Monday, November 23, 2009

How to Get Started With PPC Advertising

The popularity of pay per click marketing has been steadily increasing among business owners. Unlike organic search rankings, which take time to develop, pay per click advertising 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. Here are the essential steps for starting your pay per click campaign.

Step 1: Define your ad budget. Google adwords, and other PPC programs, allow its users to set a daily or maximum ad budget. This option is great for tracking your campaigns and allows you to spend at a level you're comfortable with. Do an initial test or survey your market first and set a low daily limit. On the contrary, you can put up several ads all at once in different markets, if you can afford it. You then retain the ones that produce results and drop the ones that do not work.

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. Most PPC programs provide their users with online tools for researching keywords. Invest in some time and effort in using keyword tools to ensure that you have an optimal list of keywords for your niche. Setup some split tests to see which keywords bring you the most results.

Step 4: Review your campaign's results. Most PPC platforms provide a convenient reporting tool that gives you the ability to adjust your campaign based on the data you gathered so far. Reports will usually include the number of clicks for each keyword, the time of day your ad was clicked, and the location of those who clicked your ads.

Step 5: Fine-tune 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. Once you have this list of keywords, you can start creating compelling and unique ads, and deciding which markets and locations the ads should appear in.

The secret behind every successful Google Adwords campaign is through optimizing your campaigns by testing and tweaking. These five steps provide a basic blueprint that anyone can follow to create an effective Pay-per-click campaign.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Five Strategies in Creating High-Impact Ads for Your Google Adwords Campaign

Creating Google Adwords campaigns that generate results are often difficult, particularly when operating in a niche that is extremely competitive, and when utilizing keywords that are also being used by your competitors. The difference between your copy and theirs will come down to semantics that is, unique ways you present the information and attract attention from your target audience. You can do this by writing and testing a variety of ads, but the good news is, a lot of the work has already been done for you!Composing ads that get hundreds, even thousands of clicks have already been mastered by many affiliate marketers.
According to Perry Marshall, writer of the book The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, what propels your ads' viewers and customers to eventually convert into prospects is the way that they relate with the message contained in your ad.You can absolutely increase your click-through rate and lead to your homepage highly interested prospects when you apply similar tone, language, and conversational style as your customers.

The following are proven ways to help you compose effective ads for your Google Ad words campaign

1. Assume the undoable or impossible. Although it may sound unbelievable, individuals are always fascinated by exaggerated claims that captures their attention and are thus expected to click on your ad. Evoke their curiosity by presenting out-of-this-world claims, and see how those clicks multiply!

2. Present a secret. A lot of people wanted to get updated and informed about products or services for them to come up with intelligent choices. Share your ‘secret’ or a special story in your ad to capture this highly-interested group of people. This strategy is especially valuable when you’re introducing a brand new product or service.

3. Never underestimate the power of ellipses. Adding three dots to the end of the sentence of your Adwords ad’s body copy is a proven method of getting more clicks. The reader naturally thinks there is more information sitting right behind that click, and is predisposed to clicking the ad to find out more. If your ad is one that presents an answer to a specific question or offers solution to a problem, the strategy using ellipses is what you need since it forms intrigue and eventually enhances viewers' response rate on your ad.

4. Capitalize each of your leading words. Produce an ad that makes impact to viewers as you capitalize your keywords, however, you may ignore the placeholders ('in', 'the', 'and'). These ads are easy to read and naturally attract attention when they are sitting next to other, similar ads in your market. Best of all, this helps you come up with a more polished version of your ad that can encourage readers to believe it.

5. Enhance your headline with powerful take-action words. One of the most poweful words in the advertising world today is 'free' because anyone who clicks on the ad gets an incentive. These set of words also create increased click-throughs and allows 'hungry' leads to almost instantly click on your ads: 'Discover', 'Get', or 'Learn'.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Measuring The Effectiveness Of PPC Campaigns

As more companies set up websites and landing pages to promote products and service, online advertising has become more important than ever before. Pay per click advertising is just one of several types of online marketing strategies that can help generate more traffic, increase leads and close a sale. PPC campaigns are designed to attract a visitor's attention while they are performing searches on the major search engines, and when clicked, lead the visitor to a sales page where they can purchase or learn more about a product.

PPC campaigns ultimately aim to produce interest in a product or increase sales. The technology used in PPC campaigns allow for a quick turnaround of marketing data. Most ppc networks, including Google Adwords, give its users the ability to access useful reports regarding the performance of your campaign - allowing you to tweak your campaigns for better results.

Your site's traffic is the most basic data used for optimizing PPC ads. The data can reveal how many visitors came to your site and identify where they originated. Check the dates when you have experienced a spike in traffic and check if those were the dates when you ran your ads.

The data that directly affects your sales is your conversion rates. Simply put, your conversion rate corresponds to the number of ads that were clicked and the sales that resulted from them. Monitoring this data will reveal how much have to spend on advertising before making a sale. However, conversion rates aren't only limited to sales of a product.

Joseph Thornton, author of the book, "The Online Advertising Playbook" explains that site registration, submitting contact information or requesting a download of a product or service are all forms of visitor interaction that could qualify as a 'conversion' when they are directly related to a PPC campaign.

Another way to measure the effectiveness of a PPC campaign is to analyze different keywords and keyphrases as they relate to conversion rates. If you are able to drill down exactly which keywords and keyphrases are leading to a sale, you can optimize your website for these words and also use the data for future campaigns.

Lastly, you need to determine the ad rankings within your industry. This help you decide which type of ad placement you will avail. Most ad networks offer two options on ad placement: a regular spot and a featured or special spot. Google Adwords offers something similar. They place the regular ads on the sidebar column and rotates them to give everyone a fair exposure. They also offer the more expensive "Featured Ads" placement.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Understanding PPC Marketing And Branding

The pay per click industry has been continually evolving over the years. In fact, experts say that businesses can now exploit this medium for their branding initiatives. Branding is simply the process of creating the identity of a product, service, or company to ultimately attract new customers and keep old ones.

Any business can put up effective promotions for branding using any PPC network. Author Boris Mordkovich, of the book "Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook" gives out some guidelines for managing a branding campaign using PPC marketing.

He encourages all PPC advertisers to monitor their branding campaign regularly and tweak the strategy as they go; varying the ads only slightly can have a significant impact on results, and this is a strategy that many successful PPC and Google Adwords advertisers use regularly in order to optimize their efforts. Some of the best ways to tap into this opportunity for your branding campaign involve:

1. Treat PPC advertising as separate from conventional ad campaigns. Pay per click campaigns are very different from conventional marketing. The goal is to get a response from customers but the information you get from PPC is different. Isolate your PPC campaign from your other marketing efforts to increase your efficiency and effectiveness in PPC advertising.

2. Place special emphasis on keywords, not on your USP. Conventional marketing dictates the use of a unique selling proposition in a marketing campaign. PPC advertising is all about the keywords and keyphrases being searched by your target market. You would not be able to target the right market if you don't speak the language of your customers. Take the time to uncover these keywords and phrases and use them in creating your ads.

3. Adjust your strategy regularly. The great thing about this advertising method is that you can get accurate metrics about your campaign almost in real-time. Take advantage of this by optimizing your ads regularly for more clicks and better results.

4. Develop the right landing page. Customers have very short attention span, especially in the internet. You don't want to send them to your homepage that just talks about your company in general. Consider developing a landing page that gives out detailed information about your ad's subject. This grabs the attention of your customers and makes it easier for you to obtain more accurate campaign metrics.

5. Produce innovative ad headlines and copy. You are just one of the countless businesses that are vying for the attention of your customers through PPC. Stand out from the crowd by writing exceptional ads. Think about the benefits of hiring a copywriter; you can get better results if you let a copywriter do his magic in those few lines of text.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Tips to Track Conversions from Google Adwords

The next step after you've selected your keywords and written a compelling ad is to track your conversions. Any Adwords campaign would not be successful if users do not have the tools for tracking conversions.

You have the option of simply using your landing page hits and number of sales from a link to analyze your conversions. But it's also worth looking at the tools Google provide its Adwords users for acquiring conversion data. Here are some tips and guidelines for using Google's conversion tracking tools.

First, you'll need to embed your conversion link using JavaScript. If you are using a shopping cart or other type of setup where the buyer receives a confirmation as part of their checkout process, your best bet is to use some JavaScript code that gets sent back to the Google Adwords tracker.

This tool allows you to track the ads that clicked through and produced a complete conversion; bear in mind that this tool does not allow you to see the number of visitors to the site. Just place the few lines of code into your website, and then access your conversion tracking reports directly on the 'Campaign Summary' page in the Reports Center of Google Adwords.

Conversion tracking will only produce accurate results if you meet these two conditions: First is that you must be running approved Adwords ads on your site. The second condition is only your conversion page should contain the tracking code.

You can verify if the code is working by completing a complete conversion yourself. If you can find out exactly when a user has clicked on your ad and completed the conversion process, you can review your conversion reports within 24 hours and see the click-through on the report summary. Avoid clicking your own ads, as this is a breach of the Google Adwords terms of service contract.

If you are using PayPal or another payment checkout system, you can still track conversions by setting up your Google Adwrods conversion tracker correctly. All you need to do in this case is set up a conversion confirmation web page within PayPal; you can then insert the Google Adwords JavaScript code directly into the web page. Whenever a customer completes the PayPal or other shopping cart process, you'll have a record of their visit, and, most importantly, the conversion.

Authors Sarah Milstein, J.D. Biersdorfer and Mathew McDonald of the book "Google: The Missing Manual", emphasize the importance of determining your total cost-per-conversion for every campaign at any given time.

This information will let you understand how much it actually costs to generate your sale; you can calculate this by using the free conversion-tracking tools and matching the number of conversions up with the total cost of your campaign for any given period of time. To calculate this, you will need to produce a summary report of keyword purchases at the end of each month and divide the number of conversions by your total costs to run the ad.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Get More Clicks with PPC Ad Campaigns

Optimizing Google Adwords and other PPC campaigns naturally consume time and effort because of all the data gathering and testing you need to do. However, there are techniques that are known to improve any campaign's performance quickly. Running different ad variations is the most popular technique to optimize PPC campaigns. Some of your ad versions will gather more clicks than others do; it's just a matter of discarding low-performing ads.

There are other methods you can use to improve PPC campaigns. Peter Kent, the author of 'Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies' names several methods for improving Quality Score on Google Adwords and fine-tuning campaigns. Here are five methods you can immediately use to improve your ad's performance:
  1. Utilize negative match keywords. Negative match keywords are used to sift through prospective visitors and run your ads only to those who are more likely to be interested in your website. Implementing negative keyword matching in Google Adwords is easy. Just indicate the words you do not want to include in your campaigns and Google will automatically omit your ads on search results with your negative words.

  2. Change your CPCs for major keywords. Modifying the CPCs of your major keywords may boost your campaign's overall performance. Just click on 'Tools' under the Campaign Management tab to modify your campaign. You have complete control of your ads here and this makes it easier to optimize your efforts.

