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Pay-Per-Click Campaigns Need to be Monitored

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, Uncategorized on July 26, 2010
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We’ve talked about the importance of pay-per-click advertising before. In terms of marketing dollars, Internet advertising and pay-per-click marketing are the best, more cost effective ways of promoting your business and they have the highest return on investment (ROI) of all forms of marketing.

You can target your campaign as specifically as you’d like and you only pay when someone clicks on your ads. You can use website analytics to determine exactly which ads are the most popular and the most effective. You can see if the advertising is just boosting traffic or if it’s actually boosting business.

However, to do all of those things you need to keep an eye on your campaigns regularly.

Many of the benefits of online marketing is that you can see what ads are working and make the necessary changes to your campaign almost immediately. You don’t have to wait for a sales report at the end of the month and there’s no need for guesswork. Your website analytics will give you all of the information you need.

But that benefit is lost if you’re not monitoring your campaigns. If you try to “set it and forget it” you will definitely find that your campaigns are less effective. You risk running an ad for weeks without ever knowing that no one is clicking it. That time could be used to run a useful ad instead.

Even worse, you could end up running an ad that people are clicking, but one that isn’t converting those clicks into customers. You’ll end up paying for each of those clicks, but not getting any of that money back through increased sales. If you had been monitoring that ad regularly you probably would have noticed that trend within a few days instead of a few weeks. Figuring out when a campaign is failing and making changes to it as soon as possible can save you a lot of money.

Another aspect of your campaign that requires regular monitoring is the bid process. Google AdWords and other pay-per-click advertisers operate on a bid system. That means that the price to have an ad displayed in a prominent position. Yes, you can set a maximum price and leave the system alone, but it’s far more productive to check in regularly and participate in the bid process.

Obviously many businesses do not have the time to regularly monitor their pay-per-click marketing campaigns. This is where a pay-per-click marketing company is very helpful. These companies have the expertise and time necessary to set up and actively monitor your advertising campaigns.

First2Search is a Toronto pay-per-click marketing company and Internet advertising company. We can help you create a campaign that will benefit your business and make modify the campaign to get the highest possible return. Contact us today for more information.

Five Ways To Turn Website Traffic into Business

Posted By Meagan Mills in Pay Per Click, SEO, Search Engine Optimization on March 11, 2010
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One of the first struggles that website owners usually deal with is trying to get traffic to their sites.

It’s often difficult to find traction and sometimes it seems like no one will ever visit your website. But, through some good website design, skilled search engine optimization efforts, website marketing and a pay-per-click marketing campaign, you finally start to attract some traffic. But you’re still not seeing any increased sales. Why?

Unfortunately, while it definitely helps to see increased website traffic, that increase in traffic doesn’t always translate to an increase in sales. Here are a five tips that can help you turn website visitors into customers:

Make your website easy to navigate

One of the main reasons that visitors do not turn into customers is because they website they are on is too difficult to navigate. You should have easy-to-understand links placed in a highly visible area of the website. In order to avoid confusion, try to declutter your page and only place the information you need on the site.

Introduce “Calls to Action”

Having a call to action button, logo or link on your website is an excellent way to convert website visitors into paying customers. This is a great way to direct your visitors to a contact form or a current promotion or sale.

Write compelling content

Well-written, informative and easy-to-understand website content goes a long way. If your website writing is persuasive and interesting, visitors will be more likely to purchase your products or services.

Have a professional website design

An up-to-date, professional website design that adheres to current standard is important. Your website could be the first time a visitor has ever heard of your company so it is important to look presentable. The graphics and the design of your site should represent your company well and you will want your site to look relevant, so use up-to-date design technology and standards. That doesn’t mean that your site needs to be filled with music, video, graphics and animation, but it does need to look good.

Make it easy for clients to contact you

Have a contact form placed in a highly visible location. Write your phone number and/or email address in large print. Offer online chats or “click-to-call” services. Do whatever is necessary to make it easy for a visitor to contact you.

First2Search is a Toronto website design company, pay-per-click marketer, website promotion and search engine optimization company. We specialize in getting your company noticed online and converting those visitors to customers.

For more information on our services and how we can help your business grow, please contact us today.

5 Google AdWords Tips for Newcomers

Posted By Nathan Hughes in Pay Per Click on March 8, 2010
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Google AdWords can be an excellent way to increase the number of visitors to your site. A Google pay-per-click campaign has many advantages. You only pay when users click your ads and the traffic that you draw in will be targeted towards your topic. You won’t pay for irrelevant traffic and you won’t pay for people that ignore your ads.

For newcomers, AdWords can be intimidating. While it’s very easy to sign up for the program, it’s tough to jump in and immediately be successful. At First2Search, we are experienced with Google AdWords and can help you with your AdWords campaign. Here are a few tips for those who are just getting started:

Optimize Your Landing Pages

The page your users end up on when they click your ad is called your landing page. This page is incredibly important as it is usually the first experience a visitor has with your company. Make it easy to use and make sure there is a call to action on the page.

If the goal of your ad campaign is to make visitors fill out a quote form, that form should be highly visible and easy to reach from your landing page. If your goal is to get potential clients to contact you, your contact information should be clearly displayed on the page.

Try and reduce the clutter on your landing page in order to make the most important features stand out.

Think Hard About Content Network Ads

When you post an AdWords ad you have the option of having it only show up on Google itself or on any relevant pages that display Google ads. Choosing to display ads on the content network will get you more exposure and possibly more clicks, but there is also a downside.

These visitors may not be as targeted as those that are searching for information on Google. The fact that you can’t control the content on the page where the ad is displayed is also a downside.

Sometimes displaying ads on the content network can be a good idea, but not always. It pays off to think about this decision carefully.

Use negative keywords

You can use negative keywords to ensure that you ads are not displayed when certain words are included in the search. For example, if you run a web design company you will likely want your ads to come up when someone searches for “web design” on Google, but you may not want your ads displayed when someone looks for “web design jobs.” Those searching for employment are not the same people who are looking to hire a website designer.

Using negative keywords can definitely target your campaign to a more useful audience.

Choose relevant keywords

The keywords you choose to bid on are very important. Don’t just bid on every keyword that is somehow connected to your business. Yes, that might bring more people to your site but it might not bring you any additional clients. Choose only relevant keywords and focus on those. Monitor the success of your campaign and modify, expand or contract your list of keywords as necessary.

Google AdWords is not a “set it and forget it” system. Truly successful campaigns and monitored and adjusted regularly.

Write Persuasive Ads

The content and the quality of your ad matters. Depending on your topic, you could be competing with thousands of other companies online. When you write your ad copy you want to write something that will attract visitors. You’ll also want to write content that is relevant to the terms the user is searching for.

Often this means making different ads for different keywords and adjusting them as necessary. The more relevant and clear an ad is, the more likely it will get clicked.

Google AdWords can be overwhelming at first, but it is also incredibly powerful. First2Search specializes in Google AdWords campaigns and other pay-per-click advertising campaigns. If you need help with your AdWords campaign or if you’re looking for an expert to handle your campaign for you, give us a call or contact us online!

Online Marketing is Cost Effective

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, Website Promotion on February 20, 2010
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The most important aspect to any marketing campaign is your return on investment. If you’re spending money to market your product or service you want to get as much of a return back as possible. The good thing is that online marketing is incredibly cost effective. The ROI from an Internet marketing campaign exceeds that of many other forms of marketing.

With pay-per-click marketing campaigns, you only pay when someone actually visits your website. Unlike print, radio, television or direct mail advertisements, you don’t pay when people ignore your ad or simply glance at it. You don’t pay for unrelated traffic either. When you participate in a pay-per-click advertising campaign, your ad is only displayed when someone searches for terms related to your website. You’re getting targeted traffic.

Pay-per-click advertising campaigns only reach customers that are actually searching for your industry. Rather than telling people what they want, you are approaching people that are already interested in your industry. Once someone types a related phrase into a search engine, they are already much more likely to be interested in your website than a passive user looking at an unrelated ad. People searching online are actively looking for information and those searching for products and services are likely doing so with the intent to purchase. This is the best possible time to advertise.

