How To Maximize Your Pay Per Click Advertising Budget

admin    Web Marketing     Advertising, Budget, Click, Maximize

Using pay per click advertising allows marketers to get instant traffic to their websites. However, the cost of advertising can pile up if one do not know the correct way to use pay per click advertising.

When you bid to have your pay per click ads appearing in the search engines such as Google, you may assumed that that having your ads seen in the top position is the best placement for success. Consider again!The reality is that most people seems to click on the ads in the middle or towards the bottom rather than the ones on the top of te search engines.This is actually great news for advertisers who knows how to maximize their budget as it means you can save a lot of money on your bids.You don’t need to be listed on the top list of ads in Google and usually there is a large gap between the first and second position bids for any pay per click ads. This is where you save. Let others pay the top dollar to be listed first…or even second or third. By stretching your advertising budget this way, you will not only save some cash on your pay per click campaign but you may very well get more traffic to your website by being further down the list of Google ads in the search engines.What you need to do is, use the Google Adwords tools in your Adwords account to find out the top bids for the keywords you are using. The fastest way is to start with a bid of $50 and you will then see the first bid under that which is actually the current highest bid for that keyword. Keep entering the next lowest bid to see how much you must bid to be fifth or sixth on the list. Then bid on this amount. You’ll save a lot of money this way.Another factor that can help you get better results with your pay per click campaigns is to learn more about your competition. If you are using pay per click to advertise an affiliate program and someone else is doing the same, study their web pages. If they are running their ad on a regular basis, it means what they are doing is working…so you should study what they are doing. Do they send people to a pre-sell page or directly to the program they are advertising? This is where you usually can differentiate the beginners from the pros. Affiliate marketers who have more experience know how to use squeeze pages to capture email addresses to build a list of prospects.Hardly anyone will buy anything on the first time they go to the website. Following up the prospects is crucial to converting your pay-per-click traffic to actual buyers. If you don’t capture contact information, you cannot follow up with benefit-laden emails that convert your prospects to buyers. If you send traffic directly to the product page, you will probably be losing hundreds and thousands of dollars every year. Setting up a targeted email marketing campaign and capturing email addresses is not difficult and can prove to be a success for your overall business.Also if this is your first time signing up with a pay per click company like Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, remember to search for discount coupons for these companies. . They usually have a promotional discount coupon codes for new advertisers and the bonus can give you additional credit to get traffic to your website. Yahoo currently offers a $25 Credit Coupon to Yahoo Seach Marketing. Some webhosting companies offers Free Credit to Google Adwords when signing up for a new web hosting account. Compare these Web Hosting Reviews to see which web hosting companies offer pay per click credits.

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Earn Money Google Strategies – Using Google AdWords to Maximize Your Business Visibility

admin    Google Optimization     Adwords, Business, Earn, google, Maximize, Money, Strategies, Using, Visibility

Several years ago, anyone wanting to advertise on the Web would have little choice but to spend thousands on Web ads. Google is an extremely powerful search engine, which is used by hundreds of millions of people everyday. Google AdWord is a pay per click (PPC) service that allows any business to advertise directly to people using the Google search engine. Undoubtedly, this program has grown to be the most popular pay per click ad service on the Web today. Businesses gain visibility and earn money on Google by having paid targeted ads placed on its search results page.
So how can Google AdWords maximize the potential of your pay per click ad campaign? Listed below are some of its benefits:
Targeted Marketing – Google AdWords match ads to specific interests of people. Unlike traditional forms of Internet advertising where ads are just broadcasted to as much eyeballs as possible. Ads are only displayed to highly qualified traffic (by the use of keywords.) AdWord ads are non-intrusive. The potential to earn money Google with these ads are therefore much higher.
Provides Businesses With Total Control Over Their Ads – There is great flexibility when it comes to creating and managing ads. You can even schedule your ads to run on a specific date and time. You can also target a specific geography. This maximizes your business’ ability to earn money Google greatly.
Cost-Effective Advertising – Google AdWords allows you to set how much you are willing to pay for every time your ad is clicked. Daily budgets can be set. Cost-per-click (CPC) amount can be set anywhere from 1 cent up to US$100. You are assured that every click you pay for comes from pre-qualified traffic. So every click on your ad is coming from customers who are most likely to purchase from you.
Rapid Campaign Implementation – It only takes minutes to setup your PPC ad campaign. Some will argue that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics can provide the same level of visibility. While this is true, SEO implementations usually take months to produce measurable results. AdWords ads can be seen on the same day they are deployed. This is why AdWords is the best earn money Google strategy between the two.
Full Advertiser Support – AdWord users are also provided valuable tools to help them create the best PPC campaign. Users are given access to keyword research tools to help find the best selection of keywords. Advertisers can also track the details and performance of their campaign through their accounts.
AdWords is by far the most effective earn money Google strategy today. Anyone interested in rapid, effective, and cost-efficient Internet marketing should definitely consider AdWords for their business. All types of companies, big or small, have equal opportunities for success when using PPC services. It is also very cost-effective and can deliver very high return-of-investment (ROI) if executed well. Businesses will find this effective Internet Marketing strategy essential to their success. This type of Internet advertising strategy gives you much more value for your money.

