SEO Review

When you’re new to AdWords, it’s tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules.

1) Don’t Fly Blind…

In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we’ve haven’t ever seen a profitable example that didn’t track conversions.

AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Clíck-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it’s delivering. We’ve seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.

Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.

Finally, don’t forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.

2) Cut out the Middle Man…

In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it’s vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:

Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don’t exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you’ll get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.

Ad Serving: If you’re running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favouring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been receíved. We don’t use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.

We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there’s only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.

The Rotate option also gives you more granularity when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.

Network Options: Start your testing using Google’s Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google’s partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).

Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Don’t run on the Content network with the same bid as Search – you’re just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.

If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.

All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and clíck the Edit Settings button.

3) A Stitch in Time…

It’s important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.

You can adapt this schedule to suit your clíck volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You’ll learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Don’t forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.

4) Study your Competition First…

Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.

This is particularly important if you’re thinking of using Google’s Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.

5) All for One and One for All…

Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.

Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad’s headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.

Make sure core keywords follow-through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.

6) Simplicity Sells Harder…

Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.

Be honest and don’t use words like "free" unless you’re really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.

7) Understand what Matters…

According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.

AdWords’ power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they’re looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.

About The Author
Peter runs AdWords Magic, one of the UK’s leading AdWords training and campaign management providers.

Remember back when Al Gore allegedly said he "invented the Internet?" Well, he didn’t, it was Google. Alright, I’m kidding, but sometimes it does appear that way. Google has consistently launched one killer application after another, and they weren’t playing around when they entered into the pay-per-click arena with their "Adwords" program. Adwords is one of the largest online advertising networks, reaching more than 80% of all Internet users.

So how does it work? You choose keywords/phrases that are related to your products/services, write the text ads that will be shown when someone performs a search for your keywords, set a daily budget and the cost you want to pay every time someone clicks on your ad (C.P.C), and you’re ready to run. There is no activatíon fee and no minimum monthly spend amount.

Ads are called "sponsored links", and appear along with search results on Google, as well as other affiliated search engines and "content sites" in the Google Network. This type of keyword based advertising will help you to reach a highly targeted audience quickly and easily.

Not only can you run text ads, but also image/animated ads – even video. If you’re a beginner at pay-per-click marketing, I would suggest you start out with text ads. You’ll need to "learn to walk" before you run.

So what does a text ad look like? It consists of a 25 character headline, a description that is 2 lines of no more than 35 characters, and what’s called a "display url". This url can reflect any domain you like because when it is clicked upon, the browser will take them to your "destination url". This is set up behind the scenes and does not appear in the ad itself.

A 3 line text ad might sound like a lot of room, but it’s not. You’ve got a small area to make a huge impact on the searcher and make them want to click. Don’t underestimate the power of a well written ad. If you don’t know a lot about how to write "good copy", I suggest you study up. You’ll want to include what’s referred to as a "call to action" somewhere in the description. You’ll also want to include your keywords if possible in your title and ad copy so they will appear in a bold font when your ad is displayed. For help see:

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/text/18779.html

You also need to send them to the page that’s most relevant to your ad copy. This page is called a "landing page", and you’ll want to make sure it converts. A conversion happens when the visitor performs the action you intended. For example, signs up for your newsletter, buys your product, etc. With Adwords conversion tracking you’ll be given a snippet of code to paste on your web page wherever any conversion takes place. For example, your thank you page. This allows you to track how well your pages are converting. You can also use Google Analytics. For more see:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Now that landing page load time is being factored into "quality score", you’ll also want to pay attention to your page’s load time. Quicker is better. For more information on this topic see….

Google AdWords Help Center

Now, let’s talk about keywords. The biggest mistake most people make is choosing single keywords. You’re much better off with two and three word combinations. For example if you sell dog food, instead of targeting a generic term like "dogs", you’d be better off selecting "dog food". Remember, these keywords will be responsible for triggering your ads to appear, so do your homework and choose wisely. Targeting the wrong keywords can be a very expensive lesson. For help in choosing keywords use Google’s tool located at-

Google Keyword Tool

When setting up your keywords, you’ll also need to choose what’s called a "match type". Here are your options:

1) Broad Match: The default setting. Searchers can enter your keywords in any order and your ads appear. Not the best option for targeted traffíc.

2) Phrase Match: Your keywords must appear in the exact order for your ads to appear. This is more targeted than Broad Match.