What you end up with are qualified customers that are willing to spend and you only pay when one of those customers makes the decision to visit your website. The visitors you end up paying for are much, much more likely to be interested in your company and your chance of making a sale will be much greater.

Another positive aspect of online marketing is that it is very easy to monitor your return on investment. If you mail out fliers, there really isn’t any way to know how many people throw them away. There also isn’t a way to know exactly how many people read your print ad or pay attention to your television or radio commercial. Yes, you can estimate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign by watching for any increases in business following one, but there is now way to know with 100% certainty.

With pay-per-click online advertising, you know exactly how many people click your ads and visit your site. Using website analytics in conjunction with advertising, you know how many of those visitors stay on your site and for how long. You can figure out exactly which keywords are performing well and which are not. This sort of specific tracking isn’t possible with other forms of advertising.

Being able to track your website promotion and fine tune your efforts based on the data you receive is just another reason why online advertising is so cost effective and important.

How To Improve Your Bounce Rate

Posted By Meagan Mills in Google Analytics, Pay Per Click on February 18, 2010
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One of the main stats webmasters are frequently concerned with is a web page’s bounce rate. When a visitor clicks on your page and then immediately clicks to another page (either by clicking the back button, typing in a different address, following a link that takes them away from your site or closing the browser window) that visitor is considered “bounced.” They went to your site and didn’t stick around.

Obviously this is a problem. Every website has a goal. Either you want people to fill out a contact form, or purchase a product or read several pages in order to get hooked. Bounced visitors usually do not turn into customers. Sometimes a person visits a page, finds a phone number and calls, but that happens rarely. Most people click around a bit if they are interested in the site.

This issue becomes more of a problem if visitors are coming to your page via a PPC campaign and then immediately leaving. You end up paying for the clicks but not receiving any additional customers.

Here are a few ways to improve your website’s bounce rate.

Position links and navigation elements in easy-to-find areas.

◦ Where do you want your visitors to go? If you want them to contact you, the “CONTACT US” link should be easy to find and in a highly visible area. If you want them to navigate the site you have to make it easy to do so.

Keep it simple

◦ This refers to both design and text. If your website is too cluttered or confusing, people will click away. If a visitor ends up on your site and sees nothing but a wall of text, they’ll likely move on. Tone it down and only include what is necessary.

Make your page relevant

◦ When someone clicks on a search engine result they expect to find what they are looking for. If your page title is “Blue Widgets For Sale” someone that visits your page expects to find information on how to buy blue widgets. If that page is about why blue widgets aren’t as good as red widgets, most people will click away.

Use your analytics

◦ How are most people finding your site? If most of your bounced visitors are coming from organic searches, look into the keywords they are using to find you and tailor your site towards those keywords.

Speed up your site

◦ Very few people will wait more than five seconds for a web page to load. If your site takes longer than that a lot of visitors will assume there’s a problem and click away.

If you follow the tips above you should be able to reduce your bounce rate and increase your sales.

Landing pages can help you lower your bounce rate when using PPC ads. You can target your ads and your pages for specific terms to increase their relevance with searchers.

Turning Visitors Into Customers

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, SEO, Website Design, Website Promotion on February 12, 2010
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Webmasters spend a lot of their time trying to increase traffic to their websites. So do SEO professionals, PPC marketers, social media marketers and website copywriters. And it’s obvious why.

You can’t sell a product or service without people knowing your company exists. In order to get noticed, in order to spread your message to as many people as possible, you need to increase traffic. There aren’t many website owners that can honestly say the don’t want more traffic and there are even fewer than would say they want less traffic.

But you don’t just need traffic, you need to convert that traffic into sales. If you run a website that makes money off of ad revenue, having a lot of traffic could be good enough. But if you’re selling a product or a service, you want to increase your sales.

So how do you turn casual visitors into paying customers?

There are a few ways. First of all, having a clear call to action on your website is important. You may want your visitors to fill out a contact form, or call you on the phone ,or purchase a product ,or request a quote or something else entirely. The bottom line is that you have to make this easy to do and you have to make the link that starts this process stand out.

A good call to action is obvious. It is the most obvious link on the page. It should be larger than the rest of the links on the site or use a different font or text colour. It should be positioned in a place where it is easily seen. A visitor’s eye is naturally drawn to certain areas of the screen and your call to action should be placed in one of those areas.

