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Adsense Optimization Tips To Help You Make More Money Online

12 2007 Wednesday

By Jitender Zaman in Google

Making money with adsense can be a very powerful way to earn income online. If you own a website that gets traffic then as long as you place the adsense in an optimal manner you can increase your online income almost instantly. Of course if you do not own a site yet then consider creating one and learning how to optimize it for the search engines.

The main objective with adsense is to have good click through rates which will maximize your income. The main key with increasing click through rates is to make sure your ads blend in as much as possible with your site content and also the correct placement of ads is important. The link color of the ads is important as if the links on your site are red then you will want the links in the ads to also be red.

Also make sure that the url color is either black or grey as this will make the headline more noticeable. You want visitors to notice the headline of your ads because they are usually well written by most adwords advertisers since their goal is to get more clicks.

It is also a good idea to place some ads above the fold on your site. Above the fold means the section on your site that is visible without scrolling down. Make sure to place ads towards the center of the page as this area gets noticed the most. So consider having article content to the right or left of the page with adsense units in the middle. This can be accomplished easily by making the ad units like the 336×280 or 250×250 wrap around the content.

By placing ads right in the main content of your site you increase the chances of your ads getting noticed and clicked on. It is also important to keep in mind that the niche you are in must have lots of adwords advertisers in order to draw relevant ads that also pay well. The more advertisers there are the higher the bidding will get so on average you will get paid more per click.

There are certain ad units that tend not to perform well. The banner format has a record of poor performance so try to avoid that if possible. Also make sure that your ads do not have borders otherwise your visitors may ignore them as they will obviously look like ads. Be sure to make use of the channels feature in your adsense account. This will allow you to track your ads and learn what is working well and what is not.

Also you can experiment with the new Youtube adsense units as they could be profitable. However this feature is new so it is only through testing that you will know whether or not it is worth adding to your site. Try to use smaller text size on your site that is similar to the text size of the adsense units as this will help to blend your ads in better with the rest of your site.

When you are adding ads directly in the content be sure to not squeeze your content excessively as this may turn off a lot of visitors and people will simply leave your site and never come back. One of the goals of your site should be to build repeat visitors as these visitors can make you great adsense income and also affiliate income if you choose to add affiliate products to your site. Get your site optimized for adsense and maximize your online income from this powerful program.

Author: Jitender Zaman is an online researcher, author and a regular contributor to a site that shows people how to make money online. Be sure to visit and also learn about affiliate marketing as way to increase your income.

Confused About Google’s Index, Link Dampening, & No. of Links?

12 2007 Wednesday

By Alexander de Albuquerque in Google

I recently received another ‘please help’ email from a gentleman named Ian who runs an adventure company in Tanzania. Ian was concerned about the effect of a variety of issues including indexing and link dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he had read some fairly misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up understanding of the factors at play. Because I suspect he’s not alone in his concern and confusion, I decided to publish the details of our discussion.

Ian’s email consisted of several questions. I’ve listed each separately below, followed by my response.

Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using “link:www.betheladventure.co.uk”, I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google’s dampening link filter. Is there a time delay before they are credited to a site? ”

A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a little confused. According to the dampening link filter theory, your links are found and recognized by Google, you just don’t get the full benefit from them until a given period of time has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn’t stop links from appearing in Google’s results when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn’t yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don’t worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it’s far from established / accepted fact. Many well regarded SEO experts don’t believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with the budget to generate the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to trigger it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that’s no problem.

And secondly, don’t believe everything Google tells you. By searching for “link:www.betheladventure.co.uk”, you generally only see a small percentage of actual links to your site. The best way to search for links is to search for just the URL “www.bethaladventure.co.uk” , then on the page that displays next, select “Find web pages that contain the term “www.bethaladventure.co.uk” “. When you do it this way, you’ll see all the pages that contain your URL. In most cases, the URL will be an active link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you’ll see that your site has about 169 links, not 23.

Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a record of pages that have been changed. I had 32, it went down to 28 and now this morning it is down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more to the indexed pages than I realized?

A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages on your website that Google ‘knows about’. Theoretically, the only time the age of a page comes into play is when the page is too young*, i.e. Google spiders haven’t visited it yet, or Google hasn’t updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it’s just a temporary shift. The number of results in Google’s searches varies pretty much constantly.

*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google is not capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be online (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed out of the index. (This is a very rough description of the theory - if it’s happening at all, it’s likely to be far more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Although I think it’s a long shot, a good way to deal with it is to maintain high quality content, to keep increasing it, to keep generating backlinks, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go to Googles site map.

