|
|
|
Birds of a Feather May Be Turkeys
Birds of a feather do flock together. It's true. Given a choice, most of us will seek out people who think like we do, people with whom we feel comfortable, those we won't quarrel with. Visit any company cafeteria and you will notice that the...
Fueling the Fire of Your Star Performers
by Carole Nicolaides © 2002 http://www.progressiveleadership.com Mary was a successful senior executive working for a large insurance company. She was the person that you wanted to have when things did not go well. Everybody loved her for her...
Laws of Marketing – The 10 Immutable
Most marketers believe that anything is achievable if you are energetic, creative or determined enough. But laws of marketing follow laws of business, and if you violate them, you risk your marketing dollars. The conventional answer to all...
Managing Creativity and Innovation part 1 of 2
Leaders, consultants and managers must be competent in at least thirteen domains to even begin effectively managing creativity and innovation. Part 1 of Managing Creativity and Innovation covers the first seven of these domains. a) The difference...
Six Lessons for Getting in the “Right Mindset” For Starting Your Own Business
Believe it or not your childhood attitude towards a fence shapes your business mindset. As you’ll learn from my experience starting a business, having the right mindset is the key to being an entrepreneur. It’s all about being a fence hopper...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Managing a Responsible Pay-Per-Click Campaign
OVERVIEW
What is PPC?
Pay-Per-Click is a paid form of advertising, popularized mostly by the "search engine" GoTo (now called Overture). The concept is fairly simple. Businesses bid to be placed at or near the top of the search results for particular keyword phrases. The bidding is done on a "per-click" basis, meaning that a company pays a specific amount every time the engine sends them a visitor. In addition, the top results on Overture also show up in the results of many of the popular search engines (usually listed as "sponsored" or "featured" results). Google has also recently come up with a similar version of PPC (AdWords Select) that has taken over some of the engines that used to display Overture results (most notably AOL Search).
Advantages
Pay-Per-Click campaigns have some advantages over traditional search engine optimization. First of all, they require no changes to a current site's content or look to obtain top positions, just a willingness to pay. Also, the implementation of a pay-per-click campaign is relatively quick- it can take just a few minutes to start getting targeted traffic, versus sometimes months for standard SEO campaigns. Finally, unlike search engine optimization, the implementation of a PPC campaign is relatively easy and does not necessarily require any specialized knowledge (although experience with search engine marketing and keyword research is a definite advantage).
Limitations
Of course, there are limitations to this type of advertising. New bids can lower the positions of other firms, and many will react by raising their bid to regain a previous ranking. Monitoring of positions becomes crucial. These campaigns can also become prohibitively expensive, depending on the competitiveness of the keyword phrases and the aggressiveness of the competition. In addition, many of the "savvier" search engine users have learned to recognize PPC results as paid advertising and bypass them without consideration.
THE PROCESS
Determining Visitor Worth
Determining how much each website visitor is worth is vital to the success of a pay-per-click campaign. If it costs $50 in click-throughs to make a $40 sale, the campaign has failed. The formula is relatively simple, but some specific historical data is necessary. In the most rudimentary form, it is the profit from the website over a given period divided by the number of total visitors for the same period. If a site netted $1000 in profits from goods or services in a given period, and there were 2,000 visitors during the same period, each would theoretically be worth 50 cents (profit divided by visitors). But this is only the breakeven point. Depending on the desired profit margin, the optimal price to pay per click would probably be something much less than 50 cents. Popular keyword phrases can often run more than this, so it then makes sense to bid less money on less popular terms to pay an acceptable amount per visitor.
Selecting Keyphrases:
As with typical search engine optimization, keyword research is critical to the success of a PPC campaign. Unlike typical search engine optimization, there aren't practical limits on the number of phrases to
target. Usually, there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as possible. This makes the keyword selection process easier, since there is not a good deal of resources committed to optimizing a site for a particular keyword set. Under-performing keywords, while still an annoyance, do not cost extra (except for the time involved in setting up the account). To help identify keyword phrases, Overture has a tool on their site that allows advertisers to see how often particular search terms are actually typed in their engine. It also gives out popular suggestions based upon the terms you enter.
Writing descriptions:
With a typical search engine description, the object is to entice as much traffic into a site as possible in the hopes of converting that traffic into customers. With PPC, a different approach is mandated. It is undesirable to pay for unlikely prospects, so the description is designed to eliminate the "tire kickers" while attracting highly targeted traffic. For this reason, the description should describe exactly what the business offers- a company wouldn't want to pay for every visitor looking for "insurance" if they only sold renter's insurance, for example. At the same time, proven marketing copy techniques should be employed to insure that the description is enticing enough to attract ideal prospects.
Monitoring and Analyzing:
It is crucial to the success of any PPC campaign that it be monitored regularly, since positions can and do change every day. Since the top three Overture or Google AdWords results are what typically show up on most partner engines (some display more), the competition for these spots can be fierce, and bidding wars are common. If the price gets too high, it is usually prudent to withdraw and pursue a different keyword (the only way to really "lose" a bidding war is to pay too much for each visitor!). Apart from position monitoring, it is important to track and analyze the effectiveness of individual keyword phrases on a monthly basis. Viewing click-through rates and studying visitor habits can lend valuable insight into their motivations and habits, and help to further refine a Pay-Per-Click campaign.