  3. Review and resubmit any rejected ads. Google Adwords will review every ad you submit and either accept or reject it. All rejected ads are stored in your Campaign Management section, and you can edit and resubmit them at any time. Review your work regularly and don't be afraid to resubmit an ad after tweaking it with different keywords.

  4. Run ads at different times of the day. 'Dayparting' is the technique of defining what time of day your ads should be run, and you can coordinate this for a better reach. For example, if you are promoting restaurant coupons, it may be a good idea to run the ads a few hours before lunch or dinner hours when people are thinking about where to go or what to eat.

  5. Understand your target market. You need to understand your audience first before you can reel them in with your ads. Find out why they would be interested in your product. You might also want to look at existing promotions they are already responding and buying. See how these promotions talk to your market and how your market talks in discussion forums and blogs.
We mostly use trial and error for optimizing our pay-per-click marketing efforts but there are strategies you can implement to speed up the process. Get started on these strategies to start your way on generating high quality leads.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Reduce Your Risk Of Click Fraud With Google Adwords

Reports of click fraud with PPC campaigns, especially with Google Adwords, are on the rise, and researchers estimate the numbers are in excess of $1.6 billion as of 2008. Click fraud occurs when a competitor may be clicking on your ads to break your ad budget, or when someone installs a web robot or spider to generate fraudulent clicks on your ads.

PPC networks, including Google Adwords, confirm the existence of click fraud and are working hard to solve it. All we can do as PPC advertisers is to tweak our campaigns to reduce the risk of click fraud. Here are some tips for safeguarding your campaigns:

1. Keep an eye on your click through rates. It is easy to review your click-through rates and conversions with Google. You can even print out a daily or weekly report to monitor any bizarre activity. You might also want to reconcile your click-through rates with your actual web site traffic report. Check for IP addresses and websites that access your site regularly.

2. Set-up a daily budget. Limit your advertising costs on Adwords by setting up a budget. Your budget should be at a reasonable level allowing you to maintain it for several months. If you are a target of click fraud, your losses will only be limited to your specified budget.

3. Lay down a daily click limit. Adwords managers would do well to setup a daily click limit, according to Bruce C. Brown, author of the book "The Complete Guide to Google Advertising". This allows you to track the number of clicks on your ads. Once the click limit has been reached, your ad will disappear from the Adwords network.

4. Limit your Ads to certain locations. Using the geographic location feature is one of the best methods for safeguarding your campaigns against fraudulent activities. Research where your target market is mostly based and focus on running your ads only in certain countries or regions. It would be a waste of money to run ads on regions you won't do business in.

5. Don't be enticed by the free offers of some PPC programs. Some PPC companies offer free services, products or downloadable software to get you to sign-up with them. Be careful in accepting these offers, more so if you have to download a software that 'oversees' your keyword campaigns. Some hosting companies do offer Adwords 'credit' to sign up with them. These are generally safe as long as you are dealing directly with Google Adwords.

You need to report your experience directly to Google if you think you were a victim of click fraud. Google investigates click fraud cases with their own fraud protection team. Report your case as soon as possible to get your campaign back on course.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Keyword Tools For Effective Adwords Campaigns

One of the most important elements of an effective Google Adwords campaign is selecting the right combination of keywords and keyphrases. There could be millions of keywords associated with your niche and playing a guessing game for the 'right' keywords can be costly. Google offers its own keyword selector tool to make the process of choosing keywords easier, but there's are a handful of other tools you can use to fine-tune your campaign.

Almost all Adwords masters use a three-step strategy when selecting keywords. First, they will start with obvious keywords and run them through the keyword tool to determine the volume and types of searches performed. Then, they may start researching synonyms to find out similar and related searches being conducted by their target market. Finally, they will identify underperforming keywords and eliminate or tweak them from the campaign.

The three-step method described above cannot be implemented without a reliable keyword tool. Howie Jacobson, author of 'Adwords for Dummies' gives out the four most reliable keyword tools that you can use for your campaigns: Google Keyword Selector Tool, Keyword Discovery, Word Tracker and a plain Thesaurus.

The most popular tool is Google's Keyword Selector Tool. It is free and you can access it through your Adwords account. The tool allows you to run your keywords on its system and provide you with synonyms or other relevant keywords in your niche. This tool can also compare keywords based on a wide set of statistical data such as search conducted per month, average searches in a year, average cost per click and many others.

Keyword Discovery is a paid service that allows you to manage several lists of keywords, compare data, and produce reports with ease. This is a more robust keyword analysis tool than the free Google Keyword Selector Tool, and is most appropriate for experienced Adwords users and SEO experts. If you're comfortable with paying for the service, Keyword Discovery can help you create comprehensive lists of keywords to help you target very specific groups in your market.

Word Tracker offers both a paid service and a free tool for analyzing keywords. The free keyword tool provides very basic information ,namely, the number of searchers conducted for your keyterm within the month. It's a quick an easy to cross reference search volume for a particular keyword, but the numbers may not be as accurate as the Google Keyword Selector Tool.

Using keyword tools can be an effective way to 'mine' for long-tail keywords and synonyms in your niche. You'll have an opportunity to compare and analyze dozens, even hundreds of keywords easily and can export the data into an Excel spreadsheet or other document for easy retrieval.

