Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a huge market, especially for new companies that have not yet established themselves in the organic search engine rankings. The downside is that PPC can be quite an exhausting and overwhelming task when it is really broken down. For the most part you can enter your keywords and create ad variations, but there is so much more to PPC than just that.
In these tough times you want to make sure your bottom line is at optimal conditions, and PPC can assist in these goals. Specified will be some tips and tricks to help you increase conversions and reduce costs. In essence, you want to persuade the buyer that you have the highest quality item for the lowest price compared to the competition.
1. Research Competitors Ads
There is a wealth of free, valuable information out on the web waiting to be used. PPC ads are shown on most, if not all search engines and can give you some insight into how your competition is advertising and what ad text they are using. If you want to go deeper than this you can purchase tools that show you what your competitor’s keywords are, what they are bidding, their ad text, and much more. With this information you will have a good starting point for your PPC ads.
2. Explore Keyword Variations
It is imperative for any successful PPC campaign to search for keywords, look at competitor keywords, and use proper keyword matching. It is important to know what keyword matching is and understand the difference between broad, phrase, and exact keywords. Each has a different effect and using the wrong one can ruin your entire ad campaign. Broad match keywords allow your ad to show up on similar phrases and relevant variations. Phrase match keywords allow your ad to show up on searched that match the exact phrase exclusively. Exact match keywords means that your ad shows up for that exact phrase exclusively. Negative match keywords are used to prevent your ad from showing up on specific keywords.
3. Focus on Low Cost Keywords
Overpriced keywords can cause a leakage in your PPC marketing budget. If you sell a product or service with a low profit margin then you need to do everything in your power to avoid high cost keywords. You cannot afford to pay $1 per click when your profit margin is only $0.75. Some keywords can cost over $5 a click! You do not want to spend this much unless your profit margin is large enough and you know you can compete with the competition. For the rest of us internet advertisers we want to look for highly searched keywords that are not overly priced. This can be done by looking at the competition. Do a search for your keyword in your desired search engine and look at how many paid, or sponsored, listings appear. The fewer, the better off you are.
4. Avoid Hyper-Competitive Keywords
Keywords with a large search volume may be a viable keyword choice, but if the competition is too high it may not be the best choice, unless you have an extraordinary budget set in place. The greater the competition level for keywords, the more you will have to pay per click. There are tons, both free and paid that can show you a keywords competition level, monthly traffic, and cost per click. A reliable, free tool is Google’s keyword tool. It is an effective medium for discovering profitable keywords that have not been tapped into yet.
5. Make your Ads with Consumer Savings
People love to see words like sale, save discount, free, promo, buy 1 get 1 free, etc. when looking at paid search results. The more you use these words, the greater visibility your ad will have in the consumer’s eyes. The bigger the savings, the more likely you are to obtain a click through and ultimately a conversion. Make sure to include good values, low prices, and timely promotions in all your ad groups. This is especially if you have a product or service that is being marketed to highly price sensitive shoppers.
6. Be upfront with your Ads
I cannot stress this enough. This is the biggest mistake advertisers can make when placing participating in pay per click advertising. You do not want to lie, or fluff up your ads, in hopes of making more sales. This actually has the opposite effect, in which people will click through expecting what was outlined in the ad and come to see that it was false and misleading. This may get more clicks in organic rankings, but it will still result in an extraordinarily high bounce rate. They will leave the site in frustration that you mislead to them to your site, and you lost money for the cost of a click. Now image this happening on a daily basis for months at a time. How much wasted money can there be before someone steps in and says, “STOP, you are doing this in the complete wrong way!” You need to be upfront and honest to prevent excessive click from searchers expecting something else.
7. Make your Ad Groups Targeted to the Landing Page
To get the best quality score for your PPC ads you will want to make sure the keywords and the ad text relate to one another. You also want to make sure the landing page, where the searcher is taken when clicking on your link, is highly related to your keywords and ad text. This will get you the best results and ensure searchers do not get taken to the wrong page. Do not bunch all your campaigns together; rather separate them into appropriate categories. Then create pages on your website specifically designed for PPC users to land on. You should not send PPC ads to your home page, but rather have targeted landing pages specifically designed for each PPC campaign. These pages should have a call to action inducting the searcher to perform some sort of action that is beneficial to your business, whether it be a email address, or an actual sale. Your end goal is to have the user do something. This will reduce the bounce back rate and increase the chances of converting leads into sales.
