Local Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing Services, Consulting, Management. | Local PPC Blog

Companies and Web site owners interested in adding pay per click management to their online advertising budgets may wish to employ the services of a firm specializing in PPC programs. While some businesses maintain strong marketing departments, work with certain types of online ads do require a special brand of know-how that comes with prolonged exposure to advertising models used by Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. That each of the major search engines offers certification for users says much about the importance of experience.

Hiring PPC Management vs. In-House

Think of your own business and the methods employed in hiring new workers and integrating them into the company. Do you have training procedures, or orientation seminars? Depending on the scope of your business, training could take time, and it does cost money. Now consider having to train workers to better handle new paradigms in marketing. To ensure excellent service in pay per click advertising, you will want your employees to work at certified level.

Or, you can outsource a local PPC firm with certification to handle the work for you while your marketing department oversees the reports and approves the budget. You save the time it would normally take for your workers to become familiar with AdWords, and your marketers can concentrate on other aspects of work. Training for certification can become a gradual process while your PPC firm kick-starts the program.

PPC Advertising vs. Other Media

Why do Google and Yahoo and others offer certification at all? PPC advertising vastly differs from other media – with print and broadcast marketing one can deliver a message with impact using imagery and sound. PPC text ads offer an abbreviated space to relay a message, and the words used must be chosen carefully. Not only will the ad’s words determine whether or not a visitor clicks through to a site, but the relevancy of the ad on the keywords bid can determine the overall cost of the ad. Training to better understand how the ads work can help you not only craft an ad that works, but help you get the most out of your daily spends.

If your marketing department has no certified ad consultants on staff, outsourcing a firm specializing in AdWords and other search programs is a good way to maintain a successful PPC campaign for your business. Let those who know which words to use create the ads that drive your traffic.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising firms and professional SEO writers.

If you are determined to maintain a successful Google AdWords campaign, sometimes it’s best to think “negatively.” We don’t mean this literally, of course, but rather encourage pay per click managers to take advantage of the program’s use of negative keywords.

What Are Negative Keywords?

Google Adwords applies this term to words and phrases one doesn’t wish to trigger an ad impression. Let’s say, for example, you have a campaign to advertise your collectibles shop. You have set up ads to promote baseball cards, but don’t wish to attract people looking for other types of trading cards. Consequently, you don’t want to waste bid money on phrases that may bring up your ad when searched by people not looking for baseball cards. Setting your negative keywords can help prevent the unnecessary impressions.

So in your keyword list, you might add “-pokemon” or “-movie” to filter out searches for these kinds of trading cards.

Using Negative Keywords

Setting up negative keywords in your ad campaigns is quite simple. They may be included in each individual ad group, or set to affect the campaign as a whole. Depending on how you wish to see your ads perform, you may want to limit specific words to ad groups, so as to better manage performance. Google provides a tool within the Adwords program to assist you in determining which words are best to use.

By customizing your PPC advertising to filter out certain words and phrases, you provide for a more streamlined online ad campaign that can reduce the cost per click on your ads, and in turn raise the return on investment. You will attract visitors truly looking for the products and services you offer, and your bids won’t go to waste.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising and professional SEO writing services.

If you’re contemplating entering the world of pay per click advertising to boost your business, no doubt you’ve read a number of articles explaining how to get the most out of your budget and how to optimize your ads for maximum exposure. You might find the advice is similar across the board, but not every column or article focuses on the major mistakes that could cost you money and turn your campaigns into an ineffective waste of time. PPC advertising may prove cheaper than other avenues of paid promotion, but if you don’t do it correctly you’ll find the money isn’t well spent.

So how can you really mess up your PPC program? If you know what not to do to succeed, it’s quite easy.

Use one ad for the entire campaign – Especially for multi-faceted businesses, keeping one ad to sustain a PPC campaign is a killer. You’re forced to squeeze the whole scope of your company into three short lines, thereby risking the loss of click-throughs by people searching for something specific.

Target only one demographic – If you’re business caters to more than one geographic target, putting all your PPC eggs in one region alienates would-be customers from other places you serve. Online businesses with a nationwide reach, too, stand the chance of losing visitors who utilize local search to find products and services.