Use free keyword tools in building your keyword list for any niche. That's the most important advice I can give to anyone just starting out on Google Adwords. In this way, you get to see how your niche and the mind of your market work allowing you to create effective ads with high click-through rates.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Write Effective Google Adwords Ads

Google Adwords continues to be one of the most effective PPC advertising models on the web, and businesses of all sizes can get started with Google Adwords within a few hours. Writing effective ads is a critical element of the campaign; since you only have a 35 characters of text in each line to get the attention of your audience, the words you select and the statements you make must be very specific and structured in a way that generates clicks.

Expert adwords users follow a basic structure when composing their adwords ad. Read on if you are a new Google adwords user and use these guidelines in writing your first ad.

1. Include your keyword in the Title. Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd, authors of "The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords" state that internet users are more likely to click on an ad if the ad's title or headline contains the keyword or keyphrase they were searching on. Use this to your advantage and capture people's attention instantly.

2. Describe your benefit in the second line. Most readers will respond to an ad that clearly lists a key benefit near the beginning. Make sure you are listing your benefit on the second line, not your offer or a feature. Think about giving them what they want' before highlighting a feature or a special offer.

3. Feature and offer goes in the third line. After 'giving them what they want', its time to support your benefit by stating a feature or your special offer. This line should be simple and concise and make sure this line does not overwhelm your benefit.

4. Place your landing page URL in the last line. You can enter any URL you want on the last line and lead surfers to any page on the web. Many Adwords users make the mistake of assuming that they have to enter their website's homepage URL. You can setup a different landing page for each ad you run to encourage more clicks and even track your performance.

5. Run a similar ad to improve your campaign. You can run two similar but differently worded ads to improve your campaign. We do this to know whether slight changes in words or ad structure can produce more clicks. Track which ad performs better and drop the less effective ad.

All elements needed for success in Google Adwords can be mastered with practice. Remember to track your performance always so that you can pinpoint areas for improvement. In any case, don't delay your usage of Google adwords and follow these tips to start running ads now.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

How to Create Your Google AdWords Campaign

Google Adwords is still the undisputed leader in pay-per-click advertising and traffic generation systems on the Internet today. Use it well and you can get a lot of highly targeted traffic to your websites and blogs. Knowing the basic mechanics of how Google Adwords operate is not enough. You also need to know proven strategies and tactics for a successful PPC campaign such as writing compelling ad copies, developing ad groups and biding for the right keywords.

There are basic principles that everyone must follow to use Google Adwords efficiently regardless of one's product and market. Follow these procedures to help you set up an effective AdWords campaign.

1. Use the wizard to set up your AdWords account. If you're new to Google AdWords, you'll find it easier to get through the initial account set up process using the Adwords wizard. The wizard will walk you through all of the basic account management tools; this is the area where you can select the regions you want your ads to run, and set up your campaigns within a few clicks.

2. Produce effective ads. Each component of your ad must follow a particular formula for it to be effective: A keyword or keyphrase must be used in the headline. State a benefit by the second line. Mention special promotions or product features in the third line. Finally, the fourth line must contain a URL link back to your landing page or website. This proven formula is taught by best-selling adWords strategy books; such as Perry Marshall's "The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords" and Peter Kent's "Pay per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies".

3. Use the right keywords. Google provides users with a robust Keyword Selector tool that allows you to generate lists of highly targeted keywords and keyphrases related to your niche. Explore this tool as much as possible when you are setting up your campaign, and even when you are looking for appropriate keywords for your website or blog.

4. Find out how to do keyword matching. You can conduct broad matches, phrase matches and exact matches inside Google's keyword selection tool for your collection of keywords. This allows you to get additional relevant keywords for your campaigns. There is also a feature tied with Adwords called negative match. Negative match allows you to specify words that when entered by someone searching google, will not result in your ad running in the person's web browser.

5. Create a budget. One of the best feature Google Adwords offers is the ability to specify a daily budget for your campaigns. Just enter the total amount you are willing to spend daily and Google will automatically take funds from your account. Start with a low budget first to minimize risk. Get some data first at the start of your campaign. You want to know the exact cost of a lead and the actual keywords that convert to a sale. You can then optimize your campaign based on your data and at the same time set a higher budget allowance for even bigger rewards.

Friday, May 29, 2009

How to Avoid the Common Mistakes when Using Google Adwords

Establishing a successful Google Adwords campaign can be tough for both beginners and experts alike. Tougher still if you are entering a new niche or just starting to operate in an unfamiliar market. You can always spend a lot of time on market research and spying on your competitor but you will only advance once you create an ad and concentrate on optimizing it. Then again, just placing an ad out there won't instantly lead to success. The truth is a lot of people discover how quickly they can lose all their time, effort and money invested in Adwords by committing simple mistakes.

These costly mistakes are addressed in the book The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords. Written by Perry Marshall, the book is all about getting excellent results from Adwords campaigns consistently.

Below are five common mistakes you must avoid to get you started in raking in huge traffic from your target market:

1. Not writing keywords in your ad's body. Most ads I see only utilize keywords on their headlines. Do not neglect the body of your ads as 1-2 keywords or keyphrases placed in there will make it more relevant to search engines and your market alike.

2. Send traffic to your site's homepage. The purpose of a site's homepage is to provide broad information about the site and what it offers. There's a good chance that your visitors will turn away if they have to exert effort to get the information they came for in the first place. This ultimately results in a low conversion rate and lost sales. Make it easy for your visitors by stating your offer upfront on a landing page.

3. Using 'broad match' in the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool as the basis of your research and campaign. As the name suggests, the 'broad match' selection is only useful for an overview of your chosen niche or market. The whole point of keyword research is to know the precise words or phrases your target market uses when searching for information in Google. Make use of 'phrase match' and 'exact match' instead to find out the exact keywords or keyphrases that will lure in your prospects.