8. Review and Analyze your Ads Performance Overtime
This seems obvious, but so many people do not take the time to sit down and really analyze each campaign to see what is succeeding and what is leaking money. Once this is discovered you will want to fix the problem ads and leave the successful ads be. This seems so obvious, but is not done often enough. I encourage reviewing your pay per click campaign once a day. If this is too much, then at least 2-3 times a week. This is your money and you do not want to see it wasted with no returns.
9. Refine your Ad groups to Focus on High Performers
After you have run your PPC campaigns for a few weeks you can analyze the results and see what the top performers and failures are. To make sure this is an accurate representation make sure to use many different ad variations and have them set to rotate evenly at first. This will give you an idea of what selling points are working and which are draining your funds. Look at cost per conversion and make sure this does not exceed your profit margin. If so stop the ad or make some major modifications to it. If an ad group has a low cost per conversion keep this running and let it rake in the money. Refining your ads should be done on a regular basis to avoid failing campaigns and focus more on successful campaigns.
10. Look at the Bottom line
Conversions are king for PPC, just like content is king for organic rankings. If you are doing all of the above and still are not converting sales then it may be time to take a step back and contact a professional to review your campaign and look for any flaws. If you do not have the budget to do this, then pause your ads and just focus on refining one at a time. This will ensure you do not use your entire budget and can spend more time figuring out why you are not succeeding. Once you figure out why one campaign is failing it is much easier to spot other trouble campaigns.
About the Author
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional search engine optimization and search engine marketing consultant with over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog.
Month: July 2009
Categories
How To Make More and Work Less
Have you ever wondered how any business leader can transform a business or corporate department into a super efficient machine – a machine that will provide the freedom and income everyone dreams of? You might want to find out more from Sam Carpenter, author of the new book, ‘Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less’.
Winner of the “Best Non-fiction Book of 2009” at the New York Book Festival. this book is based on hard-and-fast reality in real life situations and describe an achievable plan for making more minutes count and freeing up more time for the meaningful things in your life.
You’ll pick up many useful tips on how to envision, design and implement new plans in your business and personal life so that you can regain control and not be always at the mercy of external forces.
Through a partnership with GetEntrepreneurial.com, Sam is pleased to offer all our readers the entire book in PDF format for free. To obtain your free copy of ‘Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less’, simply visit the book website at http://www.workthesystem.com and visit the promotional box or email info@workthesystem.com. Use the promo code “getentrepreneurial” in the email subject line to get your free copy now!
Be sure to also check out Sam’s online social networks; you can follow Sam Carpenter on Twitter or join the Facebook group here for some thought-provoking discussions.
Article Contributed by by Roxanne Emmerich
If you’ve seen the movie Jerry Maguire, you’ll remember the scene where Tom Cruise asks Cuba Gooding, Jr., “What can I do for you?” Gooding says, “Show me the money.”
Many employers think that’s the key to employee engagement. But any company that THINKS you have to pour money on employees to get them engaged will write off employee engagement efforts during tough economic times. “We just can’t afford to do it right now,” they say.
In fact, you can’t afford NOT to pay attention to engagement, especially during a recession when sales are soft. Employee engagement scores regularly account for up to 50 percent of the variance in customer service scores. A disengaged employee can cost you 30 TIMES as much in safety-related incidents. And disengaged employees are over 85 percent more likely to leave.
Engagement comes not from dollars but from more personal factors.
Eight Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged for the Long Term
1. Listen to your employees. Most people want to work for an employer who cares enough to listen. The best way to know what your employees need and expect is to ask them—and to listen carefully to their answers.
2. Provide clear, consistent expectations. Vague policies and unclear expectations can make employees feel irritated, unsafe and even paranoid. This leads to your employees becoming disengaged. They click into survival mode instead of focusing on how to help the company succeed.
3. Give employees a sense of importance. This has a greater impact on loyalty and customer service than all other factors COMBINED.
4. Develop opportunities for advancement. The chance to work your way up the ladder is a tremendous incentive for productivity, bonding, and employee engagement.