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Maximize Google Website Traffic with Search Engine Optimization

admin    Google Optimization     Engine, google, Maximize, optimization, Search, Traffic, website

Maximizing Google traffic is vital to the success of your website. Increased traffic means more readers, more prestige, and—most importantly—more ad revenue, so it pays to know how to direct the flow of Google users to your pages. The key lies in search engine optimization (SEO), the art of forming your content to appear higher in Google search results. Ideally, SEO should start before the creation of your website. Do a quick Google search for keywords related to the subject of your page. If you find dozens of similar sites already established, it’s time to approach the topic in a different way or abandon it altogether. Try to focus on a specific aspect of your subject that other sites may not cover in detail. There are thousands of popular websites about printers, for example, but only a handful that deal with proper print head cleaning. The more targeted your subject, the higher your site appears in Google search results. Once you find your niche, you can maximize Google website traffic with proper keyword density. Google automatically scans websites to determine how many times a keyword appears and uses that number to rank it in results relative to your search. Before posting content to your website, run it through the keyword analyzation tool at textalyser.com. Textalyser will tell you how many times your chosen keyword occurs in your writing and determine its keyword density percentage. Aim for 2.5% or above, with 3% to 5% being optimal. Some speculate that Google regards content with keyword density of 7% or higher as spam, so keep your keyword use within reason. Drawing Google traffic to your pages is not as difficult as it may seem. By finding a niche and mastering keyword density, you can achieve the dream of website owners everywhere: appearing on page one of a Google search.

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Better Opt for Online Advertising Agency to Maximize ROI

admin    Web Marketing     Advertising, Agency, Better, Maximize, Online

With growing competition in the markets, it is necessary to emphasize on advertisement and promotions. Now, these promotional activities have to be organized in a manner that they attract maximum number of relevant users and responses. Then only, an advertiser can think of maximized returns on investment. It is better to spend on advertising rather than witnessing a loss over investments made. Appointing an advertising agency becomes useful for competing in the branding world and getting high returns.

The advertising agency not only structures the whole advertisement campaign but also it provides real time reporting to the advertisers. The advertisers get cheapest price for media promotions and achieve great user response. With such an agency working towards branding the client’s products and services, it becomes easy for the advertisers to penetrate the markets. Agency experts make sure that the client’s business grows at a rapid pace by attaining responses and leads from the Internet.

The scope of an advertising agency is vast, when it comes to entice the target audience. The expertise of media team gives the campaigns a strong appearance in front of the users. Besides designing and developing the ads for the campaigns, agency experts give emphasis over publishing the ads in an appropriate way. The ad campaigns need to be targeted for achieving response from relevant users. The techniques are used for identifying target users and delivering ads to them.

The competition has grown considerably but it has raised the need of advertising agency. The advertisers are trying to capture the online target audience in an effective way. This is because of the potential of Internet as a large consumer base. It can not only attract the users with advertisements alone but also the user generated reviews acts as word of mouth publicity. No doubt that the trust for Internet advertising is growing at a rapid pace.

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Maximize Your Google Adsense CTR

admin    Google Optimization     Adsense, google, Maximize

This is the first part of two series of articles about How to Increase Your Google Adsense CTR. Many people think that they just have to copy and paste Google Adsense code into their website and start earning a huge amount of money from it. What a huge mistake! I also thought the same way two years ago. Later I realized that without optimization, that’s impossible. Here I will share all of the tricks to increase my Google Adsense CTR that I found within the last two years. Here are some tips to increase your Google Adsense CTR: 1. Make sure the ads that are appearing on your site are closely related with your content. This is the first thing you have to do because if your ads are not relevant, there’s small possibility that people will click on them. Then, what should you do to tackle this problem? Here are the tips: o Create a keyword rich content. I suggest you creating one topic a page.o Check your keyword rich content and then mark some of your keywords as bold or italic. But don’t do it too much, just do it per page. Otherwise, Google assumes you are doing spamming.o Use your keyword in your page title.o Use HTML Tag H1 as your content title, and put your keyword in it. Don’t forget to place this tag at the beginning of your content.o If all those tips still do not work, there is just one possibility: there are no ads that matched with your keyword! You can check this out by using this marvelous tool from the Digital Point Website. It is called the Google Adsense Sandbox, and located. You’ll be asked to enter your selected keyword and it will display every Adsense ads that’s connected with that keyword. What if your suspicion is correct? Change your keyword! Do not worry; sometimes you just have to change one or two words. 2. Use wide ads (336×280, 300×250 or 250×250). Because these are the best performing ads. 3. Blend your ads with your website themes. For example, if your background color is white, change your ads border and background color to white as well. If your background color is dark (black), use bright color such as yellow as link color. This will decrease user ad-blindness.4. Place your Google Adsense in these positions: o Above the foldAbove the fold is the top position of your page that’s visible without your visitor having to scroll down. This is the best location that works for me. I place 336×280 ad unit in this location and it works very well. Why? Okay, back to our example. Your article is about “how to bake delicious bread”. Someone finds it from search engine; when he opens it, he first sees ads about “baking school”, “baking book” or “bread recipes”. Who won’t be interested?o In the middle of an article.This works well if your article is long (more than 500 words). People tend to stop for a while and look for something different while they read. I suggest using rectangular ads (125×125, 180×150, 300×250, and 336 x 280, 250×250 ad unit) for this purpose and make it left justified. o At the end of an article.Many people reported that placing Google Adsense ads at the end of their article tends to work very well. This is because when people finish reading an interesting article, they usually think “okay, what’s next?” That’s your chance! By placing Google Adsense ads at the end of this article, people will spend a minute to read it and then (maybe) click it. For example, you write an article about “how to bake delicious bread”. And at the end of it, there are some ads about “bread recipes”. Who won’t be interested?5. Regarding the fourth tip, I don’t recommend you placing three ad units in a single page. From my experience, the number of ad unit you place in a single page doesn’t affect your CTR. In fact, I even found that placing three text ads in a single page make my ads “unblended”. For example, I put 160×600, 468×60 and 336×280 ads on a single page. You know what? My 468×60 ads only showed 3 ads in it, whereas my 336×280 ads only showed 2 ads in it! My suggestion is: use 1 a€“ 2 ad unit and a single link unit on your page (Google allows 3 ad unit and 1 link unit to be placed on a single page).6. Always use Link Unit! Many people never realize that Link Unit is the most profitable format if put in the right place. Try to place it near your navigation menu. People will misidentify it as a navigation menu and automatically read it. If your ads are closely relevant to your content, there’s big possibility they will click it. I move the top navigation in one of my websites to the bottom section and replace it with 728×15 Link Unit Ads. You know what? My Google Adsense CTR increased by 200%!

