MH1 Web Design Blog

by Ed Rivis, www.leavehteminthedust.com

Some people have lost a tonne of money by incorrectly configuring their Cost per Click, Daily Budget, and myriad of other Google Adwords account settings.

Something as innocuous as a decimal point accidentally typed in the wrong position has cost some advertisers dearly because like the majority they didn’t think to check their account regularly.

Check your Google Adwords account as often as possible. Most business owners I know delegate this task – but even so just a few minutes a day and even the most stressed business owner can monitor their account.

When you’re logged in you can quickly see how much money your current advertising is costing. If it’s more than you’re happy with then it can all be paused at a single click, from which point nobody can see your adverts until you choose to start them running again.

If you fail to check your account daily, if you leave it too long then you may get a nasty shock when you do eventually return to check expenditure! Don’t make that mistake.

What should you check?

1) CPC: How much you pay Google every time someone clicks any of your adverts.

I recommend you check that daily or as often as possible to make sure that (a) it’s been entered correctly – no costly typos and that (b) it’s set at an optimum in terms of positioning your adverts.

2) CTR: How many times your adverts are being clicked.

Click fraud is a nasty hazard if you use Google Adwords.

Basically it means other people – but not your prospective customers or clients – deliberately click your Adwords adverts in an attempt to ratchet your charges.

By monitoring your account regularly you get to see that type of activity sooner rather than later and do something about it.

3) The average position of your text adverts in relation to your competitors.

If your adverts are displaying too high (in say the top 3 positions on the first page of Google) then your almost certainly paying too much per click. (See point 1 above.)

Position numbers around 6 to 8 (ideally 7) has been shown in most cases to be optimum.

By appearing lower down the page you get a much better return on your Google Adwords spend. Less traffic, but more sales per visitor to your site resulting in a much better profit margin.

There are more things to check but those are important metrics to keep an eye on to start with. Google Adwords comes with a report centre where you can automatically schedule to have the above information emailed to you.

Why not create a daily report emailed to you or your delegated staff member so it’s not forgotten?

If your web site needs a fresh injection of heavy traffic (more people who visit) then Google Adwords is a fantastic and cost effective method… but keep a very close eye on it or you could lose your shirt!

Ed Rivis recorded more than 4 hours of live ‘on-screen screen footage’ in his Google Adwords online advertising home-study course. It shows exactly how to create, enhance and optimise ‘killer’ Google Adwords marketing campaigns.
Visit: http://www.GoogleAdWordsVoyeur.com

The real definition of Search Engine Optimization

In the SEO business, we make a lot of fuss about keywords: A typical, well-engineered search engine campaign begins by defining the keywords you feel will most likely generate traffic to your site. Getting the highest possible rank for 10, 20 or 100 keywords you define in advance becomes the primary goal.

This is not the right approach. The top priority of sound search engine optimization practice should be optimization.

Why? Because a successful search engine campaign will bring you useful traffic from keywords you never consider.

A quick example: One of our clients gave us a list of 30 keywords and said ‘we want a top ten listing on Google for all of these keywords’. Their other goal was to increase site traffic from search engines by at least 50%. We spent several weeks helping them optimize their site’s HTML: We removed javascript-generated navigation and other HTML code that prevented search engines from crawling the entire site. We also helped them write additional site content, and began an ongoing link popularity campaign.

The result? Top 10 rankings in only 10 out of the 30 keywords they requested. Sounds like a failure. But their site traffic from major search engines increased by over 150%. That’s triple the desired result, and all from relevant keywords.

Our client’s traffic increased because their site provided easy access for search engine spiders to all of its content. That meant a far richer content pool for the search engines to use when ranking their site, and far broader, stronger coverage for keywords. They got top-ten rankings for thirty-plus keywords they hadn’t even considered, but were highly relevant traffic generators.

Good keyword mining is important, because it finds the keywords that generate traffic, and helps you cull the non-starters. But you never know where your traffic might come from. So make sure that your web site presents the best possible profile to the spiders or ‘bots’ that Google, Alta Vista and other major search engines send to index and rank your site. Optimize, optimize, optimize:

1. Make sure that all HTML on your site complies with relevant standards. Pay careful attention to the W3C accessibility standards – by bringing your site into line with that document, you can optimize your HTML and offer the best possible site for surfers using assistive devices, in one swoop.

2. Watch your site traffic logs at least as much as you watch your search engine rank. If traffic from search engines and relevant keywords is increasing, but you’re not getting top ranking for the specific keywords you selected, don’t worry. Your campaign is working.

3. One caveat: Don’t completely neglect keywords, and don’t totally ignore search engine rank. You may be missing big potential traffic generators. And you might be able to improve your rank by adding new, relevant content to your site.

I’m not saying SEO professionals and their clients should abandon keyword mining and selection. Make sure you’re targeting the right topics. Then turn your efforts to HTML code optimization. You’ll get better results, and save yourself a lot of frustration.

Ian Lurie is an Internet marketer in Seattle, WA. He started his web design and marketing firm, Portent Interactive, in 1995. Portent offers complete Internet marketing support, including search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, and web design and development. Recent projects include SEO and production for www.princesslodges.com, SEO, marketing strategy, design and production for www.dessy.com, and, on the more whimsical side, frida.filmateria.com. Ian has a law degree from UCLA and has successfully avoided practicing law for almost ten years.