Archive for the ‘PPC’ Category

A few weeks ago I was thinking about how companies seem to haphazardly invest in various aspects of online marketing. Some throw all their budget at SEO, leaving no room for PPC. Other businesses put so much money in PPC that they leave little room for genuine SEO growth. While Herman Cain’s bold 9-9-9 tax plan may be as dead as his presidential ambitions, there is something that that we might be able to steal borrow to help frame a successful online marketing campaign.

I’ve read that the best way to win an argument is to tell a story, so I got one for you. Well, no. I’m not a good story teller, but I can throw together a pretty decent analogy.

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Keyword research is important to online marketing efforts. But even more important than that is the keywords you select for your SEO and PPC efforts. Of course, you cannot select what you have not researched, but finding keywords generally isn’t the problem. There are tons of keyword tools available that will help you do that.

The question is, what do you do with your keyword lists once you’ve compiled them?

Just as there is no shortage of good keyword tools, there is also no shortage of metrics that you can use to determine the value of any given keyword. A few that tend to top our keyword selections lists are:

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Final Lap time again! Check out some of the great stuff our team The Pit Crew read during the week of October 24.

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Our team The Pit Crew has read some informative and helpful articles on Web marketing this week. Here are our picks.

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Here’s the latest news in the world of paid search (ppc) marketing so that you can stay ahead of your competition and make more money.

Top of Page Bid Estimates

Previously, you could only see “estimated first page bid” for your keywords.  Now, you can see “estimated top page bid.”  This is important because CTRs are so much higher on top vs. side ads.  (Note: Don’t bid to be on top unless those positions make you more profit.)

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I’ve always been an SEO guy. I like getting into websites, optimizing for keywords, fixing problems and then watching the rankings climb.

Because SEO is relatively so inexpensive compared to other marketing efforts, I am often surprised by the amount of dollars companies are willing to invest into PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, while at the same time balking about a similar investment in SEO.

In my experience, SEO often translates into better ROI than PPC! But the primary difference is that PPC is far more trackable than SEO. PPC analytics can give you amazing flexibility into your campaigns and insight into your conversions that just isn’t available with SEO.

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When it comes to Web marketing strategies, sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start. A question we hear often is:

Should I start marketing my website with search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC)?

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Cost is not important.

Let me repeat that: Cost is not important.

What is important is ROI (Return on Investment).

When spending any money on a marketing campaign, you should consider the following:

1. How much money you can you afford to spend?
2. How soon will you see the return from that money?
3. How much will that return be?

If you can spend the money (1), not go broke while you’re waiting for the return (2) and the result will be enough of a profit to make it worthwhile (3) then the cost of the campaign is not important.

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In part one of Paid Search is Customer Service, Not Advertising, I shared a tip about your target audience.  They’re lazy.  We’re all lazy.  Most shoppers/searchers follow what is called “The Principle of Least Effort.” Here’s an excerpt about this principle from Wikipedia…

This principle states that an information seeking client will tend to use the most convenient search method in the least exacting mode available. Information-seeking behavior stops as soon as minimally acceptable results are found.

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Google Correlate: A New Way to Research Keyword Popularity and Trends

Google has created a new tool to help you correlate search trends with any other data you might want to throw in.  It takes a look at your trending pattern and shows matching patterns.  You enter a data series and get back a list of queries whose data series follows a similar pattern.  You must remember that correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but can likely find some great insights here into search strategy.

Communication Ad Extensions for Google AdWords

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