your budget is limited, you can also use this method. You begin with lower bidding price and slowly work your way up until your ads appear on the first page. Again, you must try to land your ads on the first page with the lowest bid possible.

Try Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are used in order to prevent your ads from showing up in searches that are unrelated. You have a specific audience to target and you want to make sure that your ad gets to them and no others. Sometimes, by not using the negative keywords, your ad can appear in an unrelated search term and in front of the wrong audiences. For instant, when you are selling a dog collar and you are using “collar” as your keyword. When a searcher type in the word “collar” into the search engine, he may not be looking for dog collar. He could be looking for cat collar. This is where you used the negative keywords, add “cat” into the list and your ad would not appear. You should always put in a negative keyword so that your ads do not appear on unnecessary searches. This helps increase your CTR and most of your visitors are more likely to buy from your site.

Ad Testing

Testing ads is very important,but you don’t have to do much because Google AdWords can test your ads for you. By placing in two different ads in each AdGroup, Google AdWords then alternately displays the ads in search results. After running your ads for some time, based on the CTR results of each ad, you can choose which ad to use. If you have numerous ads, you can repeat this process until you find the perfect ad for your campaign.

Everyday, Google display millions of ads online and if you plan to use Google AdWords, you need to do more to succeed. If you want to make sure that your Google AdWords campaign is successful, all you need to do is to know what is important. Use the strategies here and you’re ready to go.

Read About Google AdWords Tips And More…

Get your FREE Mini E-Course and read about The 10 Ways To Make Money At Home Online Today!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Stay Away from Costly Google Adwords Mistakes

October 2nd, 2009

Creating an effective Google Adwords campaign can be challenging for both the beginner and the expert, especially if you are just entering a new niche or approaching your target market for the first time. More often than not, people would allot a big chunk of their time and effort monitoring the market and their competitors, but it’s the creation of ads and their optimization that provide the real essence. Still, this strategy also makes it easy to make mistakes and some of that can be very costly.

Perry Marshall offers several effective tips, strategies and advice about creating an Adwords campaign that gets results in his book The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, but many people still make some mistakes when they are conducting keyword research and making attempts to optimize their campaigns.  

If your goal is to set up an effective Google Adwords campaign in order to get high-quality traffic, the following pitfalls to avoid should be kept in mind:

1. Writing ad copy without keywords. Never make the mistake of putting the keyword in your headline only, most Adwords campaign managers do this, and they forget to place it within the ad. You want to make sure your ad copy is as relevant and keyword-rich as possible, so feel free to use at least 1-2 keywords or keyphrases within the ad for extra benefits.

2. Leading the visitors to go to your page. You will be getting more interest from the viewers and can even have higher conversion rates if the URL you use in your ad proceeds directly to a landing page with the incentive or promo, and not just your homepage.

3. Using only the ‘broad match’ feature of the Keyword Selector Tool. There are other options apart from the ‘broad match’ feature that allows you to have a basic idea on the keywords you can use in your niche or market. In the same way, you can use the tool’s ‘phrase match’ and ‘exact match’ functions for your ads and website copy to get quality and intended list of keywords.

4. Use of underperforming keywords. Assuming that people will be searching for your products or services using keywords you used online may not hold water all the time; hence, you must interpret what your target market’s needs are, though it may take some time to do so. You will need to generate a list of relevant and similar keywords using the ‘synonyms’ feature on the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool to drill down search results and optimize your campaign.

5. Showing your offer only in the body copy. In your copy’s headline, highlight the ‘ultimate benefit’ right away. Apply a visualization technique about your viewer or reader looking at your headlines; do they have enough reasons to click through your copy’s content? Viewers scan even the smallest of details even though Google Adwords ads have only 3 to 4 lines, but what is good to note is that they only react when something presented grabs their attention, your opportunity to do this lies right in your headline.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing

August 14th, 2009

The concept of Pay-Per-Click or PPC advertising defines a marketing promotion model that is in wide use with search engines and advertising networks. When one of the ads gets clicked on, the advertisers pay for the ads, hence the name of the model. All business owners activating online choose key phrases or keywords that define and address a target market. When someone researches for one of these keywords, websites will display not only page content but relevant ads too. Sometimes one may use the terms of sponsored ads or sponsored links and in fact imply PPC advertising.