4. Use of low-performing keywords. Discovering the exact keywords your target market use takes time. Monitor your Adwords campaign regularly to check if your keywords are performing as expected. If they're not, look for other keywords to focus on. The Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool has a 'synonym' feature you can use to produce new keywords and make the most out of your campaigns.

5. An uninteresting headline. Each ad on average only has a second to grab the attention of viewers before they move on. The headline of your ad serves as the hook to reel in visitors. It's the most prominent part of your ad and the quality of it will determine if the reader checks out the rest of the ad or not. State the most important benefit you're giving in your headline to compel viewers to read the body of your ad and click through it.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Getting High Quality Traffic Through The Keyword Selector Tool

It is essential to know which keywords or keyphrases you should use that will allow people to easily identify your ad when you begin creating and writing for your Google Adwords campaign. An expert in Google Adwords, Perry Marshall, advises all pay-per-click managers and Adwords users to utilize Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool in each ad's design. This free tool allows you to find the most profitable and popular keywords in your niche, and can also help you drill down related keywords that you can use for other campaigns or just general keyword research. The Keyword Tool is especially helpful for fine-tuning your efforts when ads are performing poorly; if you've written an ad using low-traffic keywords, there is a good chance that your ads are not being clicked enough to make your ad effective.

Here are some more ways to use the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool effectively for your Adwords campaign:

1. Start with a broad search. Many people make the mistake of using very specific keywords or keyphrases when they first begin conducting research with Google Adwords, but this can leave you with only mediocre results. Start with a broad search instead and drill down your results using the 'synonyms' tool that offers suggestions and variations as part of the results.

2. Use a set of similar keywords as you create different ad groups. Make sure you are creating an entirely new ad group for every campaign so you can keep track of what is working - and what isn't. You can also make use of the 'relevant keywords' feature already built into the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool that helps you narrow down your search with ease.

3. Use a 'negative keywords' strategy. Sometimes optimizing your Google Adwords campaign will involve taking away words that do not work for your market; the Google Adwords tool can be tweaked to stop showing certain words that may not be relevant to your particular niche. For example, if you are selling greeting cards but your basic search keeps showing results for 'free greeting cards,' you can eliminate the word 'free' by designating it as a negative keyword. The Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool will now only show you results without the word 'free.'

4. Use the Site Content feature if you don't know where to start. Google can scan your web page and offer suggestions of keywords based on your site's content. For example, if your home page provides information about services and trends in your marketplace, these may be strong keywords for your particular niche. When the scanning process is complete, you will see a list of highly targeted keywords related to these ideas and topics in your results.

5. location, location, location. Many people fail to realize how important adding a location - whether it's a town, city or state - to your key term or keyphrase really is. This is especially important if you offer products or services within a particular zone or area; the traffic you can generate from these keywords may be much higher than a general search, and will get you highly targeted, even qualified traffic. Consider appending a keyword or keyphrase with a location to determine the best combinations for your ad campaign.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Improve Your Marketing With Google Adwords And Split Testing

When it comes to using Google AdWords ads to attract customers, your CTR or clickthrough rates are the key to getting the biggest bang possible for your marketing buck. Perry Marshall, an online marketing expert, suggests the those seeking to increase the effectiveness of their AdWords advertisements to employ the strategy of split testing. By split testing, you can begin to determine the precise effectiveness of each of the keywords and phrases in attracting attention and, as a result, clicks from members of your target audience. By paying attention to what really works in your marketing, and perhaps running two or more advertisements simultaneously, you can gain valuable insights into what drives your customers.

Split testing isn't simply for AdWord, however; the knowledge you obtain from split testing performed on just about any area of your site can be easily applied to the creation of effective AdWords, and help you develop a more advantageous online presence. As a springboard for your own ideas, here are five examples of areas in which split testing can be effective.

1. Your signup pages. Whether you have a newsletter signup box on your homepage, or are just collecting e-mail addresses for a free download, running a split test in this area can help you determine what types of freebies your visitors respond well to. The words and marketing copy you use in these areas can be manipulated to deliver different messages; when you've defined what the most effective messages are, it also becomes easier to insert these messages into a Google Adwords ad.

2. Your website's "shopping cart." One area of your site that can yield important clues to what makes your customers tick is the "shopping cart." Looking at what customers do on this section will tell you more about their buying habits, as well as what they're truly interested in. Split testing can be applied to your site's shopping cart as well, perhaps by experimenting with messages presented to customers during the process of checking out. In this vein, it is also a great idea to monitor what items are most commonly searched for on your site.

3. Individual product pages. If a customer is viewing the page for a specific product, they're definitely interested, but the specific copy on this page can be an essential factor in motivating him or her to make the decision. Make sure that the copy used on your product pages is attention-grabbing, and use split testing to see which variations of a message get the best results. Long-term monitoring of the effects of product pages copy can bear considerable fruit both in increased sales and knowledge that can be applied in your Adwords ads.

4. Sales letters. Sales letters have always been of great value to online marketers, as they encourage the recipient to make an immediate decision to click through to your site. These letters are perfect for split testing, as they allow you to track which key messages you should emphasize in order to provoke an immediate response from your target audience, insight which can be easily and beneficially applied to your AdWords advertisements.

5. Email messages to customers. Any electronic messages you send to potential customers can be fine-tuned for greater effectiveness using split testing. Even if you don't send out a full newsletter, the tweaking of even autoresponder messages, and the subsequent monitoring for clickthroughs, can yield valuable information about how to attract a greater audience to your site.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Exclusive: Ways To Lower Costs And Optimize Google Adwords Campaign

Building Google Adwords campaign is a dynamic process that involves fine tuning and polishing to get an optimal result, however, most people would rather turn to experimenting until they find out it's too late, and their resources have already been drained.

Many well-known gurus in Google Adwords such as the author of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords Perry Marshall) believe that the way you manage your ad campaign has a huge bearing on your ad campaign's success rate. Specific techniques were shared by Marshall in relation to significantly building results for your campaign and recommended some essential tips to better refine it.

Applying the same techniques that experts and affiliate marketers follow doesnt have to be that expensive; the truth is, you can create your ads at a lower cost than what your competitors normally pay out for, through the following: identifying specific keyword segments, evaluating your results, and constantly replacing your ads. Reap more benefits and spend less in Google Adwords using these simple steps:

First: As much as possible, avoid aiming for top spot placement.The first or top spot in the Google 'Sponsored Searched' results is typically seen as the one producing the most conversions from visitors, but this is a fallacy because in reality, the second and third spots usually get the higher conversion rates. Choosing the 2nd or 3rd spot not only provides necessary exposure of your ad campaign to your market, it also is cost-savvy to do so. For example, it's more likely that a visitor looking for information goes through the entire list in the search and as thus gives the same focus to all the ads in it.

Second: your list must not contain any negative keywords. Hundreds of clicks can be generated by certain keywords or keyphrases, still, you have to be cautious since your ad's conversion rate depends on them. The presence of negative keyword in your ad campaign may affect the overall quality and quantity of your traffic, people may actually feel frustrated if they don't see the info they are searching for. This case may be addressed by replacing the keyword with synonyms or other related words; and this particular technique is essential in rapidly improving your CTR even after any minor alterations or modifications.

Last: avoid bidding on keywords that are too general. Aiming for a very targeted traffic towards your site does not necessarily mean it's fine to be wasting resources (such as time and money) by bidding on broad match keywords. Refer to the 'advertiser competition' results for those keywords; and if the bar is colored more than halfway, you may encounter difficulty bidding for a lesser price with the word. Instead, observe those that have low color indicator although this may require you to go through the list; remember, any keyword that is not highly competitive can also allow you to bid for a lower price. The 'exact match' feature of Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool can facilitate your search even better.

Your Google Adwords ad campaign's conversion rates can be enhanced in varied ways, at the same, ensuring you are dealing with your target market efficiently. Maximize your campaign with any of these strategies and start bidding on winning combination of keywords without spending too much.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Winning With Google Adwords - 5 Things You Need To Know

For those unfamiliar with the medium, creating and maintaining an Adwords campaign may seem a daunting task. In reality, however, the process doesn't have to be anxiety inducing. Those who aren not getting the results they need from traditional marketing tactics should not be afraid to venture into the realm of marketing online with Google Adwords.

Online marketing gurus like Perry Marshall have already laid the groundwork for meeting your marketing goals with Google Adwords, and achieving this success is much easier than you probably think. As a matter of fact, you can skip all the books and seminars you thought you'd have to spend days or even weeks reading and attending, and simply follow the step by step method described below.

Here are just five steps for creating a winning Google Adwords strategy:

1. Take advantage of keyword tools available online. Perry Marshall suggests that Adword users not look a gift horse in the mouth with regard to the myriad tools and applications available online to help marketers with keyword decisions. Keyword Universe from Wordtracker is one great tool that can help you find effective keywords and related words.

2. Watch your competition. If you're still unsure about how to approach the issue of keywords, don't underestimate the utility of simply looking to see what your competitors are bidding, and what they're willing to pay. How does one access this information, you ask? Well, on www.spyfu.com, you can do this and more. Use this information to guide your decisions in regard to what keywords and keyphrases to pursue and how much to spend.

3. Use text effectively. An Adwords ad contains only a very limited amount of text, and so it stands to reason that you will want to use the allotted space as efficiently as possible. The two key lines at your disposal should address the benefits of what you are selling first off, with remaining space listing or two important features.

4. Shoot for page one. Rather than cutting back on your bid prices, which may result in your ad not even appearing on page one of sponsored search results, it is better to reduce your budget, which will allow you to maintain a first-page position.

5. Employ the useful strategy of split testing. Split testing, a pet strategy of Adwords guru Perry Marshall, consists of simultaneously running two or more ads and comparing the results in order to more accurate gauge what strategies and phrasings effectively attract traffic, and which do not. By doing this, you can get relatively fast feedback, and perhaps even secure lower prices on useful keywords.

Getting started with Google Adwords is a simple process, but you need to begin with the right approach to get results immediately. Start things off with these five steps so you can start getting clicks and driving traffic to your blog, website or sales page with ease.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

5 Adwords Advertising Secrets Revealed

Using Google AdWords to generate hits for your site may initially feel like a roll of the dice, but in reality there are some strategies that work, and some that don't. Creating a good Internet marketing plan requires that you take lessons from those who came before you; if you neglect to do this, you'll simply end up wasting your time and money.

Perry Marshall and other successful individuals know from experience what it takes to attract customers to your website. With the five tips that I will explain in this article, you can feel assured that you are not entering into your online marketing efforts unprepared, but rather taking a path that has brought success to countless others.

