The following quote is another classic I get all the time from people with existing websites. This client has a pretty nice website, and he is really puzzled why on earth is there no traffic!?
“I have a site with a beautiful web design but the site doesn’t seem to be bringing in any business. I don’t understand what could have gone wrong. I hired the best website design I could find. The company had dozens of designers and the designs in the company’s portfolio were absolutely stunning. So is mine, as a matter of fact. But I only get a few visitors a month. The amount of business I’ve gotten from the website is almost nil. I feel like I’ve been cheated after spending so much. What has gone wrong?”
Well the answer is always going to be the same: If you are not in the top 5, the website is nothing else but an expensive business card! End of story! (google this term and see for yourself: “google golden triangle”)
So, now you have 2 choices:
a) pay for the clients (PPC) using Google adwords and do nothing but buy “air time”. Once your budget runs out you are gone and you have not invested this money in your website overall value in “juice” (will explain later)
b) invest every penny in SEO to get ranking in the top 5 and even if you stop SEO one day your website will have a google pagerank and many backlinks, meaning it will have a value and worth something on website auctions even.
Adwords or indeed any PPC (pay per click) may look easy to do. It’s supposed to look that way otherwise no-one would try it I guess.
But just ask anyone who has actually used it and they’ll tell you there are many minefields for the unwary- and the price you pay is a blown out advertising budget. And poor returns.
So no it’s not just a walk in the park.
The missing step for most is education. We often don’t have time or patience or the background know-how to learn all that needs to be known. And we cant afford to employ a full time web marketing expert to help us. So we try to “wing it”
Now I won’t put myself in the league of the real experts like Perry Marshall (few can do that!) but here’s a few simple tips to keep you out of trouble (mostly). Things I have discovered for myself or had pointed out to me !
Adwords or indeed any PPC (pay per click) may look easy to do. It’s supposed to look that way otherwise no-one would try it I guess. But just ask anyone who has actually used it and they’ll tell you there are many minefields for the unwary- and the price you pay is a blown out advertising budget. And poor returns.
So no it’s not just a walk in the park.
The missing step for most is education.
We often don’t have time or patience or the background know-how to learn all that needs to be known. And we cant afford to employ a full time web marketing expert to help us. So we try to “wing it”
Now I won’t put myself in the league of the real experts like Perry Marshall (few can do that!) but here’s a few simple tips to keep you out of trouble (mostly). Things I have discovered for myself or had pointed out to me !
1. The product of a good adword listing is a qualified people clicking through
Forget bigger is better. Give me 100 qualified interested click throughs any day over 500 “browsers” Even if the per click cost is more.
Why?
Because I can convert the interest of those 100 people into an action or a sale more easily.
It’s all about ROI – return on investment
Not just number of click throughs
2. Use the ad to create an interest – and feed it.
Say enough to grab the attention of the people who will benefit from your product or service. Dont be vague – tell them why this is the solution they have been looking for.
But you only have a small amount of space so use the ad to direct them to somewhere that will sell them.
This means create a landing page. A page that takes the message or promise that motivated them to click on that ad in the first place. And expands it. It feeds their interest.
Simply directing the click throughs to your home page is a massive waste of time in most cases – It’s just too general and although the info is on your site somewhere (isn’t it?) – who can be bothered looking.
The other good thing about this is a good landing page is rewarded by google with a lower cost-per-click!
Nice
3. Tell them how to take action.
It’s not an esoteric TV ad your running here. If you don’t tell them what to do they probably won’t know. And they certainly won’t do it. So tell them – they need to inquire now (and tell them why) or buy now or whatever.
4. Measure your performance
The Adwords Console has many tools to help you measure how well an ad works. How well it converts and so on. USE THEM.
5. AT THE END OF THE DAY YOU NEED TO BE EDUCATED
Sorry but there’s no substitute for knowing the subject. So if you want the best results you’ll have to knuckle down and learn it
… or give it to someone who you know can do it. Even that requires some knowledge on your behalf.
6. What to do now
I’ve said this in prior posts – I’ll say it again. Go here and sign up for teh free course 17 FREE AdWords Cheat Sheets, Videos, and MP3s – it will give you enough of a grounding to know what yu want to do ie DIY it or outsouce it
And if you do want to outsource it I can help you there. Contact me.
Here are six top tactic to maximising your adwords budget by mininising the cost per click and increasing the click through ratio.
In other words making the ad work better for less cost.
Top six tips for cheaper more effective adwords
Here are six top tactic to maximising your adwords budget by mininising the cost per click and increasing the click through ratio.
In other words making the ad work better for less cost.
These tips are good. Very good. And they come not from me but from a highly respected expert – google themselves. Yes these following tips come from the google adwords site
If you want to see it it’s here or you can just read on:>
The reason I reproduce it here is it is so good!! ( I think I mentioned that already) and not everyone seems to be aware of the wealth of help and tips google offers it’s users for free.
So let’s see what google recommends…
1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.
Consumers care about prices more than ever, especially on day-to-day purchases. When someone searches on a particular product, you know they’re interested; by using your ad to tell them that you’ve got the highest quality and the best price, you’re more likely to earn their click. Update your ad text to focus on low prices, good values, and timely promotions.
To draw the attention of price-conscious shoppers, these ads use savings-related terms.
2. Use value-related keywords.
It’s open season for bargain hunters. To reach these deal-conscious consumers, add appropriate price- and discount-related keywords. Try the AdWords Search-based Keyword Tool and Search Query Performance report to find and higher-performing keywords that people are actually searching on.
To attract more customers, value-related keywords have been added to the keyword list on the right.
3. Make sure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
Ads perform best when their ad text reflects the ad group’s keywords; this makes ads more relevant to their intended audience. Make sure that both the text and the keywords in each ad group focus on a specific topic or product. For instance, an ad group about “tennis sneakers” will generally perform better than a broader ad group about “sneakers.”
Splitting up the general ad group on the left into two, more specific ad groups will likely enhance its performance.
4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.
The wrong keywords can attract people who are looking for products you don’t offer. Use negative keywords to filter out traffic that’s not related to your offering. The Search Query Performance report can help you identify potential negative keywords by showing which queries have triggered your ads.
A search for “peanut butter allergy” isn’t relevant to the sale of peanut butter, so allergy should be added as a negative keyword.
5. Make it easy for customers to buy.
Since people are spending more time comparing products and services online, make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for and buy from your site. Use the best Destination URL to send visitors directly to the page about the product or service promoted in your ad.
To be most effective, the Destination URL for this ad sends visitors to the page where Model XYZ123 camera can be found for $279.
6. Focus your money on your high-performers.
To get the most out of your campaigns, focus your time and resources on the keywords, ads, and ad groups that are driving the most value for your spend. To determine what’s performing best for you, consider Google’s free Conversion Tracking tool.
The overall budget of $100 was split evenly between the two campaigns. Google’s conversion tracking tool showed that the Used Books campaign was converting at a higher rate, so budget was shifted towards that campaign, increasing the overall conversion rate in the account.
Pay per click is undoubtedly THE advertising breakthrough of the 21st century. For the first time in history, you only show your ad to people already interested in what you’ve got to offer, … and you only pay when they visit your “store”
* 17 FREE AdWords Cheat Sheets, Videos, and MP3s
Hello again… just a quick addition to my previous post…
Pay per click is undoubtedly THE advertising breakthrough of the 21st century. For the first time in history, you only show your ad to people already interested in what you’ve got to offer, … and you only pay when they visit your “store”
But because the search engines charge advertisers less money for truly relevant ads which get plenty of clicks (and add a penalty to all the others), … it’s also the first time in history that managing a single ad campaign has become a full time job!
You see, increasing competition, costs, and quality requirements imposed by the search engines make it VERY difficult for most people to get maximum profit from PPC.
Glenn Livingston who I recommended in my last post, is one of the most highly respected AdWords marketers in the United States.
More importantly, he runs a large AdWords management agency and has seen literally hundreds of PPC accounts, so he really knows what works from a “dollarsin vs. dollars out” vantage point. (Compare that to a lot of the self proclaimed gurus out there “talking theory”)
Glenn also actually has very strong business background consulting for dozens of companies like AT&T, Lipton, Novartis, Whirlpool, and many, many more. And, also unlike many of the gurus you may have followed, Glenn’s successfully built 17 of his own AdWords projects in markets having NOTHING TO DO with internet marketing.
And he’s endorsed by the authors of BOTH major AdWords books.
But the best thing is, Glenn’s marketing philosophy is to deliver real value BEFORE he asks for the sale. Which means he’s put a tremendous amount of blood, sweat, and tears into creating these Adwords Cheat Sheets, Videos, and MP3s.
So you really WILL get critically important AdWords insights about:
– Overcoming PPC Overwhelm –> Maximum Results in Minimum Time – Sending Your Quality Score Demons Where They Belong – Selecting Your Single Most Important Keyword – Attracting Hyper-Responsive AdWords Visitors – Optimizing the Content Network (the largest network in the world) – Rolling Out to MSN, Yahoo, and Other PPC Engines – Finding Your Single Most Important Competitor
And much, much more.
Anyway I just wanted to say that I can’t recommend this highly enough … it’s one of the truly FREE resources on the internet that really does deliver value.
17 FREE AdWords Cheat Sheets, MP3s and Videos Show You How to Easily Attract and Convert the MOST Valuable Customers in Your Market
17 FREE AdWords Cheat Sheets, MP3s and Videos Show You How to Easily Attract and Convert the MOST Valuable Customers in Your Market
Just a quick post today: Over the weekend I was referred to this site by Perry Marshal and since then have spend a few hours watching the videos and reading stuff. I’d recommend it. Most of it’s free – some of it isnt :>
I’m off to implement some of the keyword strategies now as they make a lot of sense. Especially the strategy about finding and focussing on the hyper responsive keywords and building around that and not having too many keyword phrases. (I just watched a fr ee video on this!)
You can quite easily spend thousands on adwords for little in return. Learn how to do it right.
PPC (Pay per click) describes any ad where you pay everytime someone clicks on your ad and goes to your website. The biggest and best known of these is Adwords
You will have seen these “sponsored” ads down the RHS and along the top of google search pages. They represent an almost instant way to get your site listed on the front page of google for any keyword (if you have enough money)
Money is the point here – you can quite easily spend thousands on adwords for little in return.
BUT.. do it well and its a never ending flow of qualified traffic to your site. Nothing compares to the control adwords gives you.
So if you have a website and you need traffic to make some money from it (!) then you absolutely should do adwords. But do it right. You’re going to have to learn the ropes in order to do it yourself or outsource it to someone else. Even then you should still have an idea of what is required
Where to Start
I highly recommend you visit Perry Marshall’s website. He is the acknowledged king of adwords. And whilst I don’t always agree with him on his marketing philosophies I trust his adwords advice completely. Buy his book – it’s a bargain – or at least sign up for his free newsletter course.