The largest network operators providing the PPC advertising background are Yahoo!Search Marketing, Google Adwords and Microsoft adCenter. The packages are sometimes similar in terms of price, but high differences appear within each pattern under the pressure of a higher or lower level of demand for a certain key phrase. There are several ways of conducting PPC advertising campaigns and lots of businesses actually higher professional agencies to do this part of the Internet marketing promotion from A to Z. Thus, there are two kinds of campaigns falling in different categories: the sponsored match and the content match.

Thus PPC advertising focusing on content develops campaigns make profit by using the business website, other web pages as well as newletters and emails. The sponsored match variant on the other hand shows the ad on the search engine result pages. Thus, the advertiser makes profit when the click on the ads results in a transaction, while the displayer, whether website or search engine makes profit with every click on the ads regardless of whether they are profitable for the advertiser or not.

The issue with PPC Search Engine Web Marketing is that it represents a model that has often been subject to click fraud. Dishonest people sometimes click on ads on purpose with the intention of making one lose money. Another illegal case is when the websiter advertising online orders the clicks on the ads to receive more money. Google and the other search engines have taken all sorts of measures against such abuses, and the main safety program consisted in the implementation of automated systems capable to detect fraudulent clicking. Yet, the system is not 100% safe and breaches do exist.

If you want to learn more about Pay Per Click advertising go and visit this PPC Bully Review.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Getting Started With Google Adwords.

June 26th, 2009

OK 3 steps to get your Google Adwords setup and ready to start
advertising, creating an account, writing your first ad and
submitting your billing information.

The first thing you need to do is sign up and get yourself a
google adwords account. To do that head over to the Google and
at the bottom of the screen click on the ‘Advertising
Programmes’ link at the bottom.

Then:

• Click into the Adwords homepage

• Click ‘try now’ at the top right of the screen

• Select the standard edition (you need to have an active
website for the standard edition, if you don’t have an active
website you are not really at the stage to start experimenting
with Google Adwords!)

• On the next screen it will ask you if you have a Google
account, you could have one for gmail, Google Adsense, Google
Analytics etc, all of them will give you a Google account which
you can enter at this step. If you reallyclick the button that
says you don’t have an account and it will ask for some details
to make one for you.

• If you have used an existing Google account you can then sign
in to your brand spanking new Google Adwords account, if you
have created a new account then you need to click the
verification link in the email they don’t have one or want a
fresh account associated with Google Adwords (it is a lot easier just
to have one account just trust me!) then have just sent you to
confirm you are the owner of that email address, then you can
sign in.

Then create a dummy campaign to get yourself started. When you
log in click on the ‘create my first campaign’ button and you
will be taken through the campaign setup process.

Just enter dummy information in, put in a dummy name, choose any
country, put in a fake ad (just fake not silly as if that makes
it to an editor you’ll be in their bad books!) and choose your
keyword as ‘123456789’ or similar so it will not actually show.

Once you have completed setting up your Adwords campaign it will show you
a summary screen where you can check everything is ok – then
click ‘continue to billing’ There you enter your billing
information, select your timezone and agree to the terms and
conditions, if you select direct debit payment you will have to
wait while that goes through the system, but the other options
mean you can start advertising straightaway.

Personally I use a credit card payment at the end of the month
for my Adwords account,but you also have the choice to do
prepay where you deposit money into your account for Adwords to
use, this will reduce any risks on your behalf as if you were to
accidentally leave an ad running that buildes up a huge bill then
with the credit card option you’d have to pay, if you used
prepay then the ad would just stop running after the money in
your account ran out.

Please note there is a $5 – $10 activation charge for your
account that they will charge you after setup.

It’s up to you, but just make sure after you do the setup that your
billing that you go to the ‘campaign summary’ page listed at the
top of the screen and tick the checkbox next to your dummy
campaign and delete it! Otherwise you may get charged for the
advert showing up!

Now is the time to take action and get your Adwords campaign started with our
new home study course on three dvd’s show you how to
set up each stage step by step so you can do well with Google
Adwords.

To get your Free 7 part course on setting up your account get on over to our site now!