5. Create good relationships with others in the workplace. If you have a toxic relationship with your employees, you can forget about asking them to put their shoulder to the wheel for the company.
6. Offer regular feedback. If you want to keep your employees moving forward, give them the occasional rudder report. And don’t forget positive feedback, which should ideally outnumber the negative by about 5 to 1.
7. Celebrate and reward for successes. Set realistic targets, then reward and celebrate when they are reached. And don’t wait for the end of a big project to celebrate. Pick landmarks along the way and go nuts when you hit them.
8. Move from “the company” to “our company.” The heart and soul of engagement is ownership. As long as your employees feel they are working to help YOU make YOUR company succeed, engagement will be low. Once you get them to see themselves as partners in the endeavor—making decisions, staying informed, sharing in the company’s ups and downs—everything changes. Engagement soars.
Just imagine a workplace in which employees feel important and listened to, in which expectations are clear and feedback consistent, in which relationships and shared ownership are cultivated, advancement is available, and success is celebrated.
Now stop imagining it and CREATE it!
About the Author
Roxanne Emmerich is renowned for her ability to transform “ho-hum” workplaces into massive results-oriented “bring-it-on” environments. To discover how you can create a 20/20 business vision, motivate employees, ignite their passion and catapult performance to new levels, check out her new book – Thank God It’s Monday. Now, you can get a free sneak preview at: http://www.thankgoditsmonday.com/preview_the_book/
Categories
How To Outmanoeuvre the Sharks
Article Contributed by Naz Daud
Should every small business owner have big ambitions?
Certainly almost anyone who enters into the world of the entrepreneur or starts up their own, whether based at home, the high street or the web, has dreams of becoming a future success. After all, every large high street store, every national or international chain and every top name on the web started out as a small, fairly obscure business once. However, how can any small businesses manage to succeed in a world that seems dominated by big brands, big names and colossal empires?
It can certainly frighten off many people who see the world of business like the ocean, with sharks round every coral reef, and danger lurking in the dark depths. Add to this the current economical climate with many seemingly secure names crumbling, and even entire nations finding themselves crippled, and many would be business owners may well consider that now is not the time to start up a new venture, or aim to develop an existing one.
However, this is a terribly defeatist attitude, and brings to the table so many assumptions and myths that those who believe them to be true may well never make it in business, whatever the climate and conditions, and whatever the competition. Let’s look at the truth, and see why these assertions are untrue, and why not only is the ocean not full of sharks, but the current economical climate makes it perfect for the small business entrepreneur to jump in and try the water for themselves.
To stretch out our metaphor just a little longer, so many people suggest that small businesses are almost doomed to failure because of the great sharks out there which dominate the waters of business. If this were true in the world of the sea, then there would be no fish and chips, no marine life, nothing except sharks. But if you swam the entire ocean you may very well never even come across one. The ocean is a big place, and the truth is that whilst sharks may be at the top of the chain, the ocean is still vast, the potential massive, and clearly there are ways to survive. The trick is, like the many fish that enjoy the waters, to stay alert, to keep your eyes open, to be able to adapt if necessary, and to manoeuvre more quickly and effectively.
How does this translate to the world of business then? Quite simply, small business owners have an advantage which the larger retail industries don’t have. Size may be good in some instances, but it can also be a handicap, and can reduce flexibility, manoeuvrability and adaptability. Small businesses can change, adapt and take advantage of current trends, new developments and niche markets in ways which the bigger businesses can’t.
An entrepreneur might see a possible niche market opening up as a result of search engine trends, a news story or forthcoming weather warnings, and instantly flood the market with content, links, pay per click adverts and search engine optimized content to take advantage of the possible market interest. Larger stores don’t always seem to have their online ear to the ground as it were in the same way, and can often find that reacting to changing markets may involve several boardroom meetings and management discussions before the action starts to happen.
Small businesses which can make full use of this adaptability and flexibility, reacting to developing opportunities as and when they happen can mean that they appear higher up the search engine results than many of the international corporations. However, what about the current economical situation? Surely the bigger businesses have a bigger buffer against such strains and pressures, making them dominate the market where smaller businesses may easily crumble?