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Maximize Your Profits and Your Clients with SEO Reseller Program

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Clients, Maximize, Profits, Program, Reseller

As every business activity’s primary aim is to enhance revenues be it any kind of platform therefore the SEO reseller program also aims to achieve similar objectives for the online business activities.The idea is primarily to follow different advanced techniques to fulfill the business objective. And at the same time it also helps them to survive in the long-run as well as help to stay ahead of their competitors. Among the different sources of improving revenue, SEO reseller plans are highly significant. The independent web designers or small web development companies that do not have their own search engine optimization staff can therefore hire a good SEO company. The SEO Company can help them in optimizing their client’s website and improve their ranking in major search engines.In the current scenario different companies are providing such type of services. If you are really looking for a good SEO consultant for your customers’ website, then you can easily find some of the best options over the net that furnish a lot of related requirements in this regard In terms of providing help there are wide varieties of SEO reseller plans which are as follows:1    Enterprise SEO reseller plansthrough this plan; you can earn commissions on every SEO package you sell via the route of referring a customer to this website. The related commission is determined by the number of SEO packages you sell each month. 2     Private Level SEO reseller plansthe private level SEO Reseller Plans are something which stand different and unique from others. There are certain terms and conditions for this plan and it approves only those applications that satisfy all the terms and conditions set by plan formulating website. In this program, it only accepts most knowledgeable resellers because customer satisfaction is the prime objective of this particular plan.3    SEO affiliate programanother option in terms of SEO reseller plans is that of an exclusive reseller plan; SEO Affiliate program which is something different. This program is specially meant for web development and design firms that need to be able to send their clients to a reputable search engine optimization firm.Basically with the increasing involvement of the SEO strategy at the online business front all these various kinds of SEO seller programs furnish a wide range of requirements to meet varying needs in the most effective, strategic and suitable manner that can not only help you in accentuating your business profits but at the same time also furnish complete satisfaction on your client’s part. With the full fledged incorporation of the SEO strategy from the marketing perspective and business orientation the option of SEO reseller programs provides for innumerable feasible solutions in every possible way.

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Maximize Your Website Popularity With Graphic Designs

admin    Graphic Design     Designs, Graphic, Maximize, Popularity, website

Making use of professional graphic design services is feasible if you are planning to launch a website which can give better web traffic and hence better profits to you. It might seem simple to design an effective web design, but in reality it is a complex procedure requiring great deal of expertise and skills. Therefore appointing an graphic design company for the task is definitely the right decision.

When you have clear cut mindset about the intention of the website, target audience and the countries where they are most likely to get business would help in getting designed proper graphic designs.

Professional graphic design service providers frame useful strategies and actions that aid in building appropriate graphics and website structure. It works for newly launched websites as well as old ones too. The point is that the designed being created should be compatible and an extension of your internet marketing plan and not just stuffed without any connection with other site contents.

Usually the choice of the graphic design company is made on popularity basis, but rather it should be made on factors such as your business aims, needs and requirements. The best Company in the field of Graphic Designing Services offers in the Los Angeles, Glendale, Orange County, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Irvine & much more cities of CA regions.

But the question is where to find the proper designing services? Internet is the marketplace where you can find almost anything just by a click of the mouse. If you are serious about maintaining a website and churn out profits out of it, always take help of professionals.

You might ponder over the cost factor, but is it not necessary that hiring a graphic design company is an costly affair. Make your business an successful online venture and coin another success story with effective graphics on your website. The role of graphic designs is not limited to decorate a web page, but also plays an important part in improving the company profit.

Sometimes words only don’t suffice in conveying a particular message or information, here the significance of images and sound can be well understood. With the use of newer software and technology, graphics is also undergoing changes at a faster pace. So its maintenance and up gradation is also essential.

It gives professional identity and face to your organization, a picture or image is more remembered by people than words. So graphic design should appeal to the masses without hurting anybody’s sentiments or ideology.

Graphics can be designed by using excellent combination of sound, images and text that get along well with search engine optimization process.

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Maximize Your Return on Investment With Google Adwords

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Adwords, google, Investment, Maximize, Return

Most businesses want a cost-effective way to bring in more customers. The challenge is to find prospects who are thinking about your products at the exact time that you reach them.

With Google AdWords, it is possible to target prospects at the very moment they are thinking about buying your products or services. Most of you know how it works: If someone does a Google search on digital cameras, for example, she sees ads for digital cameras. If someone does a search on organically grown coffee beans, he sees ads for organically grown coffee. Google AdWords enables you to implement precisely targeted advertising.

Here’s how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.

What Is Google AdWords?

Open up a Web browser and go to the Google Web site. Type in the search term coffee and click search.

Essentially, two types of search results come up: on the left and below are the organic search results that no one has sponsored. On the right side of your browser window and sometimes above the organic results are the Sponsored Links. The Sponsored Links are paid advertisements—they are always identified as such by the heading Sponsored Links.

As participants in this automated auction, each of these advertisers is bidding for the keyword coffee. They pay only if someone is interested enough to click on the advertisement; if nobody clicks on the ad, the cost is zero. The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword, the higher in the rankings the ad appears and the more likely Web searchers will see it. Ranking means visibility, though you do not have to be at the top of the rankings or bid the highest amount for prospects to see your ad and click on it. Your goal is to get the lowest cost per click (CPC) and the highest quality clicks (sales and leads) for your budget.

Finding Your Niche

Sometimes with popular keywords (like coffee), there are many companies competing. On the other hand, popular keywords get millions of searches, so there might be enough clicks to go around.

The only way to find out if a particular keyword will work for you is to try it. The problem is that many other advertisers are bidding for the popular keywords, so your CPC is likely to be high. You are more likely to get a low CPC with more obscure, highly targeted keywords. It will take some thought to come up with the right keywords.

Our coffee roaster would probably want to try the keyword coffee, and watch it like a hawk as it could result in many low-quality clicks (not many conversions to leads or sales). If a keyword does not produce high-quality clicks after a reasonable trial period (a couple of weeks), then remove it; it may even be obvious sooner that a keyword is costing money but not producing results.

Perhaps our coffee roaster sells shade-grown coffee that protects Central American songbird habitat. While far fewer people are searching for shade-grown coffee than just coffee, it is likely to yield a lower CPC and higher quality clicks.

Do some brainstorming and write down an initial list of keywords that match your market niche. This process of finding targeted keywords will be a useful exercise to help you focus your campaigns and maximize your return on investment.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to get started with AdWords is a goal. Is your goal to make direct sales via e-commerce on your Web site? Is your goal to capture sales leads that you can follow-up with and make the sale? Alternatively, is your goal a combination of both? Once you have determined a goal, you need a Web site that helps you achieve that goal.

Your site should be eye-catching and well-organized and should include landing pages for your products or services. To see some examples of landing pages, do a search for your services, and look at what other companies in your market are doing.

The landing page can be your homepage if your site tightly focuses on one product or service you are advertising (e.g., this permission-based email marketing site). Otherwise, the landing page should be within your larger site and should focus on the specific product or service you are advertising.

If you are selling directly from your Web site, it should include a secure e-commerce system. Any good, technically competent Web design firm can set this up for you.

If you want sales leads, then your site should include a call to action to persuade people to request more information. The way they submit a lead is to click on a link to a lead-capture form. You need a form that at a minimum sends you—or the appropriate sales staff—an email, but ideally it should also create a lead for you in a customer relationship management (CRM) system such as SalesForce or SugarCRM.

Whether you are selling directly from your site or capturing leads, your site should always have obvious ways to contact you using whatever method the prospect feels most comfortable using: a contact form, email, or telephone. Some company sites make it hard to figure out how to contact them for more information.

It is important to have a number of people—both inside and outside of your company—test your Web site for usability and ease of use. Prospects should never have to wonder how to buy from you or how to contact you to ask a question about your products or services.

Signing up for Google AdWords

Once you have a goal, Web site, and landing page, you are ready to sign up for Google AdWords. Learn by doing. It is easier to write the advertisement and select keywords using the tools that Google provides during the sign up process.

If you plan to spend at least $30/day on AdWords, Google offers a JumpStart program to help you get started using AdWords. Google JumpStart specialists will help you create a campaign. The cost of the program is $299, but Google will apply that as a credit toward the cost of your initial clicks.

Campaigns and Ad Groups

The Campaign level is where you set your daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution preferences, and the start and end dates for your campaigns (if applicable).

The Ad Group level is where enter your keywords and the advertisements themselves. Each Ad Group has one or more ads. Write at least two ads for each ad group so you can try different approaches and compare the results.

In my experience, it has been beneficial to create multiple campaigns so I can experiment with different parameters and compare the results.

Targeting

Choose the language you want to target, and then the countries or territories. This requires some thought. Can you offer your product or service globally, in just the United States, or in just your city or region? You can target your campaign to the world or to specific countries, regions, states, or cities.

For even more precise targeting, you can even target your campaign to a certain number of miles from your business or even an area bounded by coordinates.

Writing Your Advertisements

You have just a 25-character title to get surfers’ attention, and a 70-character ad to get people interested enough to want to click on your ad. It is not a lot of text, so make it pithy.

Write the Headline, the text of the ad, and enter the Display Link (always link to main page of your Web site), and then enter the Destination URL (your landing page). The Destination URL might be your main page or a page within your main site dedicated just to selling the product at hand.

Here’s a fictional ad example:

Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans

Description line 1: Shade grown coffee. Tastes

Description line 2: better & saves valuable rainforest.

Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com

Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff1

Another example:

Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans

Description line 1: Coffee that tastes better and

Description line 2: protects valuable rainforest.

Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com/

Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff2

Conversion Tracking

To track the conversion rate of your campaigns—i.e., how many sales or leads you get for your investment—requires a little preparation. You will need to have your webmaster embed snippets of code to the appropriate pages on your Web site. Google explains how to set up and implement your conversion tracking code here, including example code.

Google Analytics

In the fictional advertisement examples I gave, you may have noticed codes in the destination URLs: “coff1″ and “coff2″. These are tracking codes that facilitate the tracking of a wealth of information by Google Analytics.

Google Analytics, which Google has integrated with AdWords, is a very powerful service for tracking the success of both your organic and paid search results for your site. It will help you better understand your site visitors’ experience in detail. In addition, you can learn what keywords bring in the best prospects, and which of your campaigns are delivering the best return on investment. You can use Google Analytics to track marketing campaigns other than AdWords as well.

Google Analytics is too big a topic to cover much here, but I will devote a future article entirely to this powerful marketing tracking service.

Choosing Your Keywords

As I mentioned earlier, it is important to pick good keywords. Initially, choose both general keywords and narrowly targeted keywords, and carefully evaluate the results. Keep keywords that are getting you results, and remove keywords that are not working for you. You will probably need to run your campaigns for a while before you will have enough information to determine which keywords are succeeding for you.

In the keyword space provided in the setup process, list the keywords or keyword phrases you would like to use. Because people tend to type fast when they search the web, be sure to include common misspellings of your keywords. Here are some example keywords that our fictional coffee roaster might use:

* coffee
* coffe
* shade grown coffee
* shade grown coffe
* shade grown
* shade coffee
* coffee shade grown
* shade grown coffee migratory birds
* benefits of shade grown coffee
* gourmet coffee
* gourmet coffee beans
* gourmet coffees
* coffee beans
* gourmet coffee beans
* organic coffee
* organic coffee beans
* certified organic coffee
* coffee beans organic
* mail order organic coffee
* bulk coffee

To get more keywords, enter a keyword into the Keyword Tool Box and click on Get More Keywords. This will generate additional keywords, some of which will be relevant to you and some of which will not be relevant. Keep the relevant keywords and toss the rest.

Now, you have a good starting list. Later, you will want to add new keywords and remove non-performing keywords. A good keyword is one that yields conversions: customers or good leads.

Google Search vs. Google Content Network

Google AdWords can place your add in essentially two places: Google search and the content network. Google search are results from searches that prospective customers do directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner sites and sites that run advertisements through Google’s AdSense program.

In my experience, Google search has yielded much more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying, but I recommend putting it into a separate campaign so you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.

The content network is opt-out, and it is not possible to opt out during the setup process. However, to opt out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to campaign settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.

Then setup a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you will find Google search is more productive than the content network, but of course your results may be different from mine.

If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend starting with just the search network. Then come back in a few weeks and set up a separate campaign to try the content network, then compare the results with what you are getting with the search network.

Your Daily Budget

Your daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number at whatever you want. It is a good idea to start out with a relatively low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. As your ad campaigns succeed and bring you more business, you will likely want to increase your budget.

Start with a daily budget of about $10-$15 per day and gradually increase that amount as you fine-tune your approach.

Your Bid

In addition to your daily budget, you will need to set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay as a cost per click (CPC). This requires some trial and error to get right. Being the highest bidder is not really what that you want. Instead, you want to get the most quality clicks you can for your budget. If you bid too high, your CPC will be too high and will eat up your budget too fast; if you bid to low you will not get enough clicks and hence enough sales.

You might try starting with a bid of $2.50, and see what happens for a day or two. Then gradually raise or lower the bid, depending on results. If clicks consume your daily budget in a couple of hours, then lower your bid. If the advertisements are not getting many clicks, then raise your bid. Continue this process until you find the optimal bid.

Leads and Sales

What if visitors are clicking on your ad but are not buying or contacting you? That likely means your ad is working but your site or landing page is not persuading prospective customers to take the next step. It can also mean that your product or service needs some work to become more competitive. Compare what you are offering to what your competitors are offering.

The simplest things can make a dramatic difference. When your landing page is not getting you conversions, change one thing and see what happens over the next day or two. That way, you can determine which changes work. Do not be afraid to try possible solutions, knowing that some changes will fail and some will work well.

Recently, one of our landing pages was not getting enough conversions, so I made some minor changes to the wording on the page and conversions started going up the next day. On another page, we replaced our very simple order form with a much more elaborate version. Our sales for that service immediately plummeted. We simply changed the order form back to the simpler version and sales picked up again immediately.

Harvesting From the Money Tree

The Google AdWords money tree is now planted, optimized, and working to bring you leads and sales. What do you do now? Harvest it, of course, by solid follow-through and providing the best possible service for your clients.

Go back from time to time and take a look at your results. Make adjustments to your budget and bids as needed. Write another advertisement that takes a slightly different tack. Remove an ad that is not producing high quality clicks for you. Make some improvements to your Web site to see whether you can increase your conversion rate.

Practice Kaizen—a Japanese word for continuous, incremental improvement. Even if your Google AdWords money tree is providing good yields, there are always ways to improve its performance.

So pour yourself a cup of good coffee, and get started using Google AdWords today!

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Maximize Your Return on Investment With Google Adwords

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Adwords, google, Investment, Maximize, Return

Most businesses want a cost-effective way to bring in more customers. The challenge is to find prospects who are thinking about your products at the exact time that you reach them.

With Google AdWords, it is possible to target prospects at the very moment they are thinking about buying your products or services. Most of you know how it works: If someone does a Google search on digital cameras, for example, she sees ads for digital cameras. If someone does a search on organically grown coffee beans, he sees ads for organically grown coffee. Google AdWords enables you to implement precisely targeted advertising.

Here’s how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.

What Is Google AdWords?

Open up a Web browser and go to the Google Web site. Type in the search term coffee and click search.

Essentially, two types of search results come up: on the left and below are the organic search results that no one has sponsored. On the right side of your browser window and sometimes above the organic results are the Sponsored Links. The Sponsored Links are paid advertisements—they are always identified as such by the heading Sponsored Links.

As participants in this automated auction, each of these advertisers is bidding for the keyword coffee. They pay only if someone is interested enough to click on the advertisement; if nobody clicks on the ad, the cost is zero. The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword, the higher in the rankings the ad appears and the more likely Web searchers will see it. Ranking means visibility, though you do not have to be at the top of the rankings or bid the highest amount for prospects to see your ad and click on it. Your goal is to get the lowest cost per click (CPC) and the highest quality clicks (sales and leads) for your budget.

Finding Your Niche

Sometimes with popular keywords (like coffee), there are many companies competing. On the other hand, popular keywords get millions of searches, so there might be enough clicks to go around.

The only way to find out if a particular keyword will work for you is to try it. The problem is that many other advertisers are bidding for the popular keywords, so your CPC is likely to be high. You are more likely to get a low CPC with more obscure, highly targeted keywords. It will take some thought to come up with the right keywords.

Our coffee roaster would probably want to try the keyword coffee, and watch it like a hawk as it could result in many low-quality clicks (not many conversions to leads or sales). If a keyword does not produce high-quality clicks after a reasonable trial period (a couple of weeks), then remove it; it may even be obvious sooner that a keyword is costing money but not producing results.

Perhaps our coffee roaster sells shade-grown coffee that protects Central American songbird habitat. While far fewer people are searching for shade-grown coffee than just coffee, it is likely to yield a lower CPC and higher quality clicks.

Do some brainstorming and write down an initial list of keywords that match your market niche. This process of finding targeted keywords will be a useful exercise to help you focus your campaigns and maximize your return on investment.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to get started with AdWords is a goal. Is your goal to make direct sales via e-commerce on your Web site? Is your goal to capture sales leads that you can follow-up with and make the sale? Alternatively, is your goal a combination of both? Once you have determined a goal, you need a Web site that helps you achieve that goal.

Your site should be eye-catching and well-organized and should include landing pages for your products or services. To see some examples of landing pages, do a search for your services, and look at what other companies in your market are doing.

The landing page can be your homepage if your site tightly focuses on one product or service you are advertising (e.g., this permission-based email marketing site). Otherwise, the landing page should be within your larger site and should focus on the specific product or service you are advertising.

If you are selling directly from your Web site, it should include a secure e-commerce system. Any good, technically competent Web design firm can set this up for you.

If you want sales leads, then your site should include a call to action to persuade people to request more information. The way they submit a lead is to click on a link to a lead-capture form. You need a form that at a minimum sends you—or the appropriate sales staff—an email, but ideally it should also create a lead for you in a customer relationship management (CRM) system such as SalesForce or SugarCRM.

Whether you are selling directly from your site or capturing leads, your site should always have obvious ways to contact you using whatever method the prospect feels most comfortable using: a contact form, email, or telephone. Some company sites make it hard to figure out how to contact them for more information.

It is important to have a number of people—both inside and outside of your company—test your Web site for usability and ease of use. Prospects should never have to wonder how to buy from you or how to contact you to ask a question about your products or services.

Signing up for Google AdWords

Once you have a goal, Web site, and landing page, you are ready to sign up for Google AdWords. Learn by doing. It is easier to write the advertisement and select keywords using the tools that Google provides during the sign up process.

If you plan to spend at least $30/day on AdWords, Google offers a JumpStart program to help you get started using AdWords. Google JumpStart specialists will help you create a campaign. The cost of the program is $299, but Google will apply that as a credit toward the cost of your initial clicks.

Campaigns and Ad Groups

The Campaign level is where you set your daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution preferences, and the start and end dates for your campaigns (if applicable).

The Ad Group level is where enter your keywords and the advertisements themselves. Each Ad Group has one or more ads. Write at least two ads for each ad group so you can try different approaches and compare the results.

In my experience, it has been beneficial to create multiple campaigns so I can experiment with different parameters and compare the results.

Targeting

Choose the language you want to target, and then the countries or territories. This requires some thought. Can you offer your product or service globally, in just the United States, or in just your city or region? You can target your campaign to the world or to specific countries, regions, states, or cities.

For even more precise targeting, you can even target your campaign to a certain number of miles from your business or even an area bounded by coordinates.

Writing Your Advertisements

You have just a 25-character title to get surfers’ attention, and a 70-character ad to get people interested enough to want to click on your ad. It is not a lot of text, so make it pithy.

Write the Headline, the text of the ad, and enter the Display Link (always link to main page of your Web site), and then enter the Destination URL (your landing page). The Destination URL might be your main page or a page within your main site dedicated just to selling the product at hand.

