You shouldn’t be disheartened, even if your paid search advertising campaign is a dismal failure. There is much to learn. It’s not really any different than anything else in life – you have to start somewhere and learn as you go. PPC can give you a big boost, but it’s also an intricate process.

Not unlike any other aspect of managing your business, it takes time and effort to learn about PPC itself and also about your customers, in order to achieve success.

What can go wrong.

High bounce rates or clicks that don’t lead to conversions are a sure sign your PPC campaign’s not working. Causes could include:

• Failure to use or test all keyword match types.
• Overly-general keywords or competitive terms.
• Overly-broad geotargeting.
• No ad-specific landing pages, wasting clicks by merely dumping then onto your home page.
• Mis-directed targeting.

Even if you have a well-thought-out campaign, good landing pages, great ad copy and a well-optimized website, if you don’t know your potential customers well enough you can make some dreadful – and potentially costly – mistakes. You need to examine all aspects of your failed campaign to understand where you went wrong.

Keyword management is critical to paid search success.

It can also improve your website SEO. The right approach to keyword selection can make a big difference. Be sure to use:

• High-performing organic search keywords, including branded keywords, because they can optimize relevance and improve ROI while also helping control your budget. Using these proven keywords supports and protects your position with respect to those terms, enabling you to monopolize page one results for both organic and paid search.
• Top-assisting keywords, important because they attract initial click-throughs even though they don’t necessarily drive conversions. They can be either broad match or phrase match.
• More specific keywords and phrases. They’ll help increase exposure as well as conversions, especially if you use them consistently to create coordinated landing page and overall website content.

Consider all these PPC keyword match options:

• Broad match, for broader exposure even though audience relevance will be lower.
• Phrase match, for greater relevance even though exposure will be smaller
• Exact match, which produces lower volume but very high relevance and can help lower costs thanks to less competition.
• Negative match, which can be very important in any of the other three match options.

Don’t ignore landing pages.

You PPC campaign is doomed if you don’t direct searchers to the right place. You need landing pages that directly reflect the keywords that drive traffic to them to keep visitors engaged.

Test and track to see what’s working.  

If you aren’t going to bother testing and refining your paid search advertising, you might as well not bother, because you’ll assuredly waste a substantial amount of time and money, with little result. Make sure your paid search tracking is thorough and properly designed, so you can get the information you need to make smart and timely decisions.

Since you can monitor and change PPC in real time, you can immediately replace non- or under-performing keywords or match types.

Get back on that PPC bike and go for another ride.

Paid search advertising can be wonderfully productive for your business, especially if you’re in a niche market. But it’s definitely not for the lazy. And like any advertising, PPC should focus on achieving your specific business goals.

When you take the time to learn from your mistakes, you’ll have the information you need to move forward intelligently and profitably.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user griffithchris.

Tired of doing PPC on your own? Learn how Trada can help!

When it comes to PPC advertising, there are many important components. One of these is Ad Copy. Ad copy is what faces users searching for your product or service, so it’s vital you write compelling ad that they will click.

There are some variations for how these ads appear on different search networks:

Here are 10 tips for maximizing your 70 characters:

1. Use all 70 Characters. You probably have a lot to say about your brand: so use all the space you’re given.
2. Leveraging all the hard work you’ve done in offline channels. Amplify brand voice and messaging- concepts you’ve already spent time developing- within your paid search campaigns.
3. Create a sense of urgency with promotions and end dates. Online shoppers are different from those found in brick-and-mortar stores- they’re looking for deals and they like to compare prices.
4. Always, always, always use a call to action. It encourages people to be active within your site, and it also lets them know what to expect post-click.
5. Use title casing. Search are drawn to ads with title casing because they command more of a presence on the page.
6. Keep the grammar tidy. If an ad with poor grammar isn’t rejected, it’ll make your company look disreputable and careless.
7. Let people know you are the “Official Site”.  This lends credibility.
8. Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion – but use it carefully!
9. Be conversational. Maybe ask a question: Like shoes? Get 15% Off at Shoe Castle. Shipping is Free!
10. Be Smart and test, test, test. Try different approaches in your ads and see what performs best. Never leave your campaign unattended!

While it seems small, 70 characters is plenty of room to attract your customers to your site. If you follow the tips above, you will surely be attracted quality traffic to your site.

Need help with PPC? Trada to to the rescue! Learn how we can save you time with our PPC solutions for Google and Yahoo/Bing!

It’s Friday, finally! With a busy weekend of graduations and Mother’s Day, we’ll keep today’s post short and jump right into some of the awesome blog posts and articles we read this week.

1. Search Engine Watch is talking about Optimizing to lifetime value of customers to maximize SEM performance. We could not agree more! As they state in the article, “Wouldn’t you pay a higher CPA to acquire a customer who buys three times a month with no coupons over a customer who comes in once for a great deal?”

2. Unbounce has a great article with 3 tiny tweaks to shoot your conversion rate up (a little).  Read this blog post for how to build a better headline, experiment with design, and moving around elements on your landing pages.

3. Our friends at Gnip wrote this great post about Social Data: A Beacon in Natural Disasters. It’s amazing to see how social media has played into natural disasters- making it possible in many instances to prevent more deaths, report accurate news and numbers, and more.

4. Search News Central wrote about SEO Excuse #143: The other guy is doing it, so it must work.  If you’re a marketer, you better believe SEO is important, but you must do it the smart way.

5. Finally, we have this infographic from Tasty Placement.

Infographic authored by
TastyPlacement, a web design and SEO company,

Happy Friday and Happy Mothers Day to all moms out there!

Four elements comprise a paid search strategy: keywords, ad groups, landing pages, and ads. In order to excel at PPC (and to take advantage of the leveled playing field of paid search to beat your competitors) you must make sure that these four elements are relevant to each other. This can be time-consuming, and requires thoughtfulness.

Keywords

In order for the ad to relevant to the search query (the search query is what a searcher types in to the search engine- it’s important to note that this is different from a keyword, which you have created), it should contain the actual search phrase in some form.

This is the single easiest way to bolster your quality score, which will ensure that the ad is ‘healthy’ and will be served on Google and Yahoo/Bing. But that’s not the on ly reason to insist upon relevance: a great benefit of using paid search is the ability to capitalize on people’s actual interests, desires, and needs. A searcher has indicated that she wants something- and as an advertiser, you are helping her find it! The clearer and more direct the search ad is- especially if it includes the actual search term- the more likely you are to see clicks.

Ad Groups

Remember that ad groups are for organizing ads, not keywords. An ad group is a group of keywords who will share a set of ads. Again, relevancy is cardinally important. Each ad group should be small (20 keywords or less), focused, and driven to its own landing page. Establishing ad groups is a key part of paid marketing. When you’re making ad groups, you also set the price you’re willing to pay each time your ad is clicked on – your cost per click, or CPC.

Landing Pages

You’re doing all this PPC stuff for one reason: to get people to your website! So don’t ignore the importance of the landing page. Once on your site, a searcher should never be more than one click away from finding their product. And relevancy is key here again, as well: highly relevant copy on your landing page can drive up your quality score. For information on landing pages, check out our recent blog post on creating effective landing pages. 

Ads

Focus on relevance, and as yourself these five questions while writing ad text:

1.  Is the keyword included in the ad text?
2. Are you driving to the right landing page?
3. Are you echoing language from the landing page?
4. Is your display URL category-specific?
5. Have you differentiated yourself?

The paid search game is highly competitive, but if you build upon this four elements, you’ll have a great foundation to be successful in ppc advertising.

Learn how Trada can help YOU with paid search advertising!

Guest post by Degree Jungle

In 2011, Google made $37.9 billion in revenue. A staggering 96% of that revenue came from their advertising spend. Top spenders with the search engine giant were home improvement company Lowes and global retailer Amazon, spending $59.1 and $55.2 million respectively on extensive PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. Estimates vary as to how many clicks these figures represent, but what is clear is that the average cost per click to advertisers is steadily increasing.

