It seems so easy and tempting to set up a Google Adwords campaign but without some careful pay per click campaign management your campaign is doomed to fail. Here are the 6 basic mistakes newcomers make when first attempting an Adwords campaign:
1. Only one Adword campaign is set up.
2. Only one Adword Group is set up under the campaign.
3. After some initial keyword research all the relevant keywords are taken and copy/pasted directly into this one Adword group.
4. No negative keywords
5. One advertisement is written.
6. This advertisement links directly to the homepage of the website.
Well, if the above sounds remotely familiar I suggest you read on as you will find some tips on how to continue your pay per click campaign management.
I guarantee an increase of traffic, click-through rates and conversions if you follow these guidelines.
Set up multiple campaigns and adgroups targeting small sections of your business. For example if you sell toys you could split your campaigns and groups for the type of audience you are targeting such as adults, teenagers, toddlers and babies, and then split these once again for the adgroups into more specific groups. These could be board games, outside games, soft toys, educational toys etc.
Make a list of negative keywords. You will want to remove unrelated words such as "free" etc.
Under each of the above adgroups you will add small numbers of related keywords. Select the keywords carefully and make sure they are all really related to one another.
Once you have the adgroups and keywords in place you need to start writing relevant ads. Your ads should be using the keywords that you have placed within the particular adgroup. This and the landing page content will affect the quality score that Google applies to each keyword.
Now you need to write some compelling ads with a call-to-action. Give a really good reason why the visitor should click your ad and not another one.
Don’t link your ad to your homepage. Each ad should link directly to the relevant page on your website or to a dedicated landing page that has been written using the specific keywords you are purchasing. As I mentioned above this is critical in order to get a high quality score from Google but not only that, more visitors will convert if your landing page is relevant to the keyword and advertisement.
Note that a higher quality score can mean you lower your cost per click and you get listed higher in the search results.
Make sure your landing pages have a strong and very obvious call-to-action. Get your visitors to take action now that they have landed on your page.
Once you have all the above running you need to continually check your keywords. Delete expensive or under performing keywords. Monitor your ads. Once again delete under performing ads and write new ads based on the better performing ones.
If all the above seems like a lot of work and you don’t have the time to run these campaigns properly in order to optimize them fully, why not get a free assessment of your present campaign setup or request assistance with your pay per click campaign management from SEO PPC Plus.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Making the Most of Your Thank You Pages
Are you just thanking your visitor for completing a form or are you making the most of your thank you pages and optmizing them for further success?
If you look at the thank you page statistics after your website visitors have completed a form I think you might be surprised. Your visitors will tend to remain on the thank you page much longer than you might expect. If this is the case then why not take advantage of it. Keep your company in touch with your visitors automatically by offering them some extra value. After all, you probably worked really hard to get your visitor to complete this form so make the most of it.
Along with the usual “thank you” statement, whether it is for purchasing, downloading or requesting something on your website, add some additional content with links that will keep you effortlessly and automatically in contact with your visitor.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Blogs – if you have relevant company blogs why not supply a link to them.
2. RSS Feeds - if you are not offering RSS feeds to regularly updated content on your website then you should definitely consider adding this functionality. This is especially useful for Press Releases, Events and Blogs.
3. Newsletters – you possibly requested an opt-in on the form your visitor just completed, however, if you didn’t then maybe you send out regular newsletters that your visitors could subscribe to. This will be an easy way to keep them updated on your latest news and/or offers.
4. Special Offers – depending on how your forms are set up you might already know what type of form your visitor completed and therefore perhaps you could offer him an additional relevant item at a special discount price.
Think of ways to keep your visitors engaged even though theoretically they just did what you were hoping they would do – leave their details via a form. Just use your imagination and make your visitors experience an extra special one. If you do, not only have you found an extra way to keep in touch but you will stand out from the crowd.
Just use your imagination....
If you look at the thank you page statistics after your website visitors have completed a form I think you might be surprised. Your visitors will tend to remain on the thank you page much longer than you might expect. If this is the case then why not take advantage of it. Keep your company in touch with your visitors automatically by offering them some extra value. After all, you probably worked really hard to get your visitor to complete this form so make the most of it.