Don’t create landing pages for ads – Let’s say you do use multiple ads in your campaign. Sending all ads to the same Web page, whether relevant or not, could result in a drop in visitors. People click on ads and expect to be taken right where they want to be, without having to mine through pages. Forcing people to search further only irritates, it doesn’t convert.

Don’t use proper keywords in the title – Assuming a person uses “baseball cards” in search, he’s likely to click on an ad that uses that phrase in the title. Placing irrelevant keywords in the title – especially your company’s name, if it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with your line of business – will probably cause people to scroll past your ad.

So pay attention to these tips, and do the exact opposite to ensure you don’t fall into any traps.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising and SEO writing services.

If you’re ready to enter the exciting world of online advertising, congratulations! Pay per click ad sponsorship through Google Adwords especially is a cost-effective way to promote your Web site, and if run well your campaigns can increase traffic and customers to your business. Knowing the steps to running a successful ad program will assist in getting the most for your daily spends – that means not only creating quality ads but knowing where to present them and through which keywords you wish to advertise.

For novices in the PPC game, there are several Web sites available for detailed instructions on launching an eye-catching campaign. Ultimately, though, most advise on good paid marketing boils down to these five important tips to ensure you get the most out of your money.

Maintain focus on Google’s search network – To attract the people you know are searching for your relevant keywords, you want to be sure you place your ads where the search happens. Buying space through Adsense, where ads are placed on similar Web sites, can increase visibility and awareness of your brand, but ultimately the bulk of your referrals are going to come from where people are actively searching for information. Concentrate on the search network to build your audience.

Know your target audiences and how to sell to them – Think about your business: do you cater mainly to the people in your immediate geographic area, or do you serve a broader base that extends throughout the country? If the latter, more than likely you create different ads for print campaign to attract different demographics. The same practice should apply to your PPC ads. Campaigns for local, regional, and national audiences should be created separately because you will use different keywords to attract customers and clients.

Separate Ad Groups for maximum performance – If your business deals in multiple services, for example a restaurant that also caters events and retails food products, you will want to separate each facet of your company into its own ad group on Adwords. Each group should focus on one aspect, and perhaps further split the available services – a group for dining in, a group for catering weddings, a group for catering reunions, and so forth – to better draw in traffic from paid search. Be sure, too, to have a proper landing page prepared for each group to increase the quality of your ads.

Generate keywords! As you prepare your campaigns, you may have a specific number in mind. Here is where you can have some fun and take advantage of Google’s keyword tool to help you generate multitudes of probable searches. Don’t limit yourself when you make your bids, for even the most obvious search phrases may not bring in the traffic you’d expect. The more keywords you use for an ad group, the better you can test what works and what doesn’t for your advertising.

Test different ads for effective marketing – You wouldn’t use the same ad over and again for different print campaigns, so the same rings true for Adwords. Create at least two different ads per group and study their performances, tweaking as necessary to build click-throughs.

Take note of these tips as you begin your PPC advertising, and make good use of the free tools available through Google Adwords to help with your success. You just may find online advertising will quickly pay for itself.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising and professional SEO writing services.

One concern expressed by clients employing a service to handle their Google AdWords PPC advertising is the question of spreading campaigns too thinly. For companies and businesses dealing in multiple ventures, especially, are aware of their budgets and interested in maximizing pay per click ads to the best use, while at the same they want to be certain the money is spent wisely. When you consider how companies budget advertising in other media, the realm of online advertising offers a bit of diversity, and it can be easy to get lost in multiple campaigns.

When to Consider Multiple Campaigns in AdWords

Say you operate a retail business specializing in collectibles. Between trading cards and action figures, plush toys and autographs, you have a wide range of keywords on which to draw when planning online ads. A general ad for your collectibles store may not attract the level of traffic you desire when you consider that collectors will use the Internet to search for specific objects, so in this case it is good to have different campaigns highlighting your products.

• Sports cards
• Sports memorabilia
• Plush toys
• Dolls
• Movie memorabilia

On the other hand, if your business is limited to two primary purposes or products, there may not be a need spread out your advertising dollars. The owner of a camping store, for example, may wish to focus on ads detailing camping equipment in general, as customers searching for these items are apt to buy several different things for a trip.

One Ad Per Keyword?

