by: Kevin Gold
Starting an ultