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How it is impossible to loose at PPC advertising

admin — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:13:06 +0000

With so many different locations to advertise including Google Adwords, Facebook, Yahoo Search engine marketing, Bing and all 3rd party PPC companies it is impossible to not succeed.

The trick to PPC advertising is knowing which keyword ads are making money and which keyword ads are loosing money. With that information simply decrease the CPC (cost per click) for all keywords loosing money and possibly increase the CPC for any keyword that is making money for a higher potential. However, tracking all keywords across several different search engines along with any other online advertising such as banner ads, email campaigns, pup-ups, video ads, map ads, mobile ads, wallpaper ads and other methods make the task seemingly impossible.

We will start with how to succeed with quality search engines (Google, Yahoo and recently Bing). High quality search engines by nature will produce a higher conversion rate because the visitor is actually looking for your website! Now to the number one error that causes money loss from advertising on Google, Yahoo or Bing is simply bidding more than it is worth. A simple example is selling an anti fraud book. Lets say that for every purchase of your anti fraud book you receive a profit of $5. Your website will also sell 2 anti fraud books for every 100 visitors that enter your website this means that your website has a 2% conversion rate. Just to note a good conversion rate is anywhere between 1-2% and in some cases it is possible to get as high as 3%. Now lets say you are advertising on Google Adwords and you decide to spend $0.50/click for the keyword fraud. You receive 100 visitors in 1 day and 2 sales as expected. You have spent $50 on advertising and have gained $10 in other words you have lost $40 through your PPC ad. However, here is the trick to achieve success. After knowing the conversion rate for the keyword fraud is 2% the break-even-point on this keyword is $0.10/click, in other words any bids under $0.10 should create a profit for this keyword. This is a very simple example on how to adjust your keywords to ensure that you are making money and not loosing money.

It is important to state that it is very important to try to advertise on every search engine possible. Advertising on any 3rd party PPC search engine if done right will produce a positive a positive return. Although a 3rd tier search engine will never produce conversion rates that are relative to Google or Yahoo they will have a very low CPC (cost per click). In my personal experience I have found that 3rd party PPC search engines do produce a positive ROI if done correctly. In fact some keywords would produce a much higher ROI than Google or Yahoo. A word a warning however is click fraud, because click fraud rates are relatively high when it comes to advertising on a 3rd tier search engine, however if one is using a tool to track click fraud there is nothing to fear.

Last of all banner ads, email campaigns, pup-ups and other forms of advertising are quickly becoming un-popular because they simply do not produce the quality leads that a search engine will. However, there are some instances where you can succeed in other types of advertising and the bottom line is to try them out, track the ROI and determine if you are receiving a good bang for your buck or not.

Back to the initial statement “How it is impossible to loose at PPC advertising.” The answer is simple, use a 3rd party ad tracker why? There are so many different websites to advertise on with hundreds of keywords each and with little to no time at all to personally analyze each keyword phrase and know what changes to make. However there is a solution, a 3rd party ad tracker will track ALL online advertising campaigns in one simple location. An ad tracker will show within moments which online campaigns are making money and which are loosing money. Individual keyword data is also provided to quickly know what changes to make. Correcting all keywords that are loosing money and turning them into keywords that are making money will allow you to succeed.

A few easy ways to improve keywords that are loosing money are:

lower the keyword bid change the actual online ad change the landing page to a more relevant landing page for that keyword specifically.

All three will improve create money making keywords. Revising all keywords should be done on average once a month to ensure success. On occasion a keyword will need to be eliminated because it simply does not produce a profit even if it does produce heavy traffic.

Conclusion: having a quality ad tracker that will also monitor click fraud to ensure all traffic is quality traffic is essential to having success in PPC advertising. Using all of the information provided by an ad tracker to improve online advertising is extremely important to succeed. With a quality ad tracker it is impossible to loose at PPC advertising!

What you Need to Know to Promote yourself Through Search Engines in Poland

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:40:08 +0000

The popularity of different search engines among Polish internauts

The popularity of search engines in Poland is frequently measured. Recent information can be found on different web sites such as ranking.pl or Megapanel PBI/Gemius. The analysis confirms that Polish people use not only global but also local search tools. The very recent research (from May 2007) shows distinctly that the most popular search engine is Google.