#1: Playing Mindreader

Understanding a customer's needs and wants is an essential part of every marketing campaign, but when you only have two or three lines to capture a prospect's attention, you need a formula that works. Perry Marshall encourages advertisers to write copy that 'enters the conversation going on in the customer's head.' Essentially, this means learning enough about the prospect to determine the exact words and phrases they might use to explain their problem - and their ideal solution. Capturing this key phrase or sentence and wrapping it into the lines of the Google Adwords ad is one of the best ways to generate traffic.

#2: Pick a Relevant URL

Making sure the URL linked within the text ad is a valuable way to create a sense of relevancy for your customer. The URL you display should link directly to the landing page, free download or other offer you are advertising within the ad. This also helps with SEO, and is a proven method of attracting more attention than using only the URL to your website.

#3: Create More Than One Ad Campaign

Two marketing campaigns launched at the same time, with similar keywords and phrases will help to give you insight into what works and what doesn't. After you've learned which ad is most effective, you can go ahead and delete the poor performer.

#4: Be Creative with Keyphrases

When competitors are already buying highly competitive keywords, it's time to you're your keywords and key phrases to the next level; all you need to do is bid on longer phrases that turn out to be complete sentences or variations of the phrase. This can help you capture a larger market, without missing out on those valuable keywords; it can also help you brainstorm synonyms and alternatives for your keywords.

#5: Benefits First

Listing benefits then features is a tested and proven method that can help you attract high quality traffic almost immediately. Since you only have a couple of lines to work with, positioning keywords and phrases in just the right format is essential; make sure your benefits are listed first to grab the reader's attention, and then you can list a few features to close the deal - and get that click.

These time-tested tactics were developed by today's successful Internet marketers, so applying them to your project will help you avoid beginners' mistakes. With these five tips and a little experience, you should have no trouble crafting an advertisement that will net you a considerable increase in high-quality site traffic.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

How To Get A Better Clickthrough Rate With Google Adwords

Creating highly effective ads on Google Adwords is an ongoing process, and you'll probably spend weeks and months tweaking analyzing your strategy as you build your campaign. Still, you don't have to settle or a trial and error process every step of the way, especially when it comes to increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR). Internet marketing strategists such as Perry Marshall and countless others have already harnessed the power of Google Adwords by employing several strategies that generate results from the start.

Interested in how you can increase your clickthrough rates? Read on to learn about two proven strategies that, used properly, offer a foolproof path to Adwords success.

Doing Negative Keyword Research

Since Adword ads rely so heavily on the correct use of keywords, you will want to run frequent keyword reports. This can be done using various different software tools, many available online, and some even for free. Wordtracker, one such tool, offers a free keyword selector as well as a subscriptions. By creating a spreadsheet filled in with all the effective and relevant keywords, you can learn a great deal about how best to focus your ad campaign on potential customer. Also important, however, are negative keywords.

Negative keywords and key phrases are those that are related to your specific niche, product or service, but do not offer immediate value. After identifying what your ideal customer may be searching for, you'll be able to conjecture the specific key terms (positive keywords) they may use to find you. For example, if you are selling referral tracking software, you want to identify customers who are typing in key phrases such as 'buy referral tracking software', 'using referral tracking software', etc. Those who might type in 'free referral tracking software' do not fall under your target market radar, and need to be eliminated. You can employ this strategy with every niche and keyword list, paring it down until you have a very refined, highly targeted listing of keywords that apply only to your ideal customer.

Split Test to Create More Effective Adwords Ads

Split testing is commonly used in offline marketing strategies to test the market. For example, a company may send out two different direct mail pieces to select customers to gauge response rates, or they may create two different promotional offers to see which message or campaign is more effective than the other.

Just as in traditional marketing media, split testing proves a valuable ally for marketers developing a Google Adwords campaign. Once you've decided which keywords you should and should not employ in your attempts to reach the ideal audience, you can then turn your attention to the specifics of how these keywords are used, testing slightly different phrasings in Adword ads and seeing which are most effective.

Split testing with your Google Adwords campaign is one of the best ways to maximize your online marketing efforts and steadily increase your clickthrough rate. Perry Marshall, a Google Adwords educator and online marketing strategist explains that this is one of the most effective - if not the most effective way - to increase your clickthrough rate over a short period of time. By continually split testing ads against each other, you'll start to see a noticeable traffic increase and can eliminate the poor-performing ad early on in your testing phases.

Marketing with Google Ad Words is a powerful technique that most online-businesses can use to attract more customers. Creating quality Google Ads is one of the most important skills to have when using Ad Words - and there are several good training resources available online.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Strategies For Your Google Adwords Campaign's Optimization

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. Affiliate marketers and Adwords professionals already know how to tweak their Adwords campaigns so that they get results with each and every ad they publish; you don't have to have years of experience to turn your ad into a winning combination of keywords and copy, but you do need to understand the basic principles about optimizing your campaign.

According to Perry Marshall, the writer of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, your campaigns need to be monitored, tracked, and analyzed in order to find out what to change in it or when to do it. There are several important strategies to implement this. Many Adwords gurus have contributed tips and measures to developing effective campaigns that may help you get started with your own Adwords program.

So, how do you begin with it? First, come up with landing pages that are rich in content. This means that your pages provide your visitors or readers with the information they need after clicking your ad, have the right keywords and key phrases, and that it reflects what is specifically 'featured' in your campaign. With this in mind, you make it easier for Google Adwords to include your page in its search results. Moreover, it helps minimize the keywords cost-per-click.