3) Exact Match: This is the most targeted option. The searcher must type in your key-phrase exactly for your ads to appear.

4) Negative Match: You choose words you don’t want your ads to appear for when searched upon. For example, typing in the word "-free" would stop your ads from appearing if someone typed that word before your key-phrase.

So who decides which ads will appear at the top? This is called "ad rank". Ads with the highest ad rank will appear at the top. Here’s the formula, at least at this time as it’s always open to change.

Ad Rank = C.P.C. (cost per click) X Quality Score

To understand this formula you’ll need to know what factors go into "quality score".

Quality Score is determined by :
1) How relevant the keywords and ad copy are to the search query.

2) "The historical Click-through rate of the ad, and of the matched keyword on Google".

3) It also includes your account history, which looks at the click through rate of your keywords and ads.

4) Landing page load time. And, according to Google "other relevant factors".
One tip to improve your ad rank is to raise your cost per click, and improve your ad copy and keywords in order to up your quality score.

Ad ranking is determined slightly differently for the search network compared to the content network. For the content network it looks like this:

Ad Rank = Content Bid X Quality Score

What is the difference between the Content Network and Search Network? Good question. I thought you’d never ask. This is another option you’ll have to decide upon when setting up your account. If you choose "search sites", your ads are displayed on search results pages only. Google’s search network consists of: AOL, Netscape, Earthlink, Compuserve, AT&T, Worldnet, Ask.com, Shopping.com, Froogle and of course Google itself.

If you choose for your ads to appear in the "content network", this includes community websites, online publications and other information based sites that choose to display Adwords ads. Partners in the content network include sites such as: Google’s Gmail, About, Lycos, NYTimes.com, Infospace, Reed Business, HowStuffWorks, Business.com, Food Network, HGTV, MarthaStewart.com and many other content based websites.

Ads are targeted to the content of the individual pages. You’ll also have some control over where your ads appear and don’t appear with what’s called "placement targeting". You can actually pick and choose from websites you’d like your ads to appear on, or not to appear on. You can opt ín to both search and content networks, or just one.

At this point you’re probably thinking this is a lot to learn. And you’re right – it is, but there are plenty of online resources to help you such as:

Adwords Help Center

Adwords blog

Google is a powerful Internet giant and makes for a mighty advertising partner. Make sure you harness some of that muscle, and you too can become an Internet force to be reckoned with.

About The Author
Article by Merle. "The Tricks to Paying for Clicks". Learn everything you need to know about pay-per-click search engines at…. PayPerClickResearch.com.

Ever heard of the 90/10 pay per cliíck rule? Basically it says that 90% of PPC success is enjoyed by only the top 10% of advertisers who know the inside methods to getting the most from their PPC campaign. And oddly enough, it’s basically true. Especially when it comes to Google’s AdWords, which offers the most advanced methods to help advertisers get their money’s worth (and then some!)
Some people use PPC as their primary source of search engine marketing while others use it as a way to get steady supplemental targeted traffíc. As an SEO professional I’ve developed PPC campaigns for my clients so they get targeted traffíc while the organic optimization is ramping up, which often takes weeks or months. Whatever the reason, PPC is a good way for any online business owner to get targeted traffíc and a great way for those who know how to use the system to their advantage. And that’s exactly what this article will do for you.

But before we dive in, just why is AdWords so valuable? There are plenty of reasons but for starters…

1.) AdWords listings are seen by more than 80% of all Internet users on millions of sites ranging from Google and AOL to very specific niche locations it would otherwise take forever to research and manage independent advertising accounts with.
2.) Your ads can be targeted specifically by region or language.
3.) Ads that you can constantly update and test are a great way to test what keywords are really best for targeting in your organic SEO efforts, which can be very time consuming and expensive.

Step 1: Get an AdWords Account

If you don’t already have an AdWords account, it’s easy enough to sign up for at http://adwords.google.com. Once you have your account you can begin creating ads and finding the best keywords. Actually, you can use Google’s free AdWords keyword research tool even without an account by visiting:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Step 2: Develop a Killer Ad

Here are the things to know about ad development broken out by Title and Body…

Ad Title:

1.) Use targeted keywords NOT your company name

2.) Mention a benefit, rather than a feature.