I know there’s a lot of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you’ve found this exchange helpful.

Happy indexing!

Author: Alexander de Albuquerque, for car insurance articles please visit us here. If, you are looking for good used bmw cars then please visit us here. Submitted by: online article submission

Google Adwords Tips to Help You Make More Money with PPC Advertising

11 2007 Wednesday

By Jitender Zaman in Google

Pay per click advertising can be one of the best ways to drive traffic to your sites. Since the traffic is targeted there is also a good chance that it may convert into sales since the people are looking for what you are offering. The keywords that you use in your adwords account can have a big impact on the success of your adwords campaigns.

You need to make sure that you are using only the most targeted keywords in order to maximize your conversion rates. The google adwords system rewards accounts that are focused on creating high quality relevant ads so you need to focus on that. Create small ad groups that are focused on specific keywords. Add the keyword in the title if you can as this will help to improve the click through rates on your ads.

You can also check the quality score of a keyword in your adwords account by selecting it from the dropdown menu in the keywords section of your account. The landing page of your ads is also important. Make sure that it has enough content, it is okay to use a squeeze page as long you have described the product or service you are offering adequately on the page. Add some relevant keywords onto your landing pages as naturally as possible as this will help to improve the quality score of your ads.

Remember that if your account has a good quality score with Google then you will be charged less for clicks while ranking higher than the competition. Click through rate is important and you want it to be as high as possible. Having super targeted ad groups is one of the best ways to boost your click through rates.

Tracking the conversion rates of the keywords is very important because if you find that certain keywords are converting well then you will want to bid higher on those since they are making you money. Conversely you will find other keywords for which you may be paying a lot but it does not convert well at all so you will want to either reduce your bids or delete these keywords altogether. Google adwords offers a conversion tracking feature and all you need to do is add the code to certain pages of your site.

If you are an affiliate then you may want to consider asking your product merchant to install this code if possible. Many merchants will comply if you approach them the right way. Remember that the keyword on your ads is bolded in the search results so this helps to set your ad apart and attract clicks so make sure that your keyword is in the ad. Using simple ad headlines is often the best way to start, sometimes just using the keyword alone works best.

Using a simple headline such as ‘Looking for #keyword#’ can work very well since it is giving the visitor exactly what they want so they are very likely to click on it. The body of your ads should be benefits driven rather than product feature driven so make sure you are describing how the product you have can help the visitor. If you are an affiliate then you will need to create a landing page before you send people to the original sales page.

Consider a squeeze page because you will then be able to market to these same people in the future. A squeeze page is a simple single page that has the primary purpose of getting the visitor to fill out an opt in form to receive more information.

Most of your visitors will not buy the first time they visit your site so it is important to have a way to get back in touch with them several times in the future. An auto responder email newsletter series is a perfect way to do this so make sure you are also building a list while you are advertising your products and services on Google adwords.

Always watch your budget when it comes to advertising with adwords and do not get carried away and exceed it because adwords can get very expensive very quickly. Run test campaigns of around 100 clicks to determine whether or not you are profitable and make sure you are learning from each failed campaign by analyzing what could have gone wrong and how you can improve for the next campaign.

Author: Jitender is a webmaster and operates several websites. Learn about the top work at home online business opportunities and be sure to visit our site at http://www.homebusinessmoney.org

What’s New At Google Labs?

11 2007 Monday

By Jim Edwards in Google

The world’s most popular search engine just keeps chugging along - the little train that could (and did) make billions of dollars and dominate the Internet landscape.

Like a giant tree with a root system extending deep into the earth, Google seeks to expand and diversify far beyond mere online search.

In their quest, the little elves at Google never seem to sleep and toil endlessly to bring us new gadgets and gizmos intended to make our lives better, both online and offline.

These four latest free offerings from Google’s Labs http://Labs.Google.com - will help you do everything from organize your thoughts to find the local pizza restaurant’s phone number through your cell phone.

Google Code Search http://www.google.com/codesearch

This one should have the geeks salivating like Pavlov’s dog sniffing out a rump roast!

This new search tool at Google allows you to search for public source code, the lines and lines of code that make your nifty software programs actually function.

Instead of writing all the code themselves, programmers can find and grab huge chunks of code free for the taking.

This makes a great staring point not only for programmers who want a leg up on finishing projects, but also neat for would-be software entrepreneurs who want to surf for ideas.