Another way to convert visitors into customers is through well-written website content. Your content should be persuasive and informative. It should give the user the information that they are looking for and it should also sell your company and promote the products or services you offer.

A well-designed website with quality content and good calls to action will convert more visitors into customers than a badly designed one that does not clearly point the user in the right direction. Sometimes the best way to test this is through trial and error. Move elements around the screen until you’ve found one that converts well. You’ll be happy you did.

Tips For Launching A New Website

Posted By Nathan Hughes in Pay Per Click, Website Promotion on February 10, 2010
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Launching a new website is a difficult and stressful thing to do. There are so many factors, so many little nuances and so many challenges that the task can sometimes seem overwhelming. Today we have a few tips for people that have decided to launch a new website.
First of all, there are a two different definitions of “a new website.” The first is the most literal: a brand new website from scratch. The second is a newly designed website. The tips below will help you when launching a brand new site and many of them will help when you want to launch an updated site as well.

Launching A Brand New Site

A ridiculous amount of work goes into a new website launch, far more than most people assume. There are many, many aspects that must be taken into consideration. Here is a helpful list that should make the process run a bit smoother.

Do your keyword research.

◦ This step is vital. The keywords you choose will affect your domain name, the URLs and names of the pages of your site, your title tags and descriptions as well as the direction that your written content goes. Keyword research is a crucial step.

Come up with an easy-to-navigate, scalable site structure

◦ Your web page shouldn’t be convoluted or difficult to use. Make sure all pages are easily accessible and it’s a good idea to think ahead at this point. What pages might you add later on? Where will they fit into your structure? This will help avoid problems in the future.

Create unique, relevant page titles and descriptions for each page

◦ Don’t use the same page title and description for each page and it’s a good idea to incorporate your keywords into your titles and descriptions.

Test, test, test

◦ Before you announce the site to the world, make sure it works. Check all of your links to make sure they work. Proofread all of your written content and eliminate typos or anything that is difficult to understand. If possible, have someone else go through the site and let you know if they have any issues.

Promote the page

◦ Once the site is launched, you’ll need to let people know it’s there. There are several ways to do this. You could start a blog and share your posts with others. You could create a profile on Facebook or Twitter and use that to promote your website. You could issue a press release about your company. Do whatever you think will get the word out.

Consider a PPC campaign

◦ Pay-per-click campaigns are very valuable for new websites. Since the site it is new, it will likely not rank very highly on the major search engines for a while. Instead, you can use PPC ads in order to bring visitors to your site.

Using Landing Pages For PPC Campaigns

Posted By Meagan Mills in Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click on February 8, 2010
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A “landing page” is the page you see when you click on an advertisement or a search engine link. The goal of a landing page is to be related to the terms that the searcher is looking for and to convert that visitor into a customer.

Landing pages are a great idea for people that are running pay per click advertising campaigns. You can structure different pages to match individual ads. For example, if you have ads running for “blue widgets”, “green things” and “red something else” you can set up three separate landing pages that relate specifically to those topics. That way a user searching for “blue widgets” will find information on blue widgets, rather than any other topic or the main page of a website. This sort of targeting leads to more conversions and better sales.

There are a few things you can do that will make your landing pages even more successful.

Tips for Successful Landing Pages

Have a call to action

◦ This is very important. You want to do everything possible to turn your visitor into a customer. You landing page should feature a form to fill out, a phone number or other contact information or a large link to another page you feel is important. Making it easy to find the next step is a great way to ensure your visitor completes that step.

Keep it simple

◦ This is another way to make it easy for the user. Don’t include a lot of text or distracting images on the landing page. Keep your page free from clutter and give the user all the information they need in an easy-to-digest format.

Customize the page to match the ad

◦ If someone clicks an ad that says “Blue Widgets At Cheap Prices” they expect to find blue widgets at cheap prices. Give the visitor what they are looking for. Your landing page should take them directly to your blue widget sales page, rather than an overview of all of your products.