Whether advertising on Google or other ad networks like Microsoft AdCenter, PPC campaigns have been known to generate significant return on investment when conducted correctly. Although there are many factors to creating a successful PPC campaign, one way to facilitate a positive outcome and convert clicks into customers is to devote some time to perfecting your PPC landing page.

Five Essential Tips to Maximize Success Using PPC Landing Pages

1. Don’t drive your PPC traffic to your homepage: While your homepage may boast a delightful design, it will typically display more information that you need to convey at this point. Creating a focused PPC landing page with a targeted call to action will boost your conversion rates. It will also make your PPC efforts easier to analyze since you won’t have to track visitors interactions with more than one part of your site. Although it should be clear who you are, the best PPC landing page will not display your regular site navigation links. The goal is to encourage visitors to convert there and then. Directing them to another part of the site won’t help you achieve this primary goal.

2. Focus on content: Many PPC landing pages require the user to read excessive copy before ever presenting them with the option to purchase. Text on a website is read differently to printed media in that it is scanned as opposed to read word for word. Devote some time to creating brief but compelling content. Catch the attention of your readers with attractive headlines and use bullet points to make it easier for them to digest your message. Your call to action, the invitation to users to convert, should be clear and displayed above the fold where it can be seen without the need to scroll.

3. Inspire confidence in potential customers: An effective PPC landing page will include several trust factors. Include elements such as product reviews, client testimonials, SSL certificates and guarantee seals to build trust and assure your visitors that they are dealing with a reputable company. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s when it comes to paying attention to detail. Be upfront about who you are and make sure your contact details are clearly displayed. Consider whether you would buy from your page or, even better, ask someone impartial to give their opinion as to whether your landing page appears trustworthy.

4. Make capturing customer data simple: People tend to read landing pages by scanning the headlines then moving their eyes to the right. It makes sense to cater for that expected behavior by placing your conversion form or shopping cart icon on the right-hand side of the page. Mark required fields with an asterisk and provide an example of how things like postcodes, dates of birth and phone numbers should be entered. Unless you specifically need a piece of data from a customer, don’t ask for it. If you never telephone your customers, don’t bother asking for their number. People are wary of giving out excessive personal information on the Internet. Stick to asking for the absolutely essential data only and you won’t funnel out leads unnecessarily. You can pad out their profile later as you build an ongoing relationship.

5. Keep an eye on your quality score: While Google has always used some form of quality score to rank ads in their network, in October 2011 it announced a major update to its AdWords algorithm that significantly affected the way that PPC landing pages are used in advertising campaigns. The quality score takes into account three elements:

- The historical performance of the ad

- The relevance of the ad copy to the search query

- The overall quality of the PPC landing page

Google rates functionality and usefulness highly and rewards marketers who meet the criteria with higher-ranked ad placements for a lower bid cost. With this in mind, it’s worth making sure that your PPC landing page is relevant, easy to navigate and offers a useful experience to visitors.

Put these pointers into action to create effective PPC landing pages and maximize your conversion rate. PPC campaigns are best thought of as an iterative process. Results should be continually monitored throughout the campaign so you can see what is working and what isn’t. Don’t be afraid to test and tweak your approach. By doing so, you might just see even better results. On the other hand, if it isn’t broke, roll with it and watch your clicks convert to customers with ease.

Linda Forshaw is a Business Information Systems graduate from Liverpool. She is a contributor to Degree Jungle and its Facebook page and published author who specializes in social media, technology and entrepreneurship.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user oatsy40

Now that you know how to create effective landing pages, you need to build out your PPC campaigns! See how Trada can help you!

Friends, welcome back to Trada’s Weekly Roundup. While the news of changes to AdWords’ “rotate” setting were especially hot around here and #ppcchat, we DID read about some other great topics including LinkedIn, keywords, landing pages, and more. Check out some of the articles that caught our attention.

1. Search Engine Land posted about 6 Targeting Methods to Reach Your Business Audience via LinkedIn. The post includes how to build out your LinkedIn campaigns and target them effectively. If you’re interested in advertising on LinkIn, it’s a good place to start.

2. Venture Beat has a 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program (a guest post by our friend Oli Gardner of Unbounce!). Learn how to create landing pages, test them, and use them to improve your conversion rates. As Oli states, this is the intervention your landing pages have been crying for!

3. Okay so we already covered this, but with the recent changes to AdWords, we wanted to know how people were feeling about these changes. Overall, many seem unpleased- there’s even a petition. PPC Associates has even posted “AdWords Improvements and Lessons in How to Service Customers,” a sarcastic response to the changes. Paid search enthusiasts, be prepared to LOL.

4. {Grow} asks “Is there a formula for viral content?“ Their post has lots of great information, but the truest part of it all couldn’t be said better: You can’t manufacture authenticity.

5. Mashable wrote 7 Rules for Responding to Customers Online.  Some great guidelines for interaction with your customers. It’s very important to represent your brand as best as you can, especially when dealing with customers online.

Photo courtesy of PPC Memes

Have a fun and safe weekend!

Released on the AdWords blog Monday, Google announced the “rotate” setting for ad rotation will change. But what is ad rotation in the first place?

Google AdWords currently offers three settings for ad rotation:

1.  Optimize for Clicks
2.  Optimize for Conversions
3.  Rotate Evenly

As the blog states, the “rotate” setting can be useful for testing, but can also lead to less relevant ads being delivered to searchers. Google’s solution is to prevent yours ads from rotating after 30 days. Here’s what Google said:

“Starting next week, the “rotate” setting for ad rotation will change.  Instead of rotating creatives for an indefinite period of time, this setting will only rotate for a period of 30 days.  After that, the setting will then optimize to show the ads expected to generate the most clicks.  Every time a creative is enabled or edited, the ads in that ad group will rotate more evenly for a new period of 30 days.”

AdWords will roll out this change next week, and if your ad groups haven’t been added or modified in the past thirty days, the new rotation will go into effect.

So far we’ve seen a lot of negative feedback from this change. How do you feel about this change? Leave your comments below!

Is it already Friday? This week flew by and we read some great articles about Twitter, SEO, search, and more. Check out what we were reading below, including a cool infographic!

1. Branded3 has come out with a study proving Tweets DO affect rankings.  Some awesome stats they came up with?

• Study shows that URLs receive a significant boost in Google rankings when they are shared on Twitter
• The effects of this boost seem to level out at around 50 tweets, and the subsequent benefit of gaining additional tweets is minimal until around 5,000 tweets
• After 5,000 tweets, the average ranking of URLs improves considerably
• URLs receiving over 7,500 tweets almost always rank inside the top 5 results

2. Branding Personality posts “Why Page Load Times Matter So Much and How You Can Reduce Them.” Why is load time important you might ask?  It is one of the first impressions you can give site visitors and potential customers. Make sure you’re putting your best foot forward because “A 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.”

3. Search Engine Watch blogged “7 Ways Links Cause Search Rank Changes.”  If your site ranking took a hit recently, it could be caused by  links. Reasons include: A trusted site linking to you shut down, or you got caught using spammy linking tactics. Let’s hope you’re not faced with that last one!

4. SEO Book has a great infographic: Goldilocks SEO. Where do your SEO efforts fit? Just right?

5. Lastly, today is the LAST DAY to apply for a free flight to Boulder for Boulder Startup Week! If you’re interested in the tech scene and looking for a job in Boulder, they will fly you out to attend all of the  fantastic events (including Trada’s Opening Party!) and meet all of the awesome companies that are hiring. Apply now!

Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend

Our friends at WordStream have come out with a list of 150 Top Internet Marketing providers doing business in 10 major business categories, including content marketing and blogging, conversion rate optimization, crowdsourcing, email marketing, marketing automation, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, search engine optimization, social media management, video hosting and management, and web analytics.

“The companies featured in the WordStream Internet Marketing 150 are known for providing proven, innovative solutions to the various marketing challenges that businesses today face,” said WordStream founder and chief technology officer Larry Kim. “You can’t run a business in 2012 without engaging in web marketing, and this list serves as a map to help you navigate those waters and develop a strategy to conquer the web.”

Trada is more than a crowdsourcing company. It’s a PPC solution powered by real people with real expertise. See how Trada can help you and your business!