Here’s a fictional ad example:

Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans

Description line 1: Shade grown coffee. Tastes

Description line 2: better & saves valuable rainforest.

Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com

Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff1

Another example:

Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans

Description line 1: Coffee that tastes better and

Description line 2: protects valuable rainforest.

Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com/

Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff2

Conversion Tracking

To track the conversion rate of your campaigns—i.e., how many sales or leads you get for your investment—requires a little preparation. You will need to have your webmaster embed snippets of code to the appropriate pages on your Web site. Google explains how to set up and implement your conversion tracking code here, including example code.

Google Analytics

In the fictional advertisement examples I gave, you may have noticed codes in the destination URLs: “coff1″ and “coff2″. These are tracking codes that facilitate the tracking of a wealth of information by Google Analytics.

Google Analytics, which Google has integrated with AdWords, is a very powerful service for tracking the success of both your organic and paid search results for your site. It will help you better understand your site visitors’ experience in detail. In addition, you can learn what keywords bring in the best prospects, and which of your campaigns are delivering the best return on investment. You can use Google Analytics to track marketing campaigns other than AdWords as well.

Google Analytics is too big a topic to cover much here, but I will devote a future article entirely to this powerful marketing tracking service.

Choosing Your Keywords

As I mentioned earlier, it is important to pick good keywords. Initially, choose both general keywords and narrowly targeted keywords, and carefully evaluate the results. Keep keywords that are getting you results, and remove keywords that are not working for you. You will probably need to run your campaigns for a while before you will have enough information to determine which keywords are succeeding for you.

In the keyword space provided in the setup process, list the keywords or keyword phrases you would like to use. Because people tend to type fast when they search the web, be sure to include common misspellings of your keywords. Here are some example keywords that our fictional coffee roaster might use:

* coffee
* coffe
* shade grown coffee
* shade grown coffe
* shade grown
* shade coffee
* coffee shade grown
* shade grown coffee migratory birds
* benefits of shade grown coffee
* gourmet coffee
* gourmet coffee beans
* gourmet coffees
* coffee beans
* gourmet coffee beans
* organic coffee
* organic coffee beans
* certified organic coffee
* coffee beans organic
* mail order organic coffee
* bulk coffee

To get more keywords, enter a keyword into the Keyword Tool Box and click on Get More Keywords. This will generate additional keywords, some of which will be relevant to you and some of which will not be relevant. Keep the relevant keywords and toss the rest.

Now, you have a good starting list. Later, you will want to add new keywords and remove non-performing keywords. A good keyword is one that yields conversions: customers or good leads.

Google Search vs. Google Content Network

Google AdWords can place your add in essentially two places: Google search and the content network. Google search are results from searches that prospective customers do directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner sites and sites that run advertisements through Google’s AdSense program.

In my experience, Google search has yielded much more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying, but I recommend putting it into a separate campaign so you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.

The content network is opt-out, and it is not possible to opt out during the setup process. However, to opt out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to campaign settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.

Then setup a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you will find Google search is more productive than the content network, but of course your results may be different from mine.

If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend starting with just the search network. Then come back in a few weeks and set up a separate campaign to try the content network, then compare the results with what you are getting with the search network.

Your Daily Budget

Your daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number at whatever you want. It is a good idea to start out with a relatively low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. As your ad campaigns succeed and bring you more business, you will likely want to increase your budget.

Start with a daily budget of about $10-$15 per day and gradually increase that amount as you fine-tune your approach.

Your Bid

In addition to your daily budget, you will need to set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay as a cost per click (CPC). This requires some trial and error to get right. Being the highest bidder is not really what that you want. Instead, you want to get the most quality clicks you can for your budget. If you bid too high, your CPC will be too high and will eat up your budget too fast; if you bid to low you will not get enough clicks and hence enough sales.

You might try starting with a bid of $2.50, and see what happens for a day or two. Then gradually raise or lower the bid, depending on results. If clicks consume your daily budget in a couple of hours, then lower your bid. If the advertisements are not getting many clicks, then raise your bid. Continue this process until you find the optimal bid.

Leads and Sales

What if visitors are clicking on your ad but are not buying or contacting you? That likely means your ad is working but your site or landing page is not persuading prospective customers to take the next step. It can also mean that your product or service needs some work to become more competitive. Compare what you are offering to what your competitors are offering.

The simplest things can make a dramatic difference. When your landing page is not getting you conversions, change one thing and see what happens over the next day or two. That way, you can determine which changes work. Do not be afraid to try possible solutions, knowing that some changes will fail and some will work well.

Recently, one of our landing pages was not getting enough conversions, so I made some minor changes to the wording on the page and conversions started going up the next day. On another page, we replaced our very simple order form with a much more elaborate version. Our sales for that service immediately plummeted. We simply changed the order form back to the simpler version and sales picked up again immediately.

Harvesting From the Money Tree

The Google AdWords money tree is now planted, optimized, and working to bring you leads and sales. What do you do now? Harvest it, of course, by solid follow-through and providing the best possible service for your clients.

Go back from time to time and take a look at your results. Make adjustments to your budget and bids as needed. Write another advertisement that takes a slightly different tack. Remove an ad that is not producing high quality clicks for you. Make some improvements to your Web site to see whether you can increase your conversion rate.

Practice Kaizen—a Japanese word for continuous, incremental improvement. Even if your Google AdWords money tree is providing good yields, there are always ways to improve its performance.

