The Importance of Hiring Qualified PPC Firms

Part 1: Why is it important to hire a Specialized Pay-Per-Click Firm to start?

It is extremely important to make sure you abide by all Pay-Per-Click guidelines when starting out a new accounts within the PPC Marketplace. If you decide to jump right into PPC waters and try things out for yourself, you may lose $100’s or even $1,000’s. Why not invest that money into a PPC firm, rather than throwing it straight out the window of your high rise building. If you were to create an account in Google, what do you do first??…

Which keywords should you use?
Should they be broad, phrase, exact?
What will my ad copy say?
Will my ad copy be allowed?
What’s my budget?
What’s my Cost Per Click?
Should I run accelerated ad rotation or standard?
How long till my budget run before it runs out for the day?
Should I run content or Search or BOTH?

These are all questions that a beginner PPC user thinks they know the answers of, yet these are only the first initial steps of starting a productive PPC Campaign.

A professional PPC “Guru” knows these questions plus much more without even thinking, therefore saving you both time and money, which are two key factors in running any successful business. Why should you spend your time and throw away your money trying to figure out the beginning steps of a PPC campaigns when you can take that time and money to hire a professional that does this on a daily basis? I know personally, I can take a look an any given account and know right away what is wrong and instantly how to save money in Pay-Per-Click. All you have to do is hand over the cash that you were about to throw out the window and save the time you were going to waste trying to figure this all out!

Part 2: Why is it important to hire a Specialized Pay Per Click Firm to maintain an already successful PPC Account?

To be continued next month…

Pay-Per-Click Oversights

Pay-Per-Click is a marketing testing center. All new accounts and their corresponding campaigns, with individual ad groups, keywords and ad copies are all a test. There are no guarantees when commencing a new account, particularly with what keywords and ad copies will prove profitable on various search networks (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.). A viable source of revenue is to continually test and split test certain data – keeping what works and naturally discarding what does not, while learning from those results in the process.

With that goal in mind, below are common mistakes that individuals make in Pay-Per-Click:

• Not testing at all
• Not having conversion tracking in place so you can measure test results by the right metric
• Running too many tests for your budget
• Running too many tests and lowering account performance
• Not padding tests to reduce the risk of performance decreases

Below are common acronyms that tend to confuse some individuals:

• CPL is cost per lead, which is the same as cost per conversion in lead generation accounts
• ROAS is return on ad spend, an ROI metric. ROAS = Revenue / Ad Spend
• ROI is return on investment
• CTR is click through rate. Percentage of ad viewers who click on your ad
• CR is conversion rate. Percentage of ad clickers who become a lead or sale

Pay-Per-Click in a Recession

With a continual increase of evidence of the spiraling economy surrounding them, advertising companies and departments are bracing for a negative hit.

Historically, marketing and advertising has been disproportionally on the receiving end of company budget cuts and layoffs, especially once a recession commences. However, will this come true for those individuals or firms associated with search engine marketing (SEM)? The Google Ad Words driven ecosystem has not yet been stress tested by a large all encompassing economic recession – especially since it is relatively new compared to other elements within the marketing and advertising sector.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engine marketing is properly positioned to circumnavigate a large amount of the inclement economic conditions. With that goal in mind, below are strategies you may want to consider in order to shun a vast amount of the guillotines that may be threatening your counterparts within traditional marketing.

• Trim the fat on your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign (s)
• Add negative keywords
• Refine ad copy
• Add dayparting
• Increase your conversion rate
• Add compelling lead bait
• Test all major changes to your website
• Track past online conversions
• Keep an eye on the competition
• Do not panic

Small Business PPC

"Geo-Targeting Your PPC Campaigns"

Local Businesses have a slight advantage in running successful PPC campaigns. These small businesses break down their geo-targeted area and then focus keywords on their specific state, county, town When starting a PPC campaign for a small business there are a few steps that should be taken.

1. Decide on the Targeted Area you are marketing to- Google’s platform is the most user-friendly and can be broken down to a customized area, a specific mile radius, or stateweide.