In order to retain high quality ratings in Google (and consequently lower bid prices on desired keywords), PPC managers will keep keyword bids as close to the ad text as possible. The more relevant the keywords are to the ad, naturally the less you will be charged as Internet users click through to your site (or a landing page tailored to your ad). This may beg the question: how detailed should your keyword lists be? Going back to the sports collectibles example, if you only deal in baseball cards, do you want to split your campaign into several ads, each representing a different team:

• Atlanta Braves keywords for an Atlanta Braves card ad
• New York Yankees keywords for a Yankees card ad
• and so on…

In the realm of PPC advertising, there really are no right or wrong answers, as each company must tailor ad plans to suit their budgets and other needs. The best recourse is to experiment with campaigns and ads, monitoring closely to see where the successes happen. The more you learn about how AdWords can work for you, the better return on investment you’re likely to see.

If you are new to pay per click advertising, chances are you haven’t quite grasped the lingo associated with it. You may be aware that as you bid on keywords relevant to your business, your goal is to spend as little money as possible for the highest visibility for your ads. The better the quality of your ad, the more affordable PPC becomes for your campaigns. Click-throughs from the ads to your site are recorded to give you an idea of how well the ads perform, but there is another statistic you should study as you spend. This is the conversion rate.

What is a PPC Conversion Rate?

When an Internet user sees your ad and clicks through to your site, you have a visitor. When that same visitor performs a function on your website, such as purchase a product or fill out a form, you have a conversion. A conversion is a goal you set for your website, and as a PPC program like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing can record visits and money spent, they can be set up to track activity by all users come to visit via the paid ads. A conversion need not be an actual sale, but can record a variety of actions you wish to see accomplished by site visitors:

• Signing up to an opt-in newsletter
• Filling out an online form for information
• Registering online for an event
• Downloading a PDF document or freeware
• Registering to a message board

As each task is completed, the conversion is recorded and your PPC management dashboard will note the conversion rate compared with the actual number of visits to your site from the paid ads. Most PPC programs will allow you to set more than one conversion goal to track for your campaigns, so you can compare which ads are more effective achieving the results you want for your site and business.

What should your conversion goal be? Consider your website and how you want it to function for you. If you sell online, most assuredly actual purchases are one goal to attain. Collecting customer information for future promotions could be another. If you run a non-profit, you may wish to track visitors who leave information or sign an online petition. Only you know for certain what your site should do for you.

As for what is a good conversion rate, this is also dependent on the type of work and the scope of your business. A small company garnering a 1% conversion might not look successful, but if you factor how much is spent and how many ads are distributed, this small percentage could easily compare to a larger site enjoying a 6% rate. In short, as businesses have different models, so will the mark of success differ. Determine what is good for you and work from there. Hiring the expertise of a PPC management firm can help you plan a conversion goal strategy that works for you.

K. Lively

As you plan your pay per click campaign, whether your budget ranges from fifty to several hundred dollars a month, it is important to consider the destination of potential visitors via Google AdWords, Yahoo Search, or anywhere else you set up shop. The saying holds true, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You can bid on the most common keywords relevant to your business, wow browsers with a compelling ad, but if the resulting website is confusing or unrelated to the pitch, you risk losing the sale and repeat business.

It can be argued that from this line of thought the concept of “landing pages” became popular with site owners. Create an ad campaign around a specific product that represents one part of your overall site, then mock up a special webpage relevant just to that information. Say you run an online sporting goods store and wish to promote baseball equipment because it’s your biggest selling line. Rather than direct potential buyers to a general front page, you might want to construct an all baseball category showcasing the equipment and lead visitors directly there. This saves potential customers time in searching through your site, but it can also help you with your advertising budget.

As prices on keywords fluctuate, you will find you will pay one price on a keyword depending on it’s popularity and the relevancy of your site content. Particularly with Google AdWords, this holds true. Optimize a landing page to match the content of your ad, and you increase the chances for a high quality score with Google. In the long run, this could make your PPC budget more managable, and you’ll get more for your advertising dollar.

How much information goes on a landing page geared for click-through visitors? Optimize it as you would any normal page on your site. Especially if you are in e-commerce, you want the point of sale positioned no more than a click away from the main content. You have captured your audience with this content, and you do not want to lose them through a endless series of unnecessary linkage.

Plan your PPC campaigns as you would plan the creation of a whole new site. Keep landing pages for your ads topical and easily navigible. Attract the customers and land the sale.

K. Lively