Sunday, June 8, 2008

How Laser Focused Ad Groups Save You Money

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Marketing is all about focusing, otherwise you end up wasting a lot of time and money. We focus on a niche. We focus on a demographic. We focus on a geographic area. The list goes on.

It’s no different for PPC. Money will be wasted in ad groups whose “themes” aren’t tightly focused. Recently, I tested this out for myself and found this to be the plain and simple truth.

I began with a decently targeted ad group. An example is as follows: (these are only the keywords of a fake ad group to illustrate the point)

Ad group: Miami bicycle

Keywords: Miami bicycle

Miami bicycles

Miami bicycle wheel

Miami bicycle wheels

Miami bicycle seat

Miami bicycle seats

Miami bicycle handle

Miami bicycle handles

In this example you can see that the theme is Miami bicycle and that every keyword phrase has “Miami” and “bicycle” in it. So the quality score might be “Good” and have a minimum bid of 10 cents. But I wanted the quality score to improve to lower the minimum bid - to 5 cents for example - and lower the CPC (cost per click). So I broke them up into much tighter themes. For example:

Ad group: Miami bicycle wheel

Keywords: Miami bicycle wheel

Miami bicycle wheels

Now I can get much more specific with my landing page and my ad to reinforce these keywords which will improve my quality score all around. In the first example, there are just too many secondary words to fit into one ad. So by tightening the themes, I can taylor a visitors experience from, the moment they search for the relevant “Miami bicycle wheels”, to the ad they see in the results that talks about “Miami bicycle wheels”, and finally to the landing page I’ve created specifically for “Miami bicycle wheels” once they’ve clicked the ad.

This is just a basic example of having focused ad groups. There are more advanced methods which will be discussed later. If you don’t believe this method to be true, I challenge you to test it out on one ad group and look at the quality score when you are done. Remember, focusing the ad group means, focused keywords, focused ads, and focused landing page. The results will make you spend countless hours restructuring your campaigns if you are anything like me. Cheers!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Search Engine Pay Per Click Training

If you are looking for a way to make sure that you and your online business don't get lost in the crowd and if you want to really sell yourself online, you will find that search engines and pay per click marketing is the way to go. Many people hear these terms and immediately flinch, thinking that they are going to be hugely complicated and difficult to grasp, but the truth is, with a little bit of work they are easily understood and can be used to great effect, even by people who have never tried them before.

The first thing you need to know is what these marketing devices are and what they can do for you. When thinking about search engine marketing, you need to be aware of the fact that these days, the internet is difficult, if not impossible to navigate without the use of search engines like Google and Yahoo. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise when you realise that the vast majority of sales made online are preceded by the use of a search engine. It is easy to see then why you want to make the search engine think that you have the material that is most relevant to the searches that people are doing!

Pay per click advertising on the other hand, is advertising that you can pay for, which have concrete results; it is less prone to fluctuation than other forms of search engine marketing. You will find that with pay per click advertising (also referred to as PPC) you will have a small ad that is placed on a search engine result page or on a website. When someone sees your link and clicks it, you will be charged a few pence. This is a great form of advertising due to the fact that it creates a direct relation between people coming to visit your site and what you pay for.

When you are looking to become more proficient in this type of marketing, you will find that there are a few avenues that you can take. Google, for example, will offer certification on how to proficiently use its AdWords campaign and you will find plenty of tutorials online on how to make the most of your pay per click advertising. Similarly, you will find that one of the most useful points with pay per click is that because you can see the results of your ads so easily that you will learn through very fast trial and error what makes a good ad and what doesn't.

When you are looking for training into how to become proficient at this form of advertisement, you will find that there are plenty of resources open to you. This is a powerful form of advertising that can reach out and help you touch a wide demographic, so don't be left out. You will also find there are lots of benefits to this type of marketing and that it can bring you a great deal of business that you would never see otherwise.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who represents many UK businesses. For advice on Pay per Click training, he recommends Impact Media Ltd, one of the UK's leading specialists of Pay per Click.