Google is a firm believer in testing multiple ad texts. But this tactic has been suggested ad nauseam. They suggest that the more you test, the better click-through rate you will ultimately achieve. In addition, they have been working on encouraging people to increase their list of keywords that they bid on. This is done through a link that the user can see at the keyword level. Adwords advertisers are quite familiar with this tool. It gives the advertiser ideas on new keywords to bid on. This is advantageous for both Google and the consumer. Google gets their average cost per click to inflate by encouraging more people to bid on less obvious keywords. The consumer benefits because they are served with relevant ads for much more terms that they might actually search for. Google helps the advertiser anticipate the consumer’s needs.

Going back to Click Through Rate (CTR) and testing different ad texts, Google has been recently trying five different texts to lead the advertiser to this keyword tool. The various ad texts are “More keywords, keyword tool, keyword helper, keyword generator, and keyword ideas.” Google is clearly practicing what they preach.

Ever heard of the eighty twenty rule? If you haven’t been living under a rock your whole life, you should have heard it by now.

This rule applies to the world of PPC, but not always in the way that you would expect. You’re probably assuming I would say that a small group of keywords will account for 80% of the conversions in a paid search account. The truth is, this is only partly correct. In most cases, a small group of keywords WILL account for 80% of the “spend” in an account. Now whether those expensive keywords actually lead to conversions is another story.

So then, what does the eighty twenty rule have to do with greedy keywords? Those keywords that drive a high amount of traffic (converting or non) will suck up the majority of the budget in a campaign. What does this mean to the campaign? If you have 50 keywords in a campaign that drive modest traffic and one keyword in the same campaign that is greedy, your 50 keywords might be missing valuable impressions. Adwords will sense that your budget could be depleted for that campaign before the end of the day, so it will refrain from showing ads with modest keywords that are less likely to drive traffic. Under campaign settings, you can set your ads to show at an accelerated pace but run the risk of missing impressions after lunch for those innocent 50 keywords that are not greedy.

Conceptually speaking, this is one of the reasons Adwords created the campaign level of organization in their structure. Ever heard the old saying, “I just want to get my piece of the pie?” Think of campaigns within Adwords as pies. The account is the basket that holds all of your campaigns, or pies. Furthermore, keywords are the ants that eat those pies. Assuming that each pie is the campaign budget, you want to make sure all the ants are getting their fill. If there were one ant that was especially hungry, that would mean that the rest of the ants in that pie would receive less.

Thankfully in the world of Adwords, one can make virtually as many pies as they wish. In addition, they can make the pies in any size they wish. If there happened to be a particularly hungry ant in your picnic basket, you can make a special pie just their size that they can have all to themselves. This leaves a seperate pie for all the other ants. If need be, you can put that greedy ant on a diet. If you have 50,000 ants to manage, you can always develop a special pie for the 15 greedy ants of the bunch.

If you haven’t gotten it already, the idea is to put the keywords that suck up most of your budget into separate campaigns so that you can segregate them from the keywords that do not take up much of your budget. Doing this will eliminate the problem of having all of your traffic intensive keywords suck up the budget, leaving the other keywords in your campaign inactive along with it. Many times people are missing out on conversions from the keywords that carry less volume of traffic. Many times these keywords convert at a higher percentage rate than the high traffic terms.

Return next Friday to find out why the eVisibility paid search team feels that Google is practicing what they preach!

There is a constant debate in the Internet marketing world about whether cost-per-click or search engine optimization will get a site more visitors. Both Internet marketing techniques have advantages and disadvantages. Here is a basic rundown of what each one entails and how each goes about getting visitors to your site:

Cost-per-click (CPC) is exactly what it sounds like. When a potential customer goes to a search engine and types in keywords that you have specified to match your business or service, links for your site will pop up. If they click on your ad, you must pay the search engine for that click. You must bid for your keywords; the more popular your keywords, the more each click will cost. The more money you pay for your keywords the higher your ads are placed within the CPC listings.

The biggest advantage of CPC is that it is quick. CPC will provide you with an immediate spike in qualified visitors, lead and sales to your site. You can see the results of CPC within days or even hours. CPC also gives you the ability to test your web site and track your conversion rates, leads, opt-ins and sales. CPC allows you to easily turn your keywords on and off as well.