So pour yourself a cup of good coffee, and get started using Google AdWords today!

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Social Media Marketing Success – Three Steps on How to Maximize Your Efforts

admin    Social Media Marketing     Efforts, marketing, Maximize, Media, Social, Steps, Success, Three

Social Media.

Social Media Marketing.

THOSE 2 things has been written and talked about the last 2 years a LOT. But believe it or not, not a lot of small businesses or home businesses are using this powerful business and marketing “Zone” yet. Many people, because it is on the internet, shy away for it as if it were the plague.

”I am not a geek” people tell me. Well, we have “ungeeked the geek” for many small and home business owners, and made social media make sense to them

But there are exceptions.

I was talking with a business owner the other day and she made the comment, “I don’t go to those kind of sites. I don’t have time to do that as my business is struggling and I need to go and find more customers.”

That says it all.

That shows a total lack of understanding of what social media/web 2.0 is really about, and what it can do for the average small business and home business -even on a local basis. If people really “got it” about social media marketing, they would be running to the social media zone and staying there.

There is a lot of talk that it is not “proven” as it is too new and the jury is still out on it being a viable marketing process.

I totally disagree. The social media marketer is paving a path for those to follow through a jungle that has never been explored, nor walked. People like proof. People like results. But it is the social media marketer that will create the way that will birth new millionaires with business folks who do “get” the Web 2.0 world. It is not that hard to understand either.

If you can send an email, you can “do” social media marketing. You can master twitter, facebook, myspace, blogs, wikis, podcasts, article marketing, and all the other parts of the new media, if you can send an email. Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, it does take a little effort-but what doesn’t? We have expanded our business tremendously with social media tactics, and everyday, we wake up with dozens of new leads for our training and consulting business in our email box. How would you like to have that happen to you?

You can. You can tap into an endless pool of leads that will just keep increasing, if you decide to jump into the Social Media zone. And we will be glad to teach you how to maximize for maximum Success with your Social Media efforts.

All you need to do is make a decision that you will take the time and study and learn social media a little at a time, and learn the culture, and the processes of each website.

Here are 7 websites that you must register with to get started in social media if you have a small or home business. Each have “help” tutorials or videos about how to use them properly, and also there is a LOT of information on the web as well on “how to”:

1) http://www.facebook.com

2) http://www.twitter.com

3) http://www.mashable.com (A GREAT website for learning generic social media.)

4) http://www.stumbleupon.com

5) http://www.digg.com

6) http://www.youtube.com

7) http://www.socialmediatrainingnetwork.com’ (A GREAT social website for learning social media tactics for small and or home businesses.)

And then do three things after learning how the site works:

1) CONNECT.
2) COMFORTABLE.
3) CONSTRUCT.

1) CONNECT.

The main thing you need to do is connect with people on these sites, and become a friend with them. Most of these sites have a process to befriend folks. Follow their process. Sound easy enough? But there is a type of friend that we teach that you must become. An “Addition Friend.” This is simply a friend that ADDS to people’s lives, not takes.

On the social media scene, most people are looking to Add, Enhance, Increase, and Enlarge a part of their life. YOU must help them do that with connecting with them and showing them new information about what you do, and how what you do can help them and change them for the better. It MUST not ever be a sales pitch, but simply information that will impact them enough that they may want to connect with you further about that in their life.

If you are a real estate agent, give them info on the 5 Biggest mistakes made while buying a home. If you are a CPA, give them some info on the 3 biggest mistakes made on tax returns. If you are in skin care, give them the 7 best ways to keep your skin healthy. You get the idea. You can find this type of information all over the web. Just send them the web address (url) to the article or blog post with a short note saying you thought of them when you ran across this.

We call it “Connection Marketing” and it WORKS when you allow it to.

CONNECT with the person –> CONNECT with their goals –> then CONNECT them to valuable information that will help them achieve them. Then most of the people Will then connect with your interests and be willing to help you with yours.

2) COMFORTABLE.

You must get the people on the social media sites COMFORTABLE with you.

How?

Talk about them, and how you can help them reach their goals and dreams- either with what you do, or with what you know. We call it “Comfortable Conversation(TM).” You must hold online “conversations” with people and get them comfortable with you, and comfortable with staying connected with you. You do this by talking about what THEY are interested in, and then you PROVE to them you are serious about adding value to their life.

It is ALL about Value in the social media arena. People expect Value in your messages and communication, and if you give them things that will help them in their endeavors, (blog posts on their industry, articles on doing what they do better, etc,) they will get very comfortable with you, and even helping you with YOUR endeavors. They will be moving towards you quickly if you practice that focus in your social media efforts.

3) CONSTRUCT.

Simply, in Social media Marketing, you must Construct a bridge between you and the person that eventually leads OFFLINE and onto the telephone.

THAT is the secret to Success in social media marketing. We call it the “TIO Factor.” Take It Offline and let the personalization begin.

You have connected with the person- in person-at least in voice.

You have gotten them comfortable with you by your interest in helping them achieve their goals.

Now you must construct a path that allows you to say, “What is your contact number? I would love to chat with you for real over the phone.” Then just do that. It may take a few days or a couple of weeks. But if you could pick up 10 new customers with this conversation would it be worth it?

Of course it would be. And how would you do that?

Ahhh–That is another article on Social Media Marketing Success.

blessings…doug

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