|
|
PPC Advertising ? The First Step In A SEO Marketing Campaign
Often, sites view seo and PPC marketing as exclusive marketing techniques. Each marketing method has its advocates. In reality, both have a place in the Internet marketing process. If you intend to pursue a major seo effort, a PPC campaign is a critical early step.
PPC For Testing
Let's say you have a site offering a service or product in the travel market. You've put together a healthy budget and decided to go for broke. Yep, you're optimizing and trading links in an effort to go after keyword phrases with major traffic and competition. For instance, you've decided to have a go at "Europe travel", which has roughly 400,000 searches each month and major competition for high rankings. You spend two years trading links, adding content and so on. Miracle of miracles, you pop on to the first page of search results. You start shopping for your private jet only to realize a very disturbing thing. You are getting thousands of visits, but few sales. After running calculations, you find the site is converting at 1 in 10,000.
Houston, we have a problem.
A PPC campaign should be used to test your site against keyword phrases before you spend the time and money on an seo campaign. The best platforms to use for your campaign are Google Adwords and Overture. Yes, click fraud is a problem, but less so on these platforms.
After opening accounts and laying a credit card down at the PPC alter, you need to give some thought at to how you will test your keywords. Here's a hint. The campaign should be designed to test the keyword phrases, not maximize sales. This may sound like a strange statement, but keep in mind the purpose of the campaign. You are determining whether you have picked appropriate keyword phrases for the seo campaign. So, how does it all go wrong?
With both Overture and Adwords, you have the ability to designate the reach of your keyword phrases. Most pick the "broad match" option, which is terrible for testing. With broad match, your advertisements are going to appear for your keyword phrase AND variations of the phrase. Since the ad is appearing on a variety of keyword phrases, the results can give you a false impression of the value of the primary keyword phrase.
Going back to our example, we start a Google Adwords campaign for "Europe travel" and use the default broad match option. After a month, we are happy to find the ads converting at 1 in 70. Having validated the keyword phrase, we set off on the long seo campaign. But are we really sure about the validity of the keyword phrase. Since Google has been known to seriously expand keyword phrases under the broad match option, how do we know that the true keyword phrase isn't "European travel"? We don't unless we take a few additional steps.
The first step is to limit the PPC advertisements by bypassing the broad match option. Instead, you want to limit the appearance of the ad only to searches for the exact keyword phrase. In Adwords, this is known as the "exact phrase" match. To designate it, you simply place brackets "[]" around the keyword phrase. Second, you need to track traffic originating from the ads. This can be done using tracking tools on your server or through the tracking options offered by each PPC platform. Regardless of your choice, the resulting data will give a much truer picture of the value of the particular keyword phrases.
Nothing is more aggravating then getting top rankings, but miserable conversions. The only way to beat this problem is to test, test, test. Using PPC campaigns at the outset of an Internet marketing efforts can save you a lot of headaches later on.
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company.
Google Love - Five Top Tips To Make Google Love Your Site
1. Google love ...
Keyword Research And Overture
Many of us who build websites get in the habit of using the Overture "Keyword Suggestion Tool" to do keyword research. It's convenient, and one of the few remaining such tools that is free. Be careful, though, because there are four problems you may run into with it.
20 Ideas for Creating Traffic Rich, Search Engine Friendly Pages
Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information pages or doorway pages. People have heard that "doorway pages" are BAD and some have stated that search engines "hate doorway pages".
What is Google Pagerank?
PageRank is one of the factors that Google uses to evaluate your web site and determine its position in the Google search engine results. PageRank is a number from 0 to 10.
Are You Making These Deadly SEO Mistakes?
Black Hat SEO: Web Spamming and Linking to Bad Neighborhoods
Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4: Content Optimization
Welcome to part four in this search engine positioning series. Last week we discussed the importance of the structure of your website and the best practices for creating an easily spidered and easily read site. In part four we will discuss content optimization.
Search Engines: Different Types, Different Strategies
There are four basic types of Search Engines:
How to Google; or How to be Easily Distracted
I set out with the intention of writing a self improvement type article with an original temporary working title of 'How To Overcome Fear'.
Developing A List Of Keywords For Marketing
Keywords aren't just some words that allow search engines, like Google, to find your web site. They are also key elements for creating attractive language to use in your marketing or advertising material. For instance places such as: brochures, business cards, flyers, and ads. Keywords can also fit well into speaking engagements scripts or audiotapes scripts as well as audience handouts.
SEM - Research Measures Success
SEM - Research Measures Success
Reciprocal Links to Boost Link Popularity ?
Link popularity means the number of incoming links pointing to your website. This is one of the criterical factor that rank the search results. If you are have link on website with high PageRank (PR4+), you will benefit from it and your ranking will boost.
Keep Your Content Fresh with this Quick and Easy Tip
Some of the Search engines want only original content. So if the Search Engine Get's to your web Page on your Site and realize they have already seen this Page they won't Index it again, This can be a real hazard if you submit Articles for free Re-Distribution. It is not only possible but highly probable that a site with a higher Page Rank then yours will get your page Indexed First.
Search Engine Rankings for Beginners
Search engine optimization is best left in the mystical land of the Intenet Marketing Guru right? Good Search engine rankings are tough to achieve. Understanding search engine marketing takes years of studying and only people with true insider knowledge and secret tools rank well in Google right? WRONG. Pure crap as a matter of fact.
The Google Sandbox Explained
The Google Sandbox is a metaphorical term to explain why most new websites have very poor rankings in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Very few people know for sure if the 'sandbox' actually exists, but it seems to be a filter added to the Google algorithms sometime around March 2004. What is the function of the Google Sandbox?
Hiring An SEO Constultant - 10 Reasons Why You Should
It crosses every webmaster's mind anytime they see an ad or an email for search engine marketing. Many small business owners wonder what they're missing by not doing it. So should you hire a consultant? Search engine traffic make up at least 85% of all traffic to a website. So of course, search engine optimization is very important. But what, if any, will be the consequences of doing it yourself? Would it be beneficial to a website owner to hire a professional SEO consultant, or just plod along and hope that they are doing it right? This is a valid dilemma to face, and I will show you why it should be an easy decision. There are ten reasons why hiring them would be to your benefit.
Over Optimization and the OOP - Does a Penalty Exist?
If you have questions about whether or not the Over-Optimization Penalty (OOP) exists or not, then you obviously haven't pushed the limits enough with your own website optimization or organic SEO efforts to have experienced the joys of running into the OOP (Over-Optimization Penalty).
Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?
Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring question posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine optimization are obvious to everyone. While shelling out a couple thousand on an SEO campaign is common sense to some, others may find it hard to part with the cash unless they know it is an investment in their business that is sure to bring a good return.
Google Patent Application ? Linking
The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:
Link Popularity
In today scenario when we talk about Search Engine Optimization, we also talk about one of the most important aspect of SEO, which is Link Building. But there are different types, aspects and limitations of Link Building, which would be discussed now under
Get Personal With Google
Anyone who's been on the net any time at all knows that Google has been the search engine of choice for many for a while now. Whether that continues remains to be seen, but for now, with MSN still in development and Yahoo going through some growing pains, many still feel that Google is the leader. As such, it's worth dropping in to the Google Labs every now and then to see what's going on there.