3.) Take advantage of the "Dynamic Titles" feature by entering the following code in your title "{KeyWord: Your Keyword}" (without quotes.) This allows you to use the same ad body text with a dynamically generated title that matches exactly what the searcher is looking for and makes your ad the most relevant it can be. By the way, this is case sensitive; "{KeyWord: Your Keyword}" will make the first letter of each word capitalized while "{keykord: your keyword}" will make it all lower case.

Ad Body:

The body or text of your ad need only do two things; hook ‘em and then reel ‘em in. The hook is something that peaks their interest such as "íncrease your profíts with XYZ software." While reeling them in involves what traditional marketers refer to as a "call to action." This might be "Download your Free 30 day Tríal now."

Note: Do not over capitalize your ad. At best just capitalize the words you feel are most important to the viewer. It’s OK to capitalize the first letter of each word in the title but not the body.

Step 3: Maximize URL Usage

While we’re on the subject of what the searcher sees in your ad, we need to consider the URL. Google will let you make the visible URL different than the actual URL leading to the landing page where the visitor will end up after clicking your ad. This is huge! Take advantage of it.
This feature will let you test multiple landing pages in your ads to see what pages are converting sales best while showing the visitor the "display" URL for your product. Let’s say the landing page being tested in this particular ad is "…com/XYZ/purchase3.htm." When that ad gets clicked you will soon see if "/purchase3.htm" is converting better than "/purchase1.htm." But here’s the magic… By using a display URL of "…com/XYZ/" , and actually having the product there as well, you are building your brand and providing a visual queue for users to manually type in the URL if for some reason your landing page is unavailable.

Step 4: Use Special Keyword Advantages

Obviously keywords are a very big factor in the success of your campaign. Choosing the best keywords is extremely important and using Google’s "Keyword Matching Options" can help take your great keywords one step further. Just clíck the "Advanced option: match types" link when setting up your ads and choose from the following…

1.) Broad Match: Is the default and will show your ad each time all of the keywords in your keyword phrase are entered.
2.) Phrase Match: Looks for the order of words in your keyword phrase and only shows your ad if the order matches. Your ad will still show if your phrase is any part of the search query, but only if the word order is the same.
3.) Exact Match: This is the most stringent and will only present your ad if your exact keyword phrase, and ONLY your exact keyword phrase, is used.
4.) Negative Match: This is a nice feature that will stop your ad from showing if a word appears in the search query that you don’t want to get clicks for. The most common example is "free" which would eliminate you paying for clicks from people who just want a free version of what you offer.

Step 5: Find and Use the Best Keywords

Now for the most important aspect of your PPC campaign; keyword selection. The more targeted keywords you can find, the better. Google offers a great free keyword tool as we discussed early on. Here are the qualities to look for in your keywords:

1.) A good "Average Search Volume" rating (check out the blue bars)

2.) A high search volume for the previous month (especially true for seasonal topics)

3.) The lowest possible "Advertiser Competition" rating

4.) Look for common misspellings and use the "exact match" feature to get plenty of low cost targeted traffíc.

5.) Scroll down the page and find hidden gems that others miss. There are a lot for those who look carefully enough.

Insider Tip: You can also collect hundreds of low volume keywords, put them in a spreadsheet for easy upload and use the "Dynamic Title" feature we discussed earlier to generate hundreds of low cost highly targetëd leads.

Professional Tip: SEO professionals typically use specialized keyword selection and SpySoftware because it does weeks worth of work in a matter of hours. Keyword Elite for example, can generate thousands of valuable keywords in minutes and does "ethical spying" that exposes the competition and makes placement takeover easy.
That’s all you need to know to join the top 10% of PPC advertisers getting the most out of their campaigns with minimal effort. Best of luck!

About The Author
Scott Jason has been an SEO professional since 1999 and is the founder of BestSEOcopywriting. He has developed and managed PPC campaigns for both small companies and corporate giants alike.

Use Your Paid Search for Optimization Hints

Google, MSN and Yahoo are all in the advertising business. Make no mistake. They generate BILLIONS in annual profíts from the sale of advertising on their search engines. The pay-per-click marketplace is huge and growing almost daily.
Each month companies large and small use pay-per-click advertising to generate traffíc to their site. All those little clicks add up to be huge revenue for the search engines and can be a huge line item on a company’s Profit and Loss Statement.

Therefore, it certainly makes sense to get the most out of the information gained from all those clicks that you have to pay for. I am not just talking about the targeted traffíc that they bring to your site. I am also talking about the valuable data you gain with every click.