Google Voice Local Search - http://labs.google.com/goog411/

Ok, I’ll admit to some skepticism when I saw that Google would help me find the number for the local barbershop just by talking into my phone.

But Google actually surprised me when I dialed 1-800-GOOG-411.

The phone asked me to say the city and state I wanted to search, and then asked me if I wanted to search by business name or business category.

Once I found the business I wanted, Google went ahead and dialed the number for me.

I found this service no worse than the automated search from the phone company, and Google offers this service FREE.

Well worth a call if you find yourself paying some hefty 411 fees to the phone company or your wireless provider.

Google Reader - http://reader.google.com/

The jury is still debating whether my dear sweet mother will ever subscribe to an RSS feed (the syndication feeds from blogs, news services, and more), so I’m not sure how universal RSS will ever get.

However, Google does offer a free RSS reader online that enables you to easily subscribe to blogs, news feeds, and any other RSS feeds you like.

The readers let you organize your feeds, update, and view them all in one place.

Not as powerful as some readers you pay for, but very functional and hey, you can’t beat free!

Google Notebook - http://www.google.com/notebook/

Google Notebook is the most recent graduate of the Google Labs.

This handy program allows you to organize your notes and clippings as you travel the web.

Instead of just bookmarking a site in your favorites and trying to remember why you liked it, with Google Notebook, you can highlight what you want and click the “clip” button.

You can then organize your notes however you want and then search through your note text at any time.

You can even share your notes with others.

Google Notebook is available through your web browser after you download and install special extensions to help you clip items you find on the Web.

Author: Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the creator of http://www.TheNetRe porter.com - a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred website that will teach you step-by-step and click-by-click how to really cash-in online. Discover what really works RIGHT NOW… plus the new twists on tried and true Internet Marketing techniques that create a profitable “real” business you can be proud of http://www.TheNetRe porter.com

Google’s Paid Search vs. Organic Results – A Rickety Wall of Separation

11 2007 Friday

By Scott Buresh in Google

The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?

“Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest…”
Investopedia.com

“While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results.”
Google’s Webmaster Help Center FAQ

“NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part.”
Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004

Perhaps one of the most helpful analytical tools you can use on your site. Google Analytics will give you a wealth of information about your site’s traffic. Where it comes from, how long it stays on your site, where it goes on your site, how well your content converts… invaluable information every webmaster should have in their possession. ( www.google.com/analytics )

You don’t hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as “Google Hits Chinese Wall” or even “Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China” were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?

What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders?

It has long been rumored that Google will offer technical assistance in achieving better organic search engine placement to those who spend more for paid search results. I know for certain that these rumors are true in at least two instances. In fact, I actually have the minutes from one of these technical assistance meetings after the company met with Google engineers. While the identity of these two companies is irrelevant, suffice to say that they are companies that you have almost certainly heard of and that they spend millions of dollars on paid search words each year.

To be fair, based on the meeting minutes I have, the advice that the engineers gave to the company does not include anything groundbreaking. It is mostly common sense advice that a good search engine optimization firm already knows about organic search engine placement and other issues, and much of it is already covered in the publicly-available Google Webmaster Guidelines. This, however, is beside the point. Google has obviously decided that it must offer perks to its big paid search spenders to keep them happy (or rather, happy enough to not pull their advertising). Clearly, one of these perks is access to Google engineers and the ability to glean information about organic search engine placement, a luxury that smaller advertisers do not enjoy.

Organic Search Engine Placement for Sale – The New Google Reality?

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense, of course. Big-dollar advertisers make up the bulk of Google’s revenue for paid search, and any intelligent business will take whatever steps they deem necessary to hold on to their most valuable customers. This is why larger advertisers already have a designated account representative from Google. I am willing to bet that this perk was not Google’s idea. Rather, it almost certainly stemmed from the sense of entitlement that those spending large sums on paid search felt and the fact that technical help with their organic search engine placement is what they demanded.

Unfortunately, this reality leaves an advertiser with a small budget for paid search at a disadvantage. If Google is willing to offer this secret perk to larger advertisers now, what might they do in the future? Offer price breaks to larger paid search spenders? Increase the minimum monthly spend to squeeze out smaller companies and please the larger ones? It certainly has the potential to become a slippery slope, and I am interested to see where it goes next.

One final point – since Google is willing to give advice about organic search engine placement to companies that spend a great deal of money on Google advertising, is the phrase “While Google never sells better ranking in our search results…” truly accurate? I suppose this is open for interpretation. It may be technically true, but offering advice regarding organic search engine placement straight from the horse’s mouth in exchange for millions of dollars in money for paid search results isn’t far from selling rankings, in my opinion.

Conclusion

Please don’t get me wrong – I still believe that Google is the best search engine out there, I greatly admire the way that they are continually reinventing themselves, and I think they are still the target for those seeking the most benefit from organic search engine placement. They have the folks in Redmond constantly guessing and always three steps behind, and I love how they have started from humble beginnings to take on one of the biggest corporations in the world (and consistently win). I simply believe that they have played the underdog, anti-corporate card for too long, and that even if it has not outlived its usefulness, it has outlived its truthfulness. Google is now a huge multinational corporation that answers to its shareholders. To pretend anything otherwise is silly, but it seems that, for now at least, the charade will continue.

Google’s overriding principle, one that they have been happy to espouse to the media, has long been “Don’t Be Evil.” Whether they still adhere to this principle since they have become a public company is another question that is open for interpretation. If you are a smaller advertiser and feel that Google’s favoritism toward larger paid search customers regarding organic search engine placement is evil, it probably seems as though the “Don’t Be Evil” principle no longer applies. You may conclude that the principles of “Don’t Be Evil” and “Keep Shareholders Happy” are mutually incompatible, and that the latter has gained the upper hand.

Author: Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Download Medium Blue’s latest exclusive whitepaper, “Adding Search to Your Marketing Mix,” for more insight.

How Google Took Over the Internet and Caused Mass Hysteria with PageRank

11 2007 Monday

By Gennady Lager in Google

So it finally happened! Google caught everyone that is buying and selling links and dropped their PageRank. The world is over and Google has taken over the internet. The time has come for all SEO’s to hang up their SEO shoes and move on to PPC, right? Or is it?

I have been trying my best to follow the myriad of hoopla going on on message forums and blogs in addition to follow the trends and patterns of sites that I follow in order to draw some educated conclusions on what actually happened and how it will effect websites and the SEO industry. I have composed a series of questions that average Joe Webmaster is asking right now.

What happened?

Good question! I’m glad I asked. Back in early summer (of 2007), Google, through Matt Cutts and other employees publicly declared war on paid links. Specifically, they announced that according to their guidelines, website owners or webmasters cannot sell PageRank for the purposes of improving the organic ranking of other sites. This irked many people on the web who proclaimed that they are advertising to monetize their sites and Google cannot tell them what to do. Conversely, Google requested that such “advertisers” either declare their outbound ad links as paid (sponsored, supported, what have you), edit them with a nofollow attribute, make them JavaScript, or some form of other means of not passing PageRank such as a redirect.

In the meantime, Google was busy promoting their “report paid links” feature and collecting data from Webmasters and SEO’s who have been busy ratting out their competitors (each other).

A few weeks back, new broke that Google has devalued many directories that accept payment for links but offer no real value. They proclaimed that directories with a true editorial review were untouched, while those that simply sell links to anyone and everyone have been devalued.

Last week, news broke that many high profile sites (forbes.com, washingtonpost.com, daily.stanford.edu, searchenginerountable.com, searchenginejournal.com, statscounter.com and many notable bloggers) have had their (toolbar) PageRank value reduced. Some lost 2 points, others lost more.

This week, many others have reported some PageRank fluctuations. Many lost PageRank while some gained, yet others stayed the same—and the panic began.

What did Google really do?

The following is my opinion of what Google did. Over the last few months, I have found Google to be dramatically editing its main ranking algorithm. Search results have been unsteady at best with 2, 3, 4 page shifts from day to day for no apparent reason. Changes like this can usually be attributed to datacenter variances, but I do not believe that was the case. The results were too similar across multiple IP’s.

In case you don’t know, the Google Toolbar PageRank value is only updated every so often. In fact, until this recent one in October, the last one was in May, 2007. That means that the visible PageRank can be one value while the actual PageRank that Google uses is usually different and one that is much more granular than a 0-10 scale. So all of these changes have happened a while ago (and no one was in a panic) but once the visible PageRank started to show, everyone freaked. Why?

Google claims to not perform manual index adjustments, but it has been pretty well documented that they do. I believe they manually “adjusted” some of the more prominent sellers by docking them some PageRank, and thus potentially lowering their income from paid links since so many people buy links according to PageRank. Additionally, I think they used a combination of some algorithmic magic, paid link reports, and manual checks from employing half of China to detect some of the sellers and dock them some PageRank. I do not think buyers were affected.