Conclusion-
Pay Per Click campaigns can bring large numbers of highly targeted visitors to your website. However, these campaigns can become prohibitively expensive (and unlike "traditional" search engine optimization, the costs of any PPC campaign are likely to increase in the near future due to the increased popularity of this form of advertising). It is crucial to the success of the campaign that you pay a reasonable price for each visitor, that each visitor is highly targeted, and that you monitor your positions to maintain your exposure over time.
NOTE TO WEBMASTER: the following resource box contains the necessary code to make the links active.
About the Author
Scott Buresh is Co-founder and Principal of Medium Blue Internet Marketing . For monthly tips on how to get the most out of your internet presence, sign up for our Internet Marketing Newsletter
|
|
|
|
|
| Motivation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Article giving an overview of the concept. Includes history, information on human psychological drives, and applications in business and education. |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Motivation 123. Motivation Techniques & Tips for Your Happiness ... |
| Free Motivation Kit, techniques, tips, and ideas to help you achieve greater happiness and success. |
| www.motivation123.com |
|
| Motivation - the international disability charity Motivation |
| Motivation and other international organisations convene in Bangalore this ... Motivation is an international disability and development agency working in ... |
| www.motivation.org.uk |
|
| Motivation |
| Goal Setting is extremely important to motivation and success. So what motivates you? Why are you in college? If you are in college because that's what your ... |
| www.d.umn.edu |
|
| Employee motivation. Motivation in the workplace- theory and practice |
| Employee motivation in the workplace article. This article focus on aspects of employee motivation, theory and practice as applied to in the workplace and ... |
| www.accel-team.com |
|
| Motivation |
| Motivation Notecards pad. 6 notecards with envelopes pad ... Motivation Desktopper pad. Black brushed-aluminum frame with glass. (5"x7") pad ... |
| despair.com |
|
| Motivation Point. Motivation Advice for Your Achievement and Success |
| Motivation techniques and advice to help you achieve greater personal success in your life. |
| getmotivation.com |
|
| The Motivation Tool Chest |
| Motivation tips on self-development, workplace, leadership, at-risk youth, education. Example: People who have a vision control their destiny and lifestyle. |
| www.motivation-tools.com |
|
| Seven Rules of Motivation |
| Set a major goal, but follow a path. The path has mini goals that goes in many directions. When you learn to succeed at mini goals, you will be motivated to ... |
| www.motivation-tools.com |
|
| Motivation |
| MOTIVATION CHECKLIST. The following checklist may prove helpful in getting at the ... If you want to improve your motivation you may want to choose a ... |
| www.ucc.vt.edu |
|
| GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MOTIVATION |
| Basic principles of motivation exist that are applicable to learning in any ... In a general learning situation, self-motivation without rewards will not ... |
| honolulu.hawaii.edu |
|
| TIP: Concepts |
| Weiner (1990) points out that behavioral theories tended to focus on extrinsic motivation (i.e., rewards) while cognitive theories deal with intrinsic ... |
| tip.psychology.org |
|
| Motivational Quotes, Motivational Quotations, motivation quotes ... |
| Motivational Quotes, Motivational Quotations, motivation quotes, inspirational quotations from Motivating Moments. Updated 2 times a week, ... |
| www.motivateus.com |
|
| Motivation - Atom Wiki |
| Motivation. Why are you doing this? RSS is [WWW] over five years old. It was designed for news sites, a way for them to list the stories they had. ... |
| www.intertwingly.net |
|
| Motivation & Inspiration from The Daily Motivator® |
| A brief, daily message of motivation and personal development, with an archive of more than 2000 previous messages. A positive approach to successful ... |
| greatday.com |
|
| Pages tagged with "motivation" on del.icio.us |
| by blowski to folksonomy marketing internet user generated content motivation theory business blog ... saved by 124 other people ... 3 mins ago ... |
| del.icio.us |
|
| Motivational and Inspirational Resources, Quotes, Short Stories ... |
| Free daily motivational & inspirational, quotes, short stories, messages, articles, thoughts, and poems designed to help you lead a happy and healthy life. |
| www.motivational-messages.com |
|
| Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book ... |
| Methods For Changing Your Identity and Your Motivations ... There are two types of animal motivation: the motivation to approach something, ... |
| www.mentalhelp.net |
|
| Teambuilding Inc. Article - Team Motivation |
| Probably the first question to be answered in a discussion of motivation is ... Motivation in this case was lacking because the team’s purpose was not in ... |
| www.teambuildinginc.com |
|
| Learning Skills Program - Increasing Motivation |
| Motivation is a complex issue, with a number of causes and solutions -- many of which are of interest to university students, who usually know what they ... |
| www.coun.uvic.ca |
|
|