Next, make sure to remove all the 'negative keywords' or those that invite unnecessary traffic to your site. You do not want to attract a different kind of market. To illustrate this, if your business involves selling of gardening tools and publications on gardening - naturally, you would not want to magnet people who want 'free tips on gardening' or 'events in gardening' since they are not the ones included in your site. With the help of Google Adwords Keywords Selector Tool, you can remove the words 'free' and 'events' to reach only your targeted market and generate the results you intended to achieve.

You can also start visiting and regularly checking the ads of your competitors. This can ensure that your ads do not look the same or else, you may encounter some traffic issues. A winning campaign entails constant monitoring and improving one's ad, according to the demands of the situation.

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. Monitoring your competition's ads regularly gives you another advantage; this strategy can help you drill down which keywords may be performing better than others.

Always put in mind that optimization and fine-tuning your Google Adwords campaign is an essential and active process. In your niche, your main concern is to achieve higher click through rates than most competitors do. Practice any of these strategies and ensure that your Google Adwords campaign is executing well to have your desired results.

Monday, February 9, 2009

7 Important Things You Should Know Before Starting Google Adwords

Google Adwords continues to be one of the most effective ways to generate high quality traffic to your website, but setting up a campaign can be intimidating if you are just getting started with online marketing. When you know how to set up your campaign correctly, you can focus on fine-tuning and refining your ads for a maximum return on investment.

Perry Marshall, author of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords offers several tips for beginners and novices who want to maximize profits using Google Adwords. Knowing exactly how to fine-tune your keyword lists, setting up test ads for each campaign, and learning as much about your target market as possible are the building blocks for success with your online marketing strategy.

Are you currently in the process of getting started with your first campaign? Then you must remember these seven significant techniques in the utilization of Google Adwords:

1. Define your location. Google Adwords makes it easy to target different search networks and geographic locations, so you will need to define exactly where you want your ads to run. Do you offer products and services at an international level, or just to a specific region of the country? Where is your target market? Narrow down where you want your traffic to come from and run your ads only in these areas.

2. Be budget-savvy. Since you are new in this business, might as well start with a small budget. Besides, Adwords does not require spending too much money and you are always free to modify your daily ad spending whenever there is a need to. For instance, your CTR gets higher then you can also increase your ad spending.

3. Make use of the appropriate URL. To monitor the progress and effectiveness of your ad, use a landing page or other destination URL aside from the one that directly links to your homepage. This approach also allows you to endorse easily any of your site's section.

4. Use action keywords in the body of your ad. Encourage ad viewers to take action immediately with words such as 'sign up now!' or 'contact us today!'. These can encourage click-throughs to your site and put the viewer in the mindset of taking action in a few short clicks.

5. Keep an eye on the competition. Keep track of your competitors by running simple Google searches on your own keywords and seeing which ads come up first in the search results. What are your competitors doing that you aren't? Have you missed other keyword or keyphrase opportunities? Take notes as you conduct each search so you can monitor your competitors regularly and implement similar strategies for your campaign.

6. Set up separate campaigns for each keyword. Avoid lumping all of your targeted keywords into one campaign so you can track exactly how each word is performing as you run the ads. Setting up separate campaigns helps you determine your return on investment instantly, so you can eliminate what may not be working with ease.

7. Be skillful in the use of Google analytics. Google Analytics translates what viewers are clicking or what they want from your site. Proficiency in its application backs you up in your market research.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Six Ways To Improve Conversions Using Google Adwords

Are you new in the pay-per-click advertising business? Do you know the best ways in reaching out to your intended market? If you are a beginner, chances are, these questions sound somewhat complicated. And even with the assumption that you understand your target's information needs, there is no guarantee that they will instantly take action on your product or service offered. But you can get high quality, first rate traffic to your website and increase your campaign's conversion rates with six effective ways that will be discussed here.

The proponent of Google Adwords, Perry Marshall, recommends making the most out of Google Adwords. This can be possible by using modern research methods in identifying keywords that have potentials to convert, testing numerous ads against each other, and developing succinct ads that appeal to the target market.

Improve your keywords conversion potential with these six important ways:

1. Use the 'dynamic keyword' feature to let Google write your headline. If you're not sure how to write your headline, or what keywords to use, select the 'Dynamic Keywords' feature when writing your add where Google will place the search term your visitor type din the search box as the headline. This ad may stand out to a reader who typed in that particular word or phrase, instantly making the ad more 'relevant' to them.

2. Only change one word when testing ads against each other. Perry Marshall encourages everyone to split test ads to track conversions and then pick the most effective ad after the trial period. However, the only way you'll really know what is working is by making very minor edits or modifications to your first ad. Try changing just one word in the headline or keyword in the body copy to find out what really 'clicks' with your viewers.

3. Avoid running your ads on the content network right away. This feature does not guarantee the immediate generation of your desired traffic for your ads. Hence, it is advisable to turn this feature off and instead take note of the basic search results pages.

4. Utilize the Geographic targeting feature. This makes it easier for you to link to your target market's location. Most prefer market at the micro level rather than national or international. That said, it is wiser to filter your Adwords reach if you want to effectively advertise your products or services.

5. Do not type 'www' in your URL link. Reserve those extra characters for the extension of your website. You don't have to use 'www' all the time for a couple of reasons: firstly, there will be more clickthroughs from the viewers because they fairly have an idea of what to read on your site, and secondly, it looks better visually. However, for you to close a sale, you have to ensure that the link goes to a valid landing page or sales page.

6. Write your ad using the headline style. Capitalize the first letters throughout the ad for readability purposes. As you may well know, the headline is among the most important parts of your ad since it is usually the first thing read by visitors. In the same way, you create visual appeal and render your ad more professional by using capital letters on the ad copy.