The disadvantage to CPC is the cost involved. Depending on the traffic goals for your website and your keywords you can spend anywhere from $100 to $100,000 on CPC. If there is a high market demand for your keywords and clicks, your CPC campaign could generate tons of traffic but it would also cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per day.

Natural or “organic” search engine optimization (SEO) optimizes your web site and makes it more likeable in the eyes of search engines. SEO works by increasing your link popularity on the Internet and adjusting your web pages and keywords to give you higher rankings in the search engines for your chosen search terms. SEO works on getting you higher rankings within the natural search engine results rather than CPC ads.

An advantage of SEO is that searchers statistically click on natural search engine listings more than pay per click ads, so you will get much more traffic for less money. In addition, reciprocal and non-reciprocal links give lasting results that provide traffic increases for the long term instead of just spikes in traffic as in CPC.

A disadvantage of SEO is the time that it takes to generate links and adjust your web pages and keywords to get the high natural search rankings you would like to see. It can take at least three months to see any benefits from your SEO campaign.

Many people believe that the Internet marketing strategy you choose is just a matter of taste, but if you were dying of thirst in the desert, you wouldn’t hold out for a delicious icy cold drink that was more to your liking; you would buy the first cup of hot water you found because it would provide your desired results (to not be thirsty anymore) faster than to continue looking for another drink. The hot water would probably be more money than you would have liked to spend (because you’re in the middle of the desert), but it would tide you over until you found a place with cheaper, colder drinks.

As a short term Internet marketing strategy CPC has the clear advantage over SEO. However, an SEO campaign will increase your profit margins considerably over the long term. Ultimately, your goal should be to maximize your return on investment (ROI) through a combination of CPC and SEO. A CPC campaign is your best way to get fast results and a good return on investment while you are waiting for your SEO campaign to start getting long term results for your site.

If you have incorporated cost-per-click (CPC) into your Internet marketing campaign, you probably already know that it doesn’t always work in your favor. Because CPC has been on the market for a while now, all of the most common keywords and phrases have already been thought of and bought. If your company is in a very competitive online sector, you could find that the bid prices on common keywords and phrases are incredibly high and you’re still not even getting on the first page of ad results for these keywords.

The price of CPC is rising. Most common keyword areas are so competitive that they are impossible to penetrate if you have a limited budget. There is a way of staying within your budget while still increasing your chances of receiving clicks, however. If you want to be successful in your sector you have to be creative and capture niche searches. You want to find obscure keyword terms that are still pertinent to your service or product and use them in your CPC campaign.

When it comes down to all of the people on the Internet who use search engines to find the services or products they need, there is just as much search engine traffic (if not more search engine traffic) for all of your lower priced minor keywords and phrases bundled together as there is for the higher priced popular keywords and phrases. In other words, all the single clicks that you receive for more obscure keywords and phrases could actually get you more search engine traffic than if you spent your whole CPC budget on just one popular keyword or phrase.

While everyone with a CPC campaign has been told to use a wide range of keywords and phrases, most of them take the easy way out and use keyword tools for their sector. These keyword tools are so common however that many other marketers use the same keyword lists in their campaigns. Therefore, the so called “obscure” keywords and phrases rise in price just as high as the more common keywords and phrases.

The best way to find keywords and phrases that really are obscure, but will get you lots of traffic, is to do lots of research. Carefully look through your website traffic logs looking for organic search engine referral keywords and phrases. These are the keywords and phrases that people used to find your website under organic searches. You know that these keywords obviously work for getting people to your site, so use these terms in your CPC campaign. Search the traffic logs for every page that you have on your website to find original keyword data from your organic listings.

If you see a few search engine referrals for a term that you think may be too obscure, it’s still usable. Write an article on the same topic, using those words and phrases and then post it on your website. You can then watch for the search engine referrals that your new article page produces and include the new keywords in your CPC campaign. You can also use dates, prices, and/or city names in your CPC keyword list if you see them popping up in your traffic logs frequently.

In conclusion, there are two things to keep in mind when developing a Search Engine Marketing CPC campaign: Do your research and be original. Always keep track of your website traffic logs. You can always expand on common referral keywords and phrases by using synonyms even for the more obscure keywords. In addition, keep track of how well your CPC keywords and phrases are doing. If something is working particularly well, keep it and try to find similar keywords. If a keyword isn’t working, just cut it and move on. Not all of your keywords can be winners, you just need to keep doing your research and you will find success in your CPC campaign.