Additionally, I believe an algorithm tweak has occurred that has devalued and reduced the PageRank of sites that participate in extensive reciprocal linking. I have seen this firsthand on sites that I frequent observe.

So to get back to why you lost PageRank: because the total PageRank on the internet was reduced and this caused a rain down effect on the rest of the sites that those sites link to. Its sort of like 6 degrees of separation: every indexed site is somehow linked to every other site. So when many sites had their PageRank reduced due to selling links and reciprocal linking, this reduction of total PageRank effected every site they are linking to down the line. Less PageRank for them means less PageRank for you—simple as that.

I don’t buy or sell links. Why did I lose my PageRank?

This has been one of the major underlying facets I’ve seen all over the internet this week. Everyone that lost PR thinks they were wrongfully tagged as buying or selling links and there is mass panic. I can bet that Google was flooded with reinclusion requests this week. What is there to reinclude? People have been literally freaking out over the loss of a PageRank point. They come from far and wide asking how to fix it before their house gets repossessed.

What if I sell links—what will happen?

It really depends how you sell them. Is selling links evil? No, in my opinion, it is not evil. I believe it is a form of advertising. Google asks that you declare them as paid links or apply an attribute that will not allow the passing of PageRank. The question everyone wants to know is what will happen if they sell links yet do not declare them as paid? Its hard to say, but it seems that Google has decreased the PageRank of some of them. Also, some sites that do declare their links as paid have also lost PageRank.

What if I buy links—what will happen?

There is a good chance that if they are good links, your positions in search engines will improve! Will you be hurt in any way? Probably not, but I would avoid buying links from sellers that clearly state that their links are all sponsored. I would insure that the link buying is progressive and natural using a variety of natural-sounding anchor texts from a variety of sites over a progressive amount of time. Many notable people in the industry such as Rand Fishkin and Jim Boykin have blatantly proclaimed that they have bought links for their clients in front of a panel of Google Engineers at conferences.

How can Google detect paid links?

They won’t say, nor will they confirm that they can. They have simply said that they may take action against sites that they believe to be selling links. One way I believe it is possible to detect un-proclaimed paid links is to analyze the outbound link neighborhoods. If a blog site has 5 posts on its homepage that are linking to sites about credit counseling, herbal Viagra, online bingo games, SEO India, and mortgages, its pretty easy to tell that those are sponsored reviews. If I can tell by looking at a site for 5 seconds, I’m pretty sure Google has the technical prowess to do this algorithmically.

Does it really matter?

No. I don’t think it does one bit unless you are a major link seller and you base your mortgage payments on that little green bar. In which case, I think it may be a good time for you to develop a new business model because this particular one may be coming to an end.

I do not believe PageRank to be a big ranking factor at all. In fact, I believe its main purpose is public relations (get it, PR?) and being able to get a major industry reaction with such actions. I believe PageRank plays a roll in denoting the importance of a page in order to allocate crawling resources. So in my opinion, PageRank is only important if you sell links or have a huge site with the need to efficiently distribute PageRank across your 450,000 pages.

It has gotten to the point of an obsession. Words like “doomsday” have been thrown around. To add to the hysteria, PageRank fluctuations can occur depending on the datacenter the user has hit. So people reporting a drop from PR5 to PR4 have been frantically removing links and putting nofollow attributes on their paid links to come back in an hour, hit a different datacenter and report a PR5 again. This does nothing but perpetuate the rumor of Google being able to detect all paid links. What is essentially happening is Google is getting all of these Webmasters to admit to selling links by tagging them as nofollow!

I bet Matt Cutts and everyone else are sitting back and having a good old laugh over all this. I know I am. If you think about it, Google has used its influence over the industry through the use of PageRank to send people into fear, panic, and raise their hands in submission by revealing their paid links. I don’t think anyone can really substantiate a drop in rankings or traffic due to this update.

Author: Gennady helped develop and progress the SendTraffic Search Engine Optimization department and continues to lead the team with SEO, content development, web design, and customer service initiatives.

Google Adwords Top Tips - Part 5

11 2007 Thursday

By Dave McEvoy in Google

Welcome to part 5 of this 5 part series.

Google AdWords is one of the best advertising tools on the Internet, but only if you know how to implement Adwords properly to achieve maximum potential. So what exactly should you be doing to ensure that you get the best possible results from Adwords? We have put together the following tips to help you get those all important click throughs and conversion rates.