Certainly, the world of finance isn’t being especially kind to many industries at the moment, but perhaps the aspect which has surprised most people is just how many of the leading brands, bigger companies and established businesses have begun to crumble. Many have gone into administration or left the playing field altogether, whilst others have sought rescue packages from the government. What of the pressures facing the small business then? Surely this isn’t any less significant?
Just as certain is the fact that the same pressures will be facing small business owners, but there are significant differences. The flexibility and adaptability comes into play again, with smaller businesses able to identify problems as well as opportunities that much quicker, steering out of the way of danger and moving into niche markets or promotion fields which may prove to be safer or more successful. Often the larger businesses only manage to stay competitive because of the huge financial risks and gambles which they take. That’s why many of the chief executives earn such vast sums of money – they are the ones whose heads roll if the decisions they make turn bad.
Starting up or developing a small business today means being perceptive enough to understand what markets work well at a time like this, and which don’t, what promotion strategies work well, and which don’t. Thinking from the point of view of the consumer can be easier for small business owners, and it is this which allows them to be more in touch with the emerging needs, markets and opportunities becoming available, leaving the international behemoths to plough forever onwards in an almost immovable path towards whatever lies ahead.
About the Author
By Naz Daud, the founder of the franchise City Local. This franchise opportunity is for people who would like to work from home and be their own boss.
Article Contributed by Roxanne Emmerich
At some point in his or her career, every politician gets tarred with a catch phrase–and usually not a flattering one.
George Bush, Sr. is stuck with two. There was “Read my lips, no new taxes,” of course. But only slightly less unfortunate was his dismissal of what he called, “The ‘vision thing.'”
He was trying at the time to shake the impression that he was a competent day-to-day manager but he lacked any grander vision of where he wanted to lead the country. His choice of words and tone of voice didn’t exactly help.
John F. Kennedy had a vision: “A man on the moon before the end of the decade.” And it inspired the seemingly impossible. We had about 15 percent of the needed know-how when he made that declaration.
Bill Gates had a vision that there would be a computer on every desk in America. And this was back when most people didn’t even know what a computer was!
Why vision matters
I once had a CEO look me straight in the eye and say he didn’t really “go for” visions. “I put my energy into training,” he said.
But training for what? I wondered. You do training without a vision, you’re all gas pedal and no windshield.
A study at the Sloan School of Management showed that leaders who create, communicate, and implement successful organizational visions were more successful in EVERY measure than those who did not.
Three elements of a truly GREAT vision
Powerful, effective, propelling visions all have three things in common:
1. Short, simple and strong. Shorter is stronger. Take a given sentence and ask which words are pulling their weight and which can take a hike. Change vague expressions like “high-quality” and “world-class” into specific, powerful language that reflects your values. Simpler is also better. Use words a fourth grader could understand.
2. Visual. A statement that doesn’t create a powerful visual image of the future isn’t a vision. It doesn’t give people anything to keep in their mind’s eye while they work. You need a landmark on the horizon or you’re driving blind.
3. Of service to others. Make sure your vision statement reflects an intense, focused drive to serve the needs of your customers, not just to “satisfy.”
The human spirit will not invest in mediocrity. That’s why a vision always starts with a bold and audacious idea. A vision statement is nothing less than an invitation for others to invest in your dreams and a promise to do the same in return. By following these simple rules, you can create the kind of vision that has been proven to power companies beyond what was ever thought possible.
Vision doesn’t stop at the top
Once you’ve got your vision defined–your clear, concise, powerful, visual, service-oriented vision–don’t put it in the drawer. Pour it all over your company. Let it seep into every nook and cranny of everything your company does. Put it on the lips and in the hearts of your workforce or it will never find its way into the wider world.
The turning point for a vision is when everyone sees it, gets it, and buys into participating to make it happen. And if you’ve built your vision around a bold and audacious idea, a ludicrous, unreasonable, captivating idea–like, oh, I don’t know, going to the moon–people will throw their hearts over the bar with you to make that unreasonable dream a reality.
About the Author
Roxanne Emmerich is renowned for her ability to transform “ho-hum” workplaces into massive results-oriented “bring-it-on” environments. To discover how you can create a 20/20 business vision, motivate employees, ignite their passion and catapult performance to new levels, check out her new book – Thank God It’s Monday. Now, you can get a free sneak preview at: http://www.thankgoditsmonday.com/preview_the_book/