Keep important information “above the fold”

◦ Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll in order to find what they’re looking for. Put the most important information, including your call to action, where your visitor will see it without scrolling or looking too hard

If you use your landing pages properly, you will make your pay per click advertising campaigns much more effective. First2Search are experts at PPC campaigns and landing pages. Contact us for more information and find out how we can help you!

The Single Most Important Aspect of Internet Promotion

Posted By Meagan Mills in Pay Per Click, SEO, Search Engine Optimization on January 22, 2010
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There are many, many important things to take into consideration when you are developing and promoting a website. Website design, keyword choice, written content, site structure, onsite SEO, link building strategy and pay per click advertising are just a few aspects you’ll need to pay attention to and keep track of. However, there is one thing that more important than all the rest of them put together.

Give your visitors what they’re looking for.

This overarching thought should be in your mind every single time you do anything related to your website. You shouldn’t design your site solely for aesthetic or SEO purposes. You shouldn’t produce your written content only for search engines. You always need to remember that the final decision to use your company or not will be made by a real person, not a computer.

When you are putting together a PPC campaign, keep your customers in mind. What would they be searching for? Just because Google keywords or another similar tool can tell you what the most popular search terms are, it doesn’t mean that the clients you are looking for will be using those terms. “Widgets” may be the most searched term on Google, but that doesn’t matter if most clients looking for companies like yours are searching for “Green doodads in Canada.” The bottom line is that you need to structure all of your efforts with your customer in mind.

When you design a website there is a lot of pressure to rank highly on major search engines, and for good reason. If people cannot find your site, they won’t be able to purchase your products or services. You could have an amazing website that no one ever sees. So it is important to use SEO techniques and pay-per-click campaigns to drive traffic to your page. However, if your site doesn’t meet your customers’ needs, you will be left with a high bounce rate, very few clients and a serious issue on your hands.

Keyword choice is key, as picking the wrong keywords to optimize and advertise can bring in the wrong traffic and definitely hurt your business. There’s no point in receiving high traffic if almost every person that visits your site leaves almost immediately. Web design and written content are incredibly important as well. When a client reaches your site it’s important that they find an attractive, easy-to-use, informative web page. Otherwise they’ll be on to the next site almost immediately.

If you have a site that gives clients what they want and it’s promoted and optimized well, you’ll be set for success.

What the new Google Caffeine Means for Search

Posted By Meagan Mills in Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click, SEO, Website Promotion on January 19, 2010
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Google is close to releasing a new version of its search engine, called “Google Caffeine.” The main new feature is the speed of search (hence the name “Caffeine) but that’s not the only difference. Google search results are going to change and the search algorithm will change.

The look and feel of Google will remain the same. It’s not a drastic change that will make Google completely different, but there is a change. For some searches things will look exactly the same. In other searches there will be slight differences that most people will not notice. Overall, Google will be faster and, hopefully, deliver more relevant results than ever before.

So what does this mean for website designers and those involved in search engine optimization? A few things.

First of all, it seems that Google will now give more weight to news and social media sites. This is especially true for generic search terms like “dog,” “cat,” “shoes” and others. When you search for a generic, broad term you will more than likely be presented with current news and social media conversations on that topic. Google now assumes that people searching for generic terms online want the latest information first. For specific terms, web pages will come up.

Google will also index more pages in an attempt to provide more information. The page is also structured slightly different, with news and video moving around depending on the terms searched.

So how should you change your website to fit the new Google? First of all, the point that you should not structure your site solely for Google remains true. Ultimately real users are going to be the people that decide to spend time on your site, use your services and pay for your products, so you always need to have real people in mind and not just search engines.

It seems as though Google will be relying on current, up-to-date information more than ever. Depending on the topic, websites that deliver frequently updated content will be ranked higher. This makes it more important than ever to focus on delivering fresh, related content on your website.

The new Google be being launched partially due to Bing’s partnership with Yahoo. Google wants its users to find the most relevant results faster. If people are consistently finding better results on Bing, there is a chance that they may switch and use that search engine as their default. Google does not want this and so it will strive to deliver the best results. The bottom line here is, to continue to be ranked highly on Google or Bing, you need to have a good quality website. If you only use underhanded techniques to drive visitors to a sub par page, you will eventually be found out and punished in the rankings.

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