1. Keep the user experience in mind

As you design or redesign your landing page and website, make the user experience a high priority.

Place important information and images on the top left, where the eye naturally goes first.

Help people get what they want in three clicks or fewer.

Cut out pop-ups and pop-unders.

Create a simple process for users to complete transactions.

2. Check your account statistics

Your CTR, minimum bid and keyword status are good initial indicators of how well your ads are performing. Your account statistics are reported at the campaign, Ad Group and keyword or site levels. They include clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC or CPM, cost, average position, conversion rate and cost-per-conversion. Your most important statistic is cost per conversion. Never get carried away with clicks!

3. Avoid the ruthless pursuit of ‘main’ keywords

On Google especially, there is a lot of competition for high volume keywords. Thus, the price to compete for those keywords is very high. In many cases, you might drive volume with those keywords, but you won’t be driving profits because you will be bidding more per click than you are making per click.

4. Drive profit, not clicks (or revenue)

For me, PPC is all about driving profits. Revenues are nice, but if I’m not pulling out significantly more money than I’m putting in, then it’s not worth my trouble. In the quest to drive up sales volume it’s easy to spend way too much per sale until you are no longer profitable at all. Remember, profits first, volume second.

5. Optimize

We have given a large number of tips for setting up keywords, testing ads, landing pages etc. These tests are a complete waste of time unless you monitor them and act on the results. This is one of the most difficult areas of PPC. To do this properly you need to use statistical techniques, but you can make massive improvements using common sense and just scanning the numbers by eye. The following tips will help with this optimization.

6. Make an optimization diary

You need to document everything that you do and why. You need to set review dates and stick to them. Give your changes the chance to work.

7. Review bids

Following the first month (when you will be feeling your way into the market) review your bids once a week, at the same time. Monday morning is good because you will optimize based on a full week and then not pollute the next week’s figures with mixed bids. Don’t be tempted into doing this more frequently unless you are a professional and have access to advances statistics. You will get in a mess. Raise the bids on good performers and lower on bad performers. Remember that performance of a keyword is random behaviour. Some good keywords will have freakishly low weeks at times, and some bad keywords will get orders. Do not over-react!

8. Review Ads

Review your ads once a month. The first day of the month is good. Remove bad performing ads and replace them with elements of the good performers with changes. Discover what makes the good ads good. Note the changes in your optimization diary and write down your ideas. There is a lot to optimize and you will forget in 10 minutes, let alone 1 month.

9. Clean keywords

Clean the keywords daily in the first week, weekly for the next 3 weeks and monthly after that. Cleaning the keywords involves using advanced analytics and analysing the actual search traffic that comes in against the keyword. For example, you may buy the keyword ‘condom’ on a broad or phrase match. Analysis of the actual traffic may reveal that your ad is showing when people type ‘how to put on a condom’ or ‘condom pictures’. You need to spot these negatives and act on them. In all cases, note the changes you make in your optimization diary, and at the next optimization review, analyze the data from this date so you know that you are analyzing the figures at the new, optimized levels.

10. Is a PPC Agency for You?

Whilst some people can manage their own AdWords account and be very successful at it, complex campaigns often need an expert. There are many agencies to choose from but ensure that if this is a road you follow that you are armed with the right questions to make sure they are going to add value to your campaigns. Read our ‘Top 10 Tips For Dealing With PPC Agencies’.

By implementing all of our Google Adwords Top Tips you can achieve higher click through rates, more conversions and most importantly, increase your profit.

Author: Dave McEvoy is an Adwords expert with years of experience in ppc management. For more information please come and visit our site.

Google Adwords Top Tips - Part 4

10 2007 Wednesday

By Dave McEvoy in Google

Welcome to part 4 in this 5 part series of top google adwords tips.

1. Avoid ‘Casual Clickers’

Because clicks equal costs, it’s important to make them count. To that end, it’s just as important to discourage ‘casual traffic’ as it is to encourage proper customers. To do this, include text that stops people from clicking your ad at random, while simultaneously encouraging potential customers.

For example if you include a price in your ad, lookieloos may think it is too expensive for them in the first place and therefore not bother clicking the ad at all. Serious customers, on the other hand, are more likely to click on an ad with all the relevant info displayed.

2. Be cautious of content-based Ads (The Content Network)

Some people find that the quality of traffic that comes directly from a Google search, as apposed to from content-based ads, is far more likely to converting into a sale. This is something you want to keep an eye on for yourself, particularly in the early stages of your AdWords campaign. Our advice would be to NOT use the Content Network initially unless you know what you are doing.