The popularity of search engines in Poland according to domain compares (http://www.ranking.pl/index.php?page=Ranks:RanksPage&stat=212|OW) the domains which drive the most visits on Polish websites. The comparison of search engines according to most popular search engines (http://www.ranking.pl/index.php?page=Ranks:RanksPage&stat=213|OW) that are used, show very similar results. In Poland there is a local version of Google which improves in ranking of popularity since it appeared (e.g. in 2004 the popularity was estimated at 42%, a year after more than 69%, while now it is more than 86%).

The second place (receded from the first one) belongs to Onet Szukaj (Onet Search), very similar to WP which occupies the third place (it uses the technology of Netsprint.pl) and gained its popularity through long time of being present at the market. These search engines are parts of important portals (www.onet.pl and www.wp.pl accordingly) from which Polish Internet began, and which offer to their visitors, through many years of their development, several services (email, chat rooms, instant messaging, news etc.). Among the internauts who use these search engines are both very loyal users and those who are just real beginners. The fourth in the ranking is Interia.pl – the search engine which is the part of well a known Polish portal which uses Google technology. These are followed by MSN, Szukacz.pl, Yahoo, Gooru, Altavista and others… but because of a rudimentary market share, are showed here only to present a complete data. Summing this up, when planning SEO / SEM activities in search engines used by Polish internauts, there are three which are worth to pay attention to:

- Google.pl,

- Onet Szukaj,

- WP / Netsprint.pl.

The way of using search engines by Polish internauts

The tendencies observed in the way search engines are used in Poland overlap with those of international users. The Polish use search engines much more often, more effectively and frequently. They not only make more accurate and detailed queries but also perceive the listings as a reliable information not just random combination of links. They are able to notice the differences between organic listings and sponsored links, which they are (surprisingly?) willing to click since it is one out of two (beside button) most popular (and well tolerated) ways of online advertising. According to Gemius (2006) 82% of search engines’ users click on paid links. Polish internauts, as well as international ones, concentrate on the first three pages of searching results and usually they click on top three links. The research of Visual attention to Online Search Engine Results (http://www.checkit.nl/pdf/eyetracking_research.pdf) illustrates these observations in details.

How long a statistical Polish internaut spends on searching on Internet? According to the research of Gemius (held in December 2006) the average user uses Google (since it is the most popular search engine) about 5 hours, 5 minutes and 39 seconds monthly. However, this time is not only spent on searching but also on using mailbox on gmail.com, Google Maps, or services such as blogger.com. On average the internauts spend 3 hours 2 minutes and 29 seconds on the search engine’s website. In comparison, Onet search engine is used 32 minutes and 47 seconds monthly, WP search engine 21 minutes and 58 seconds, while Szukacz.pl is used only 5 minutes and 26 seconds a month. Taking into consideration the average duration of page view internauts use Google similarly to other search engines, however the number of page views per user is different. Google search engine has here predominance. On average there are 101.18 page views monthly, while for the second Onet and fourth Interia it is just 18.27 and 17.83 accordingly.

The most popular keywords in Poland

It is well known what Polish internauts use to search through the Internet and how they do it, the only question is what they generally look for. The most popular keywords in search engines are regularly updated – e.g. in case of Onet (http://boksy.onet.pl/ranking.html) on a weekly basis. The most popular subjects searched for in polish search engines are erotica, entertainment (for example, surnames of popular stars, music files, funny videos, etc.), season entries – connected with current events in the country, or information such as weather, train timetable, loans, work and… search engines! Car related phrases and tourism are very popular as well.

The use of search engine optimization and search engine marketing in Poland

More than 75% of Polish companies (a poll made by Bluerank) use search engine optimization (web positioning and optimization) to improve the visibility of company website at the search engine ranking pages. In addition, half of the examined companies have executed advertising campaigns (PPC) with the use of sponsored links on Polish and international search engines. Polish experts claim that the budget use for this kind of advertising reaches 20% since SEM is the leader of e-marketing. It is because of low costs and efficiency but first of all, perceived by common internauts as practical and useful (according to Gemius actually 29% of all users like paid links and click on them).

The most competitive branches in Poland when talking about SEM activity are finance, tourism, car industry, IT, entertainment, healthcare, real estate and e-commerce. Because of this competitiveness the costs of advertising are much higher than in the less popular areas. The cost of promotion is changing also because of the time period. During festive time, such as the second half of December, the costs increase because of huge popularity of sponsored links, especially in the retail area. Tourism has its ‘raise and fall’ depending on season. The holiday time is very crucial (June-August), New Years Eve, as well as winter holidays (February). Finances are in good condition through the whole year (there is always competition) but taking into consideration IT there is minor stagnation between II and III term, so it means the sponsored links might be cheaper at that time. There is a great dependence not only according to the branch but also country, habits of a certain community and calendar of events.

