New Article - The Number One Rule of Pay-Per-Click

[thejenn]

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/004379.html

Some Snippets:

"Many small business owners don't understand that while they know how to set up a campaign, manage bids, and have even been able to see a rise in sales or leads, they are still breaking the number one rule of pay-per-click."

"Pay-per-click programs have an almost magical appeal to the average small business owner. They're not complicated like organic search optimization and they aren't expensive like more traditional forms of advertising."

"Pay-per-click gives advertisers an opportunity to fine tune their marketing dollars so that they are spending their money in a way that delivers the most value. "

[Scottish Racer]

I've just joined this forum after reading Jennifer's artlicle. I admit I really don't know much about PPC, except creating a list of typical keywords that someone may use when searching for my services. I'm using google adwords to entice someone to visit my site, but like she states, a visit does not always convert into a "buy".

So heres my question; Is it the content of the site or the google adword that prevents visitors turning into customers? How does one identify the culprit?

Cheers,

Steve

[Sascha]

(( Extract: Is it the content of the site or the google adword that prevents visitors turning into customers? How does one identify the culprit? ))

I imagine that you can cater for all the keywords you chose since they are 'keywords' depicting your service. But perhaps on top of that instead of indirectly catering for the more obscure keywords set up verticals that correspond with your bought keywords. By 'set up' i mean building web pages that are catering for specific keywords and yes perhaps that means writing new content which will possibly boost your seo anyway.

(dont know if that help but i sure hope it at least answers half! )

Rgs,
Sascha

[Sascha]

Id like to know how you track your ppc campaigns? How do i know what my conversions are per bought keyword? How do you guys track the click throughs on each keyword(s)? Do you have an apllication and/or do you add tags to allyour links????

Thanx,
sascha

[Robert]

Welcome to the forum Scottish Racer and Sascha!

Originally Posted by Scottish Racer

How does one identify the culprit?

Great question and I think an important step in discovering the answer to this is tracking and testing. This leads to Sascha's question:

Originally Posted by Sascha

Id like to know how you track your ppc campaigns? How do i know what my conversions are per bought keyword? How do you guys track the click throughs on each keyword(s)? Do you have an apllication and/or do you add tags to allyour links????

Sascha, I use a service from a company called ConversionRuler.com

To use the service you start by adding a bit of code to your site and adding parameters to the url you use to for your PPC, email, or banner campaigns. For example, if I want to track a PPC ad that I'm running via Google AdWords search results under the term "business", I'd set up the url like this:

www. example. com/?c1=PPC&source=GoogleAdWords&Kw=business

c1 = Ad Category (in this case pay per click ads)
source = Where your ad is running
Kw = The keyword being used

I use it to track...

Email Signature File Response
Pay per click advertising
Banner advertising
Newsletter advertising

The monthly fee is $19.95 for up to 2000 clicks and $0.003 per click after that. I've been using it for months and it has been great.

I know there are various programs that can be purchased to run on your site and you wouldn't have to pay a monthly fee. I haven't used any though.

[thejenn]

I use a program called ClickTracks to do my ROI tracking. They have native support for AdWords, Overture/Yahoo and several popular broadcast email programs.

As for what causes low conversions, there are plenty of different possibilities...

1.) You are targeting the wrong phrase. This could mean the phrase is too broad, or that it's wrong all together. For example, you wouldn't want to target "cars" if you sell used cars in dallas. You'd want to target "cars in dallas" "dallas used cars" and so on. Remember, you pay for every click, so make sure you are paying for clicks that count!

2.) Click Fraud. If you are doing any volume of PPC advertising at all, you should be doing some analysis for ClickFraud. There are some great tools out there for this.

3.) Your web site. Maybe your site is hard to use, or your prices are too high, or things are always out of stock. Usability is essential, and it's not a bad idea to run your site through the "mother-in-law" test. In other words, sit your mother-in-law (or your own mom) down in front of a computer and ask them to do X on your site. Give them no further instruction. Just sit and listen to their comments and watch how they use your site.

There are plenty of other factors that play into it as well, but those are a few to consider. Remember, you also might have plenty of keywords doing great and converting at 3 or 4%. But if you can find the one that converts at 15%, you've hit gold and should spend every penny you can spare buying that type of traffic.