3. Drop the WWW

That’s right, make sure you drop the WWW at the start of your display URL. This gives you more room for those all-important trigger words and keywords.
Example:
www.storefront.com/trial.asp - BAD
StoreFront.com/FreeTrial - GOOD

4. Understand the Google broad match

What’s broad matching? From the horse’s mouth: ‘If you include general keyword or keyword phrases - such as tennis shoes - in your keyword list, your ads will appear when users search for tennis and shoes, in any order, and possibly along with other terms.’

Google will often show your ads when people search for similar or related topics to the keyword in question using synonyms or much more general terms. It will also show your ad on totally irrelevant searches. You will still get clicks on these, but not very many.

A very low CTR is usually an indicator that your ads are being shown for unrelated searches to people that aren’t interested. It may still be a good keyword to bid for, but remember: bid appropriately!

5. Focus on your best keywords first

This is especially true when you have a small or limited budget. Often, it can mean dropping or reducing the general terms like ‘Stereos’ or ‘Sound Systems’ in favour of specific terms relevant to your site - these more specific terms often convert into sales better. For example, use ‘Sony XC 2000′ as opposed to the broader terms.

6. Optimise your landing page

People will leave instantly if they don’t perceive your site offers what they want ‘at a glance’. Furthermore, there are a myriad of techniques that can be followed to maximise your chances of a conversion by getting your landing page to act more like your Number 1 sales person. The landing page should effectively: sell your product, explain the benefits and make things clear in order to easily complete that conversion.
Keep checking back because we are putting together some easy to follow quick tips for landing pages.

7. Include keywords in your Ad Text

Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search. If your ad shows when a user searches on a keyword in your Ad Group, the keyword will appear in bold in your ad text. In addition, remember that users tend to search for products and services, so avoid using your company name in the ad title unless your goal is brand/company name recognition. To do this you need to split your keywords around tight themes and show a relevant ad for your top keywords.

8. Create simple, enticing Ads

What makes your product or service stand out from your competitors? Highlight these key differences in your ad, and be sure to describe any unique features or promotions you offer.

9. Use a strong call-to-action

Your ad should convey a call-to-action along with the benefits of your product or service. A call-to-action encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page. Some call-to-action phrases are: Buy, Sell, Order, Browse, Sign up and Get a Quote.

10. Make your website a fully-optimised conversion machine

Ultimately, your website determines how well your ads convert. Be sure it is designed to let users complete the action you want them to take.

Typical internet users decide quickly whether to stay on a website or move on to another. When users click on your ad, they should arrive on a landing page clearly displaying the information or product offered in your ad. If users do not immediately find what prompted them to click on your ad, they are more likely to leave your site without converting.

Check out the final tips for optimising Google Adwords in Google Adwords Top Tips Part 5

Author: Dave McEvoy is an Adwords expert with years of experience in ppc management. For more information please come and visit our site.

Google vs Webmasters and Google is Losing

10 2007 Tuesday

By Paul Easton in Google

The battle for top ranking the major search engines, is one that’s ongoing on a daily basis with a top Google ranking being the number one target.

There are whole business’ models build out of getting a top ranking in Google and to a smaller extent, the other major search engines.

You could say Google has unknowingly created billions in business turnover, from others trying to outwit them.

In the battle of getting rankings which has turned to the power of links, has launched full services around this concept. It’s not new just more obvious now especially due to the explosion of blogging.

Some of theses services buy and sell text links. In the same way Ebay does, it’s a matter of bringing together buyers and sellers. Now link pricing has been set in several ways: a single purchase cost using services like payperpost.com and reviewme.com blog post services, or a pay per month option which is used by other services such as text link brokers and many other providers.

Now most of the pricing is based on Page Rank of the pages the links are on. Recently Google updated its page rank and many sites took a major nosedive. Now we are talking about the dropping of a PR 10 down to a PR 6 which happened to a site called statcounter.com.

Statcounter.com is a free web based statistics program which allows you get good statistics on traffic for your website.