Along with the usual “thank you” statement, whether it is for purchasing, downloading or requesting something on your website, add some additional content with links that will keep you effortlessly and automatically in contact with your visitor.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Blogs – if you have relevant company blogs why not supply a link to them.
2. RSS Feeds - if you are not offering RSS feeds to regularly updated content on your website then you should definitely consider adding this functionality. This is especially useful for Press Releases, Events and Blogs.
3. Newsletters – you possibly requested an opt-in on the form your visitor just completed, however, if you didn’t then maybe you send out regular newsletters that your visitors could subscribe to. This will be an easy way to keep them updated on your latest news and/or offers.
4. Special Offers – depending on how your forms are set up you might already know what type of form your visitor completed and therefore perhaps you could offer him an additional relevant item at a special discount price.
Think of ways to keep your visitors engaged even though theoretically they just did what you were hoping they would do – leave their details via a form. Just use your imagination and make your visitors experience an extra special one. If you do, not only have you found an extra way to keep in touch but you will stand out from the crowd.
Just use your imagination....
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Questions to ask web designers before hiring them based on their design capabilities
So many times clients have approached me to help them promote their website and I have to send them back to their web design company to make significant changes to the code, the reason being that my client just didn’t have the knowledge to know exactly what to demand from the designer apart from a pretty website.
My clients were initially impressed with examples of sites with beautiful images, Flash, music etc., and they just assume that this is all it takes to have a successful website.
Before you get swept off your feet with examples from your web designer of some snazzy designs ask yourself when was the last time you clicked the back button on a website because you didn’t like the way it looked. I would assume in most cases the answer would be never, so don’t choose your web designer only based on the designs they offer you.
Here are some initial questions to ask your potential web design company.
1. Can I edit every part of every page on the site?
Even though your web design company would, in many cases, love you to be totally dependent on them forever for every change you want to make to your website you will eventually want to make changes yourself, and will not want to pay or wait for these updates. Ask your web designer if you will be able to edit every single element on every page without their assistance. This means text, images, Flash etc.
2, Can I add a new page to the website without assistance from you?
Even though initially you might think you have written the perfect website content and what else could you possibly want to add, you will be surprised how quickly you will realize that content is king and you will want to add additional pages to your existing website. Make sure that you don’t need the web design company in order to do this.
3. Can I edit the title tag and meta data for every page on the site?
Even if you don’t really understand the meaning of the terms title tag and meta data you must demand that you have total control over these for every page of your website. These are extremely important elements for the search engines. You don’t want every page on your site to have the same title tag as this is where you will add the main keyword the page is optimized for.
4. Does the CMS enable search engine friendly URL’s?
If your site is built so that you can update the content yourself then it is probably built on some sort of Content Management System. Usually when you add a new page to a website via a Content Management Systems you will end up with a very unfriendly URL for example www.mynewwebsitedesignxxx.com/products?id=4809. Firstly this is not the sort of URL the majority of human beings will remember and even the search engines prefer more meaningful URL’s. Make sure that you have the ability to change this. Isn’t www.mynewwebsitedesignxxx.com/myproductbrand so much easier on the eye and probably so much easier for your prospects and customers to remember?
5. Will the site be built in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)?
Most websites are redesigned at one time or another and having the site built using CSS will make it very simple to change the style by just updating these files, and not having to update every page of your website. Another huge advantage of CSS is that these files are not part of the code on your page which means your page will load a lot faster.
6. Will the website be built using Frames?
Again this might not mean much to you, however, if your web design company builds your site in Frames, apart from your homepage the search engines will probably not find any of the content on any of the inner pages. You definitely do not want to work with a web designer who builds in Frames.
7. Will my website be viewable on all browsers?
Websites should be built taking into consideration all the major browsers. If this is not the case some of your visitors might be getting their first bad impression of your business as elements might not be placed where you intended, and text could be garbled or cut off as it could be partly covered by other text or images.
Of course there are plenty of other questions you will need to ask your potential web designer, however, if they answer favorably to the questions above then they are probably not just graphic designers pretending to be web experts and also are not attempting to make you totally dependent on them for future updates.
Good luck!
My clients were initially impressed with examples of sites with beautiful images, Flash, music etc., and they just assume that this is all it takes to have a successful website.