Using Analytics and Reporting to Your Advantage

Each of the three major pay-per-click companies mentioned above have very good reporting tools included with your account. Therefore, you are going to know the most popular keywords that are being searched for by your visitors. This information is vital to your search engine optimization plans.

Also, your site analytics program should also keep track of the keywords being used to find your site. We use Google Analytics for all of our sites. This program is very detailed with regard to the keywords being used to find our site, both for organic and paid search.

From these reports we are able to clearly see which keyword phrases are the most popular and where we need to pay close attention to our optimization efforts.

Don’t forget to look for combination of keywords phrases. What we are looking for here are groups of similar keywords that we can then use to create an optimization plan to move your site higher in the organic search results for these most popular keyword phrases that you are currently paying for.

Create Your Site Optimization Plan

You should not want to use pay-per-click advertising for keyword search phrases that you can rank highly for through organic search results. It just makes more sense to use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for start-up websites and, once your site is established, to move your PPC keyword search phrases to phrases where you don’t yet rank well. Certainly, you do not want to continue to use PPC money to attract visitors that could otherwise be drawn to your site through proper site optimization.

Create your site optimization plan starting with the most popular keyword phrases that you are currently paying for. I take the most popular phrase and then work my way down the líst. Once you have your líst you want to then create your landing page.

Use Landing Pages to Optimize Your Website

Landing pages are a simple and easy way to optimize a site for a specific keyword phrase. Landing pages can be a single page, or a series of pages that help create the image of your site as an authority on the keyword phrase.
Let’s say that you are going to create a landing page to optimize the keyword phrase "Mickey Mouse watches". You would start with the page title to make sure that the very first part of the title contains "Mickey Mouse Watches". The description and keyword tags should also contain your phrase.

You should use h1 tags as the first part of your content and this tag should contain your keyword phrase. In this case a suggestion might be, "Mickey Mouse Watches for all Ages".

The content that follows should contain a good number of mentions of the keyword phrase, but resist the temptation to load the page with too many references. Don’t let this confuse you. A good way to tell if you have too many uses of your keyword phrase is to read the content. If it sounds good to read, then you are probably good with the number of times the keyword is used. If you want to be more precise, there are software packages available that will count the number of times a keyword phrase is used and calculate a ratio like a search engine would.

More Content Options to Optimize Your Landing Page

One of the best tools that I have found to add quality content to my landing pages are article directories. There are any number of good article directories on the Internet. Use your favorite search engine to locate several to utilize for content.

Once you have located an article directory you then use their search tool to locate articles that relate to your keyword phrase. Read the articles that are returned in your search and pick 3 or 4 good articles to help build your landing page.

I use the technique of using the title, author link and the first couple of paragraphs of the article to fill the body of my landing page. I then create a totally separate page with the entire article along with the required links to the author’s bio and possibly their site. Below each article introductory section I place a link to the entire article page.

Repeating this technique 3 or 4 times allows me to have some very high quality content that is filled with the keyword phrase that I am optimizing for on my landing page. The links to the entire article allow me then to have multiple pages on our site that focus attention on my keyword phrase.
If I have 4 articles that are introduced on my landing page, I then have a total of 5 pages on my site that all discuss in detail the single keyword phrase that I am optimizing. I am on my way to having my site become an "authority" on my keyword phrase.

Keep Your Landing Page Content Fresh

Once you have built your landing page you still must keep it fresh with new content. A stagnant page is very bad and not looked upon favorably by a search engine. You need to keep the content fresh by adding to it on a regular basis. In most cases monthly updates will be enough but, if you can find a quality RSS feed for your keyword phrase, be sure to use this valuable tool to keep fresh content.

Expanding This Concept

Now take the next keyword phrase in your reporting and create similar landing pages for it. As you move through your PPC reports you will soon find that your organic search results will climb to a point where you can either reduce your PPC budget or better yet, move your PPC dollars to other search phrases that you want to íncrease.
This combination of optimized landing pages and pay-per-click links will drive tremendous amounts of targeted traffíc to your site. And isn’t this what every website owner wants?

About The Author
Nathan Lewis is the Marketing Director for CJ Gift Baskets and uses landing pages to raise organic search results. Mr. Lewis also uses this technique at CJ Picnic Baskets and CJ Outdoor World.