Advertising opportunities in Polish search engines

The most diverted offer of search engine advertising in Polish Internet has Netsprint.pl/WP, which offers to advertisers not only PPC campaigns and banners but also very recent “phone link” (pay-per-call solution) and many others – unusual ways of advertising on the search engine results pages with the content modified according to requirements of the campaign. A very good example is the action called “AIDS search engine protection”. Netsprint is a quite flexible partner in this kind of negotiation, in contrast to Google.pl which is constrained to follow strict rules of the corporation and not to come forth obligatory limitation in the field of SEM.

The great advantage of Polish Google (in comparison with the other already mentioned here search engines) is large simplicity of usage – not only for internauts searching through the Internet but also for advertisers who conduct PPC campaigns. The administration panel is comprehensible, intuitive in use and useful. It gives a wide range of possibilities in setting up the advertising campaign – especially while targeting. Netsprint’s panel is the least useful but there is a possibility to get free pieces of advice from search engine’s consultants.

Google does not offer all of the ways of advertising which is used for example in USA. Polish SEM activity with the use of this search engine is mainly focused on AdWords. AdSense is not so popular – mainly because there is not enough websites and unsatisfactory quality of them in the Google network. In Poland, there are not only popular and worth reading newspapers, magazines or professional bulletins, but also different private, “hobby like” websites with low popularity and high risk of fraud clicks, which expose advertisers on incidental expenses.

The advantage of search engine of Onet (in comparison with WP) is an advanced possibility to target ads and well described user profile. According to the data from a search engine – among the total of 11 million of Polish internauts, 650.000 use exclusively Onet (Megapanel PBI/Gemius research from 2006/2007). A very unique feature of this portal is a section called Onet.eu, which is intended to visit by Polish people who live in the United Kingdom. In case this is an interesting target group, it is worth to take into consideration contextual advertising there through OnetKontekst.

Search engines and SEM in Poland – predictions for the future

For a few years now Polish search engines have been trying to follow the example of American companies and developed markets of Western Europe. When improving local search engines and ways of SEM advertising, Polish people follow the best practices of Google in the range of searching and advertising products. This trend should remain and hopefully soon in Poland there will be a lot of high budget campaigns in search engines. However, even today we can observe constant, increasing need for Polish SEM agencies’ services among foreign companies. Those SEM agencies are familiar with the specific character of Polish market, they are relatively cheap and have all the competencies needed to promote foreign brands, products and services in search engines in Poland.

“As far as the international cooperation is concerned, our company takes part in projects which integrate actions of search engine marketing for one brand in different European countries. We are adapting the campaign of sponsored links to Polish reality in the Internet as well as planning the marketing activity of international companies from the scratch on the Polish market” – says Maciej Ga?ecki, CEO of Bluerank, SEM agency in Poland. “We are open to all different forms of cooperation in the field of promotion by using search engines in Central and Western Europe”.

How to Choose the Right Search Engine Optimisation Company

admin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:39:38 +0000

As part of a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy, a company providing Search Engine Optimisation can be an important advantage. These companies are expert in improving your search engine positions, consistently supervising those positions and fine-tuning their approach should they have month with unfavourable outcomes.

Search Engine Optimisation Companies invest a vast amount of time and energy and employ specialized knowledge, so it may be of more benefit to outsource their skills than attempt to sustain elevated search engine positions independently.

In business there are great companies and then there are also the rotten apples!

In order to select an inexpensive, efficient search engine optimisation company, it is important to be aware of the correct questions to pose and to know what decisive factors to look for.

Whilst reviewing your options of search engine optimisation companies, start by taking into consideration how they intend to elevate your search engine status.

Companies making use of cloaked, doorway or bridge pages to improve your position should be crossed off your list. Methods such as these contravene almost all search engine policies and at the least your website will be harshly castigated, and even worse, it may be completely removed from the index of the search engine.

A page, which is cloaked, is designed not to be seen by the website’s frequent visitors – it is invisible. A cloaked page is specifically coded for identifying a search engine spider and redirecting them to this particular page, which is created to enhance your search engine rating falsely.