2. Once you decide your targeted geo-targeted area you can start to develop the general keywords that your business is looking to use. (For example: a Modular Homes Business; The General Keywords would be Modular Homes, Modular Homes, Pre-Fabricated Modular Homes, etc.) These keywords usually correlate with an Ad Copy related to that specific Geo-targeted Area.

3. The next step would be to implement the General Keywords with the geo-targeted area we are attracting. For instance, in New Jersey they base their locations on counties. ( An example, Monmouth County Modular Homes) Keep in mind to correlate your Ad Copy with these key terms. Monmouth Modular Homes, etc.

4. Last, but probably the most important tip to saving cash in a PPC geo-targeted campaign is taking each of the towns in your Geo-Targeted Area, then adding the town name to the General Keywords. Place these town names in front of the General Keywords, Correlate the Headline of the Ad Copy to the Specific Town we are focusing on. Why do this? To establish a trust and confidence in your business by the searcher. The keywords may have a low search volume but they produce an extremely high CTR. Although these CTR’s are high you see fewer conversions with the location key terms. The reason for this is the searcher is so confident in your business being what they are looking for that they are more inclined to call. They searched “Spring Lake Modular Homes” and they saw an Ad saying Spring Lake Modular Homes in it. When they click on your ad they see you are in their Geo-Targeted Area, they already feel more comfortable with you, and hence they pick up the phone and call you at that point. (If possible it would be a great idea to track phone calls, and where the lead found you, this way you can see the effectiveness of your Local PPC campaigns.)

Contact SEMGeeks.com to find out more about running an effective geo-targeted PPC Campaign.

“Google Friendly”- Why is the PPC Landing Page so important?

A landing page, or splash page, is the page that directly follows a click and correlates with the ad copy being displayed. Its main objective is to provide the searcher the exact item being searched or provide the most targeted information available on the net. For instance, if a searcher is looking for Nike Basketball Sneakers, the landing page is going to have to be the page on your site where you sell Nike Basketball Sneakers not your home page with a directory of all the sneakers you provide giving the consumer a chance to get lost and click on another advertisement. In the PPC world your competition is only a “back click” away from stealing your business from the consumer, a great landing page is imperative to the success of your pay per click campaigns. Keep this in mind; a great landing page does not consist of simply looking good aesthetically, there are factors involved to provide a quality score. According to Google, there are 3 keys to a successful landing page. Those keys consist of relevance, transparency, and navigability and each key, if optimized correctly, make your page so much more “Google Friendly”

1. Relevance & Originality- the content on your site should be extremely organized, easily to be found, and display the information correlating to what your ad promises. In the case of a product, your landing page should display the exact item that’s searched and is being promoted in your ad. Your landing page content should be completely unique to your website. Your landing page should exemplify the points you’re trying to get across to the searcher directly from you, not another source’s content. This makes your site unique in its own right!

2. Transparency- As more and more businesses make their way onto the internet the days of throwing together a website just to be present are out the window. The better looking and cleaner the website looks the more comfortable the searcher is going to be with the business. Please remember the phrase “content is king” but at the same time keep in mind that if the content is all over the place and tough to read then it isn’t very relevant. Build trust in your consumer by creating a clean, attractive site rather than a “cheap” template style page.

According to Google, there are 3 quick ways to make your site more trustworthy to the buyer.

1. Open Up to the consumer and openly provide your business’ responsibilities towards the consumer to build trust. Honor the deals and promotions your advertising and deliver on services your providing. Visibly distinguish between Sponsored Links and your webpage content!

2. Make sure your site is compatible with user’s browser behavior or settings

(Back Button Functionality or Browser Window Sizing)

3. Do not request personal information unless it is required. If it is required, then provide a visible privacy policy that discloses how the information will be disclosed. Make the experience as friendly as possible for the searcher.

3. Navigability-Provide an easy path to your product or content by removing any and all pop-ups, flash coupons, or obtrusive elements that will delay the purchase process or readers visibility. Last but not least, remember to make sure your landing page loads quickly!