The best feature is being able to hide any display of its counter on your page. I recently found out that even if the counter display is hidden- it still creates focused text links back to its home page (that’s another whole story)

Now some quick research into statcounter.com after the PR drop- they still rank for over 500 different competitive 2 and 3 word keywords. So the PR drop would have no effect on traffic at all. They do sell text links and this has been suggested as a reason for the drop in page rank (to discourage this action)

The dropping of PR is most likely just an adjustment of its numbers- it’s happened before and will probably happen again- and quote a well known SEO company:

“My guess is that the toolbar PR penalty is just that — a lowering of visible PR in order to make a statement”

If sites keep rising in PR then it has no value. So it’s like a re-valuing of a dollar under inflation.

If you are not selling text links, it won’t really affect you. This fits together with Googles recent statements about the selling of text links as they do not approve if they are purchased for the sole purpose of influencing search results (which most if not all are).

Google has come out and said that no follow tags should be placed on these links and also asked for webmasters to report sites that are selling links. This tells me that they are getting desperate to stop “the purchase links for rank” sites.

So is buying links a good thing or not?. Well Google is against it, however if it’s done correctly and not abused like some have, it’s a win-win for blog owners and business owners.

Like most SEO it should not be the only method of getting links, however it could be used well by those with a reasonable budget and long term business plan. I don’t pass judgment on whether I agree or disagree or whether it is the right thing to do or not. The type of links and how to buy is a whole other article.

Author: Paul Easton is a self confessed online marketing nut- who helps from an “in the trenches, doing it” point of view. Search engines and linking for long term traffic a speciality. Working out of New Zealand, he focuses on Niche US markets. Get a Plan for free web Traffic here: http://www.SEOTrainingLive.com/

Google Adwords Top Tips - Part 3

10 2007 Tuesday

By Dave McEvoy in Google

Welcome to part 3 of this 5 part series on Google Adwords.Google AdWords is one of the best advertising tools on the Internet, but only if you know how to implement Adwords properly to achieve maximum potential. So here are the next ten tips to ensure that you get the best possible results from using Google Adwords.

1. Keep a close eye on your competitors

There shouldn’t be any need for this if you are running a highly organised AdWords account that is using statistics, facts and tracking rather than guessing! If you are doing all of this it is you they need to be worried about.

2. Do not duplicate your keywords in other Ad Groups

Google only shows one keyword per advertiser so there is absolutely no need to go and put the same keyword across all your ad groups.

3. Keep keywords relevant to your site to maximise profits

You can waste a lot of money by putting up keywords that are not particularly relevant to your site in the hope that it might get you a sale. For example, if someone is looking for the Toronto Blue Jays and your ad pops up saying ‘Toronto Blue Jays right here’ and your site is selling baseball equipment, it’s is as pointless as piles. It’s more than likely they’ll click off your site to try and find out whatever it was about the Blue Jays they were trying to find. Be relevant and the click throughs you receive will be more fruitful.

4. Take advantage of keyword matching options

With some keywords, you will get more ad impressions. With others, you will get fewer impressions, but potentially more clicks. By strategically using keyword matching options, you can reach the most appropriate prospects, potentially reduce your actual CPC or CPM, and increase your ROI. For example, use negative keywords to reduce irrelevant ad impressions and increase your quality score.

5. Don’t get emotionally attached to keywords

Judge every keyword on its conversions. If your boss says “we need to be number 1 for widgets” show him the data on the cost and return. Coming further down will make sure you are shown more regularly throughout the day for less; wider exposure at a cheaper price.

6. Download AdWords Editor to make mass changes quickly and easily

It really is as simple as that, visit: http://www.google.com/adwordseditor/ if you are following this guide then AdWords Editor is essential. Using it will change your life!

7. Install Google Analytics

It’s free and it can tell you a great deal about your site. This is particularly useful when it comes to finding out what people are doing when they get to your landing page(s).

8. Use capital letters wisely

Capitalize the first letter of each word of your ad. Also try to include words that people will love in your ad, or even in the URL, whenever possible. Try to use words like: Free, Special, Strong and Quality, and aim to capitalise them every time. I call these trigger words because they make people more likely to click your ad.

9. Use numbers in your Ad

An easy trick. Numbers like 10% off or from $19.99 catch the eye.

10. Use the dynamic keyword feature

This handy feature will allow you to get your keywords into the ad title. This has the great effect of making people more likely to click your ads! However, be sure to add some alternative text in case the search term exceeds the maximum headline length. Google allow for ads, or the ad will be shown without a heading. Not good! Instructions for use of this feature can be found by typing ‘keyword insertion’ into Google.

Watch out for more Google Adwords Top Tips Part 4

Author: Dave McEvoy is an Adwords expert with years of experience in ppc management. For more information please come and visit our site.

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