A similar concept is made use of for doorway or bridge pages, although these are frequently located on an alternate server. Should they become aware of the fact that your website contains cloaked pages, Google – one of the Internet’s principal and significant search engines, will eliminate your website from their index.

Don’t ever contract any business to companies that use this modus operandi!

An additional vital consideration is to ensure that there is no conflict of interest with the company you contract, in them working for your competition whilst they are in your employ. Guarantee this in a written document and make certain that it is legally binding. One can understand that a conflict of interest could critically compromise the success of a search engine optimisation strategy. It is important to keep in mind that there are those companies that will market their services to other players in your field based on their success with your website.

A company’s history of results is a crucial feature you may wish to follow up on. But don’t take their word for it!

Their results may be embellished so as to contract your business. Dig a little deeper into their assertion of success by posing a couple of relevant questions and confirming their responses.

Possible questions to pose:

1. Enquire as to which engines they have realized their top results on. You would want to see the best results on the most popular engines. Search engine popularity can alter as the whole Internet changes, so go to the Nielsen Netratings page for a Search Engine Watch. This can be viewed at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

2. Uncover their keywords and phrases which they maintain are receiving excellent results. Unpopular words are likely to produce high rankings. As an example, few people will search for the keyword “cat leashes” which will result in a high popularity ranking. Ideally you want excellent results with popular keywords. Have a look at www.wordtracker.com, for Wordtracker software. Subscriptions are available from 1 day through to a year, or else make use of their free trial. The Wordtracker software measures how popular certain keywords and phrases are by making use of authentic search engine statistics.

3. Check out a site that the company declares to have had success with, keeping an eye open for good results. What you want to find for the whole site is a variety of different ratings on a good number of separate search engines making use of different keywords and phrases. You are entitled to ask for a report on clients the company asserts it has done well for. The report should reflect good ratings on a lot of the more popular search engines for a multiplicity of different, popular phrases and keywords.

4. Ensure the search engine optimisation company you are investigating has in fact completed the work they allege to have done. There are companies who are eager to contract your business and use other company’s successes as their own. It is best to contact the business they are claiming the results for, and enquire as to who their search engine optimisation company is. The recipe for a successful search engine optimisation drive is to have the maximum exposure over a broad assortment of popular search engines by making use of a diversity of phrases and keywords. It’s a great marketing tool to support success!

5. Remember to ask your potential search engine optimisation company to provide you with a report that illustrates rankings across many popular search engines for a time frame of a minimum of 6 months. It is important to contract a company that recognizes that search engine marketing is a continuous practice and which also continually monitors your search engine ratings. Should your search engine ratings drop, that company must also modify its tactics to maintain high rankings.

6. Another report you may feel is of benefit to request is a sample monthly report which demonstrates the constant examination of the positions. It is imperative that the rankings are extracted from the more popular search engines. It is relatively effortless to obtain fabulous results for a small amount of minor search engines – these are not impressive results. Also ensure that the results they present are actually for the current popular search engines as well as configured for straightforward comprehension. For instance, it is possible to be presented as a chart over a time period of a minimum of 6 months showing either the following data:

- A monthly analysis of the top 50 positions.

- Each month’s top 5 pages.

Determine whether this potential company keeps monthly tabs on these positions or pages, as well as whether this sample report incorporates findings and suggestions for the particular site. By following up on these factors, it makes certain that the company will not only gather your statistical positions but also vigorously monitor and amend their strategies.

You don’t simply need a company that collects information for you. What you require is a company that is a key contributor to your search engine marketing campaign.

Financial constraints may impact on your particular choice of company, however a search engine optimisation company is essential to a successful marketing campaign. It plays a vital role and is simply not a ‘nice to have’.

It is in your best interests to employ a company that will do a scrupulous and consistent job for your website and may suit you to rather pay more for an impeccable job. The alternative is to source a relatively new company. They are generally capable of providing quality and dependable work. Keep in mind that you are risking the money in your pocket on a company without a reliable history!

Before going that route, ask the company to provide you with a number of references.

References are a good indicator of a reliable company. Its best not to employ a company that won’t supply you any references, and don’t take ‘confidentiality’ as an excuse! Even doctors provide references when asked! Insist on at least two references – a current one and one from a while back.

Make preparations before following up on these references so that you don’t waste unnecessary time. Be concise and to the point with your questioning.

Enquire as to how they experienced the company, in particular reference to:

- the company’s accessibility in responding to questions,

- ability to provide solutions to problems,

- capability in meeting deadlines.

Ask them for a general performance rating of the company.

Establish whether the company asked the reference to alter their website in any noteworthy way that affected the traffic to their site. Ideally you would like a search engine optimisation company that finds the middle ground between the needs of the search engines and the requirements of the site visitors.

The most important question to ask the reference is if the company received greater profits by employing the search engine company. It makes no difference whether you are positioned at the top of the list or the bottom if you haven’t improved your profits!

Search Engine Spiders and Your Web Site

admin — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:05:56 +0000

Axandra Search Engine University

A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines. For example, search engines cannot read the text on the images of your web site, and many don’t understand web languages such as JavaScript or CSS.

If you have a great looking web site that is meaningless to search engines, you won’t be able to achieve high search engine rankings with that web site – no matter how good and interesting your web site content is.

In general, search engines cannot see content that is presented in the following file formats:

images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.)

Flash movies, flash banners, etc.

JavaScript and other script languages

other multimedia file formats

Some search engines can index some of these file formats but in general, it’s very difficult to obtain high search engine rankings if your main web site content is presented only in these formats.

Search engines need text to index your web site. They cannot know what’s written on your GIF or JPEG images or in your Flash movies. If you use a lot of images on your web site, you should also create some web pages that contain a lot of text.

If you want to find out how search engines see your web site, you have to use a search engine spider simulator tool. A search engine spider simulator tool emulates the software programs search engines use to index your web site. They show you what elements of your web site are visible to search engines.

IBP’s search engine spider simulator helps you to find out how search engines see your web site. IBP’s spider simulator even allows you to emulate special search engines spider names so that you can find out if your competitors send different pages to search engine spiders.

Just enter the URL of your web site and IBP will tell you what text and which links search engines can find on your site.

That allows you to quickly find out whether your web site lacks information that search engines need to properly index your web site.

More information can be found in our free weekly Search Engine Facts newsletter

PPC Advertising: Making Google Adwords Work Correctly – Why People Fail Using PPC

admin — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 09:44:04 +0000

Pay-per-click, or PPC advertising with Google Adwords is a hightly effective way of marketing your website, if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, many people simply bid the highest amount they can afford and hope for the best. In order to make Adwords work for you, you need to have a strategy. You also need to do a lot of homework and testing to create a campaign that will bring visitors to your website, and keep them coming back.

The first mistake many people make with Google Adwords is not having a bidding strategy. The highest bid is not necessarily going to be what brings you the most traffic from a PPC advertising campaign. You need to decide if you’re willing to accept a lower position on the search page. Remember, not every click is going to result in a sale, so if you’re paying too much per click, you’re wasting your money.

Another pitfall of bidding high is that competitors may fraudulently repeatedly click your ad in order to drain your advertising budget. A lower cost per click helps to keep this problem under control. A well-crafted ad with a lower position may suit your purposes as well or better than one higher up on the page.

Another reason people fail with PPC is failure to do their homework. You need to do research. Find out what the market is for your product or service. Learn keyword popularity. Track the effectiveness of your ad. If a campaign isn’t working, pull it or rework it, perhaps targeting a different audience.

There are a lot of software programs on the market that can help test the effectiveness of a campaign. Buy them and use them. By making sure you have the most effective Google Adwords campaign possible, you greatly increase your chances of success.

People who don’t have great success with Google Adwords don’t give their prospects value for their time. They simply bring the potential customer to their website’s home page and drop them off. Very few people click on an affiliate ad or make a purchase the first time they visit a website. You want to keep visitors coming back to your website. An easy way to do this is to link your PPC ad to a specific page on your website, called a landing page, that is tailored to the specific keywords used in the ad.

Have interesting and informative content on each page of your site. You may offer a free e-book, newsletter, or e-zine related to your particular product or service. You don’t want to use PPC advertising to your site only to have it pass through. You want people to stop and stay a while, and then come back and visit again.

Many people have not succeeded using PPC advertising, but many others have. Those who do succeed using programs such as Google Adwords have developed winning strategies for success.

By using the right bidding strategy, researching keywords, and tracking their advertising, they have learned how to bring traffic to their website. By creating content that visitors find interesting and helpful, they keep them coming back. Develop the right marketing strategy, and Google Adwords can help you to succeed with your online business.