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eCommerce Web Site Building: Where Do I Start?
An article discussing the details on what tools, skills, and services you might need to start an ecommerce business.
Building a web site isn't something that is really cut and dry. There's a huge variety of products and services that can...
Making Real Money With Google AdSense
There are many Make Money Fast (MMF) websites out there that tell you it's possible to, well, you know, do just that; make money fast. However, did you know that although some owners of these MMF systems have made a total revenue between $300,000...
Search Engine Submission Techniques on Google
The orientation guide for businesses getting started online Over the years of its existence Google gained a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for internet users. Providing a comprehensive coverage of the web and returning searched queries...
Should you buy text links?
You can rank number one (Or at least in the top ten) for just about any search phrase by just buying text link ads, even if the web site isn't related to the search phrase in anyway, it can still rank in the top ten of the search results. Some web...
The Basics Of Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising
Not long ago, Forbes magazine has reported that pay per click ad sales are expected to increase to at least $8 billion by 2008. There are three fundamental elements that form the basis of a successful pay per click ad program and they are...
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PPC Advertising – The First Step In A SEO Marketing Campaign
Often, sites view seo and PPC marketing as exclusive marketing techniques. Each marketing method has its advocates. In reality, both have a place in the Internet marketing process. If you intend to pursue a major seo effort, a PPC campaign is a critical early step.
PPC For Testing
Let’s say you have a site offering a service or product in the travel market. You’ve put together a healthy budget and decided to go for broke. Yep, you’re optimizing and trading links in an effort to go after keyword phrases with major traffic and competition. For instance, you’ve decided to have a go at “Europe travel”, which has roughly 400,000 searches each month and major competition for high rankings. You spend two years trading links, adding content and so on. Miracle of miracles, you pop on to the first page of search results. You start shopping for your private jet only to realize a very disturbing thing. You are getting thousands of visits, but few sales. After running calculations, you find the site is converting at 1 in 10,000.
Houston, we have a problem.
A PPC campaign should be used to test your site against keyword phrases before you spend the time and money on an seo campaign. The best platforms to use for your campaign are Google Adwords and Overture. Yes, click fraud is a problem, but less so on these platforms.
After opening accounts and laying a credit card down at the PPC alter, you need to give some thought at to how you will test your keywords. Here’s a hint. The campaign should be designed to test the keyword phrases, not maximize sales. This may sound like a strange statement, but keep in mind the purpose of the campaign. You are determining whether you have picked appropriate keyword phrases for the seo campaign. So, how does it all go wrong?
With both Overture and Adwords, you have the ability to designate the reach of your keyword phrases. Most pick the “broad match” option, which is terrible for testing.
With broad match, your advertisements are going to appear for your keyword phrase AND variations of the phrase. Since the ad is appearing on a variety of keyword phrases, the results can give you a false impression of the value of the primary keyword phrase.
Going back to our example, we start a Google Adwords campaign for “Europe travel” and use the default broad match option. After a month, we are happy to find the ads converting at 1 in 70. Having validated the keyword phrase, we set off on the long seo campaign. But are we really sure about the validity of the keyword phrase. Since Google has been known to seriously expand keyword phrases under the broad match option, how do we know that the true keyword phrase isn’t “European travel”? We don’t unless we take a few additional steps.
The first step is to limit the PPC advertisements by bypassing the broad match option. Instead, you want to limit the appearance of the ad only to searches for the exact keyword phrase. In Adwords, this is known as the “exact phrase” match. To designate it, you simply place brackets “[]” around the keyword phrase. Second, you need to track traffic originating from the ads. This can be done using tracking tools on your server or through the tracking options offered by each PPC platform. Regardless of your choice, the resulting data will give a much truer picture of the value of the particular keyword phrases.
Nothing is more aggravating then getting top rankings, but miserable conversions. The only way to beat this problem is to test, test, test. Using PPC campaigns at the outset of an Internet marketing efforts can save you a lot of headaches later on.
About the Author
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company. To read more marketing articles, visit MarketingTitan.com.
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