Before you get swept off your feet with examples from your web designer of some snazzy designs ask yourself when was the last time you clicked the back button on a website because you didn’t like the way it looked. I would assume in most cases the answer would be never, so don’t choose your web designer only based on the designs they offer you.
Here are some initial questions to ask your potential web design company.
1. Can I edit every part of every page on the site?
Even though your web design company would, in many cases, love you to be totally dependent on them forever for every change you want to make to your website you will eventually want to make changes yourself, and will not want to pay or wait for these updates. Ask your web designer if you will be able to edit every single element on every page without their assistance. This means text, images, Flash etc.
2, Can I add a new page to the website without assistance from you?
Even though initially you might think you have written the perfect website content and what else could you possibly want to add, you will be surprised how quickly you will realize that content is king and you will want to add additional pages to your existing website. Make sure that you don’t need the web design company in order to do this.
3. Can I edit the title tag and meta data for every page on the site?
Even if you don’t really understand the meaning of the terms title tag and meta data you must demand that you have total control over these for every page of your website. These are extremely important elements for the search engines. You don’t want every page on your site to have the same title tag as this is where you will add the main keyword the page is optimized for.
4. Does the CMS enable search engine friendly URL’s?
If your site is built so that you can update the content yourself then it is probably built on some sort of Content Management System. Usually when you add a new page to a website via a Content Management Systems you will end up with a very unfriendly URL for example www.mynewwebsitedesignxxx.com/products?id=4809. Firstly this is not the sort of URL the majority of human beings will remember and even the search engines prefer more meaningful URL’s. Make sure that you have the ability to change this. Isn’t www.mynewwebsitedesignxxx.com/myproductbrand so much easier on the eye and probably so much easier for your prospects and customers to remember?
5. Will the site be built in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)?
Most websites are redesigned at one time or another and having the site built using CSS will make it very simple to change the style by just updating these files, and not having to update every page of your website. Another huge advantage of CSS is that these files are not part of the code on your page which means your page will load a lot faster.
6. Will the website be built using Frames?
Again this might not mean much to you, however, if your web design company builds your site in Frames, apart from your homepage the search engines will probably not find any of the content on any of the inner pages. You definitely do not want to work with a web designer who builds in Frames.
7. Will my website be viewable on all browsers?
Websites should be built taking into consideration all the major browsers. If this is not the case some of your visitors might be getting their first bad impression of your business as elements might not be placed where you intended, and text could be garbled or cut off as it could be partly covered by other text or images.
Of course there are plenty of other questions you will need to ask your potential web designer, however, if they answer favorably to the questions above then they are probably not just graphic designers pretending to be web experts and also are not attempting to make you totally dependent on them for future updates.
Good luck!
Friday, February 16, 2007
Why are Frames Bad
When you start to wonder how come you have such a wonderful website and yet your pages are not getting indexed by the search engine, I suggest the first thing you do is check that your website is not written in frames.
It is very easy to check this and all you need to do is go to the
"View" link at the top of the browser, left click it and click "source". If you only see a few lines of code in the source that use the word "frameset" and you don't see the actual content of your web page, it means that your site is written in Frames.
Frames are bad as they don't enable the search engines to read the content of your web pages nor follow the links from one page to another. The search engines see basically what you see in the view, source mentioned above.
What can you do? Well, I suggest you go back to your programmer and tell him to write your site so it is not in frames.
Another way to check whether your website is written in frames is to look at the URL as you click from one page to another. If all your pages have the same URL it might be that your site is in Frames, though other things could cause this too. Whatever the cause this is really bad for the search engines as they cannot distinguish between, or list the various pages on your website.
It is very easy to check this and all you need to do is go to the
"View" link at the top of the browser, left click it and click "source". If you only see a few lines of code in the source that use the word "frameset" and you don't see the actual content of your web page, it means that your site is written in Frames.
Frames are bad as they don't enable the search engines to read the content of your web pages nor follow the links from one page to another. The search engines see basically what you see in the view, source mentioned above.
What can you do? Well, I suggest you go back to your programmer and tell him to write your site so it is not in frames.
Another way to check whether your website is written in frames is to look at the URL as you click from one page to another. If all your pages have the same URL it might be that your site is in Frames, though other things could cause this too. Whatever the cause this is really bad for the search engines as they cannot distinguish between, or list the various pages on your website.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Title Tag Optimization
Over the last few days I have been asked by friends to check out websites they have either had designed, or sites by designers they are thinking of employing to design a new website. It never fails to shock me that most web designers here in Israel do not take into consideration SEO and even the simplest thing, title tag optimization, is totally neglected.