Get Started with Google Adwords Today

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Travel Agents Can Benefit From Pay Per Click

June 14th, 2009

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 With the global recession showing no imminent signs of getting better those involved in the travel industry must make their  marketing efforts more effective. Traditional high street travel agents are dissapearing as the publics holiday budgets are slashed and as increasingly Google et al increasingly is where holiday makers are researching and buying their holidays and flights. Because of this many travel agents increasingly are turning to their website and online marketing as an important way of generating new business.

Pay per click is fantastic for holiday and accommodation providers as the search engines are by far and away where most holiday/hotel bookings originate from.

Also as often the keywords are very niche.g. ‘holiday villa rental in nerja’ the conversion (lead/enquiry) rate can be very high and therefore cost per conversion low. Typical holiday provider advertisers can expect to see 3-10% conversion rates. Pay per click enables advertisers to target specific locations and types of holidays based on their changing requirements. For example i October advertisers could spend 50% of budget on targeting, for example, Costa Brava villa holidays and 50% on Javea villa holidays and in June 30% Southern Spain 30% diving 40% Northern Spain. Similarly pay per click advertisers could promote last minute deals if they hadsurplus inventory or packages they may be looking to sell quickly. Also a pay per click campaign can be turned on or off, up or down to reflect seasonality.

Other key pay per click benefits to the holiday/travel industry include:

- Can target any country

- Huge exposure on the most used search engines

- Detailed reporting tools such as Google Analytics help with measuring performance

- Helps build database for other marketing efforts (mailshots etc)

The most important Google pay per click advertising consideration to work on is the most influential variable affecting conversion (enquiry/sale) i.e. the web site. Research shows that sales via online enquiry are more prolific than direct online bookings. Therefore the site needs to be geared to make it very easy and likely for those enquiries to happen. Also if a strong call to action can be made applicable e.g. “fill in your details for free Spain holiday guide” (this can be an automated PDF or similar to keep costs down) it is a great way of capturing more potential buyers.

 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Simple Ways to Optimize Your Google Adwords Ads

June 11th, 2009

Setting up and working with your Google Adwords campaign isn’t a one-time project, and many people who just set up their initial campaign and then ‘wait’for results fail to make use of the true potential behind the Google Adwords system. 

Many experts and professionals in this area have already mastered the techniques, which is why it is without a doubt that every ad published becomes a hit; however, making an ad with the best combination of keywords and copy do not neccessarily require similar expertise from you but it calls for understanding the campaign’s optimization.

Perry Marshall, the author of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords outlines several strategies and techniques for monitoring, tracking, and analyzing the result of each of your campaigns so you know exactly what to change and when. Fortunately, you can now have a solid guide and reference to turn into; various techniques and strategies in optmizing ad campaigns are imparted by most experts in pay per click advertising to help you come up with the best possible creation. 

First, you can come up with landing pages that are content-rich. Make sure that the landing page the page that you want visitors to come to when they click on the ad is full of quality information, is rich in keywords, and that it relates specifically to the offer or incentive you featured in your ad. Aside from making your page easier to find in Google searches, it also saves you additional cost-per-click for the keywords.

Second, check your usage of any negative keywords in your campaign ad. These keywords refer to those that usually attract to your site unnecessary or wrong kind of traffic. For example, if you are in the business of selling gardening tools and books about gardening, you are not interested in attracting people looking for ‘free gardening tips’ or ‘gardening events’ (unless you offer these on your site). Eliminating the words ‘free’ and ‘events’ from your list when using the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool will ensure your results are highly targeted and relevant to the market you are trying to reach.

Next, it pays to regularly track your competitor’s activities by reading their ads. Making sure your ad stands apart from the competition is essential for a successful campaign; if your ad sounds or looks too similar to your competitor’s ad campaign, you could be missing a large portion of qualified traffic. 

Brainstorm some creative ad copy ideas and think of unique angles to present similar information; make sure to use action-oriented words in your headline, and capitalize all the main words in your copy for a high-impact presentation. You can also get other benefits from monitoring your competitor’s ads regularly; it helps you to find out which keywords may perform better than the others and vice versa.

Generate the most click-throughs in your niche, by keeping in mind that Google Adwords campaign’s optimization and fine-tuning are necessary in your ad’s success rate. Follow all the techniques mentioned here and you can be assured optimal performance in your Google Adwords campaign.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!