All of these items seem easy enough, but as time moves on and competition inches closer with you, your landing page is going to have to be more and more modified to keep up and be Google Friendly. A quick story to bring to the forefront is a client of mine. He is a well respected UFC fighter turned trainer. He has a gym that he is promoting on-line and performed unbelievably with his PPC campaigns, showing everywhere he wanted to, and getting dozens of sign-ups by the day. Yes, his site had some flaws but it was very effective & Google was rewarding him for having a well set-up, successful PPC campaigns. As time went by, Google suddenly changes their algorithms and “Google Landing Page Friendliness”. His ads began to show less and less, spending was down, and finally became obsolete. This will remain until his landing page is re-done up to Google’s standards. Obviously, this is extremely tough on a business but it is a great example how you must keep your site up to date with Google’s policies even if you have been successful in the PPC Market before. The best advice I can give you is give the searcher/buyer the best experience possible on your landing page. Make sure the site not only looks creative, but is clean-cut, easy to read, and most importantly becomes very “Google Friendly”.

For more landing page information and help please refer to SEMGeeks.com’s “Landing Page” Page

PPC 101: PPC for the Average Joe

What is PPC? PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click and in the simplest wording Pay-Per-Click advertisements are the ads that appear on the right hand side and at the top of your search queries. PPC ads are the ads [splattered] across the internet pages that you see while surfing that giant wave that is the Internet. There are a few types of PPC ads, the name of the ads you see with blue headlines, black text, and green URL on the right hand side of the page or [splattered] throughout the net are called, wait for it… PPC Text Ads! To be perfectly honest when I started explaining these ads to the average person they laughed in my face and thought they were just space eaters to take up space while people search through the Organic Search (left hand side of the search page), little do they know there is a $20 billion business behind these space eaters. “So what does this mean? It means if you have a business and are not even thinking about internet marketing you better put serious thought into Pay-Per-Click Marketing!” PPC is not limited to just text ads, PPC also includes those “colorful, cool designed, cool looking” banner ads you see on various web pages. Whether these ads are for the hottest TV show for the upcoming fall season or the smallest geo-targeted local brick and mortar shop down the street these Banner Ads mixed with video ads, bring the creative life to the PPC marketplace. Keep in mind whether your running Text Ads, Banner Ads, or Video Ads your Pay-Per-Click goals remain the same… PPC drives the most targeted traffic possible to your website continuously.

I’m sure if you’re still reading this I have aroused your PPC senses and sparked some curiosity and I’m sure you never took the time to sit and think about how those ads actually got onto those pages did you? How did they get there? These are the untold mysteries of the Pay-Per-Click world, and I am here to let the average Joe know, in the simplest wording possible, how PPC Ads get there. Finally… the behind the scenes of Pay-Per-Click in words you can understand, and if you pay close attention, I mean pay really close attention; you might actually learn a thing or two along the way… Each search platform, whether it be Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. has an advanced backend bidding platform. You, as a business, have the opportunity to create and bid on keywords you believe you’d like your ad to appear with. Obviously, in a specific industry there are a number of businesses bidding for a particular keyword’s top positioning. [Hint: Be creative with keywords, if your selling sneakers think about how many people are bidding for the word sneakers. The more targeted keywords like “Black Nike Sneakers” are going to get you more sales than the general keyword “sneakers”]. Now if you’re trying to be the “Alpha Advertiser”, and try and simply outbid your competitors, the more power to you, but you’re going to fail miserably.

Now, listen closely, this is a PPC Tip straight from the horses mouth, Tim Burke from http://www.semgeeks.com/ so listen up! Just because you bid a certain price don’t think this will automatically position you in the top spots, on the first page, or wherever you want to be. There are a number of undisclosed algorithms that determine your Quality Score, but the factors to help you are pretty straight forward. Google’s main goal, besides taking over the world, is to give the searcher the best possible experience. Make sure these factors are taken into strong consideration when creating your Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Make sure your keywords, ad copy, and landing all coincide with your advertising goals. Your Click Through Rates (CTR’s), Click History, Ad Relevance, and Landing Pages are so important when running a successful Pay-Per-Click Campaign. Keep this is mind when you start your first PPC Campaign and always remember to contact SEMGeeks.com for your PPC needs. For more tips and information contact SEMGeeks.com I hope I sparked some PPC interest in you, now run with this start and continue looking into some more Pay-Per-Click marketing strategies.