I wonder how much money is landing in these so-called web designers pockets, when all they have done is use some design knowledge they have acquired, and decided to go into the web design field. A print designer needs a lot of additional knowledge to become a web designer.
Anyone reading this article who is thinking about designing a website for their company, or has a website and can't understand why the pages are not appearing in the major search engines, should start at looking at the text that appears right at the top of the browser window as you click through your site, or a site that the web design company has already completed.
Don't get me wrong, this is certainly not the only thing that is probably wrong with the website, but it is certainly a start. Another big factor is that the web designer has built your site in Frames - but that is a topic for another blog on another day.
I wonder how much money is landing in these so-called web designers pockets, when all they have done is use some design knowledge they have acquired, and decided to go into the web design field. A print designer needs a lot of additional knowledge to become a web designer.
Anyone reading this article who is thinking about designing a website for their company, or has a website and can't understand why the pages are not appearing in the major search engines, should start at looking at the text that appears right at the top of the browser window as you click through your site, or a site that the web design company has already completed.
Don't get me wrong, this is certainly not the only thing that is probably wrong with the website, but it is certainly a start. Another big factor is that the web designer has built your site in Frames - but that is a topic for another blog on another day.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
SEO experts and Consultants Israel
Doing a little research on Trellian today made me realize that there are lot of people in Israel looking for SEO experts and consultants. On the one hand this makes me very happy. At long last people in Israel are understanding the advantages of SEO. However, on the other hand it worries me. I hope all those people out there claiming to be experts really are just that.
I have to admit that I haven't found that many around in Israel, but I have found a few who fool clients into thinking they are experts and charge a large monthly fee for doing nothing.
When you start interviewing experts and consultants ask them if they guarantee results. If they do, then start getting suspicious. Well, maybe I have exaggerated slightly here. If your site has no title tags, the code is in frames or Flash then, yes, anyone with a little SEO knowledge will make a difference. However, if the expert guarantees you top 10 results in the top search engines then look for another company.
I have seen people being tricked into this when the experts prove to them that they have top 10 listings for certain phrases. However, if you were to write a page optimized for the phrase "big doors are good for big people" then you too would probably get listed in the top ten when you enter this phrase into the search engines. Think about it...
I have to admit that I haven't found that many around in Israel, but I have found a few who fool clients into thinking they are experts and charge a large monthly fee for doing nothing.
When you start interviewing experts and consultants ask them if they guarantee results. If they do, then start getting suspicious. Well, maybe I have exaggerated slightly here. If your site has no title tags, the code is in frames or Flash then, yes, anyone with a little SEO knowledge will make a difference. However, if the expert guarantees you top 10 results in the top search engines then look for another company.
I have seen people being tricked into this when the experts prove to them that they have top 10 listings for certain phrases. However, if you were to write a page optimized for the phrase "big doors are good for big people" then you too would probably get listed in the top ten when you enter this phrase into the search engines. Think about it...
Monday, January 1, 2007
Website Design
So many newbies make the mistake of diving into designing a website with a web designer. That is fine if the web designer understands about search engine optimization. If he doesn't you will probably be throwing a lot of money down the drain.
Some important things to remember:
1. Do not let your web designer convince you that Flash sites are the most attractive. If there is no alternative to the Flash content the search engines will not be able to read the page content, which in turn means you will not appear in the search engines.
2. Make sure the website is not going to be written in Frames. If this jargon is new to you, a simple way to check is to go to the top of the browser and click view and select source. If you can see all the code and content of the page in the source, then the site is not in Frames. If you can only see some code but none of the content, you should be very concerned
Some important things to remember:
1. Do not let your web designer convince you that Flash sites are the most attractive. If there is no alternative to the Flash content the search engines will not be able to read the page content, which in turn means you will not appear in the search engines.
2. Make sure the website is not going to be written in Frames. If this jargon is new to you, a simple way to check is to go to the top of the browser and click view and select source. If you can see all the code and content of the page in the source, then the site is not in Frames. If you can only see some code but none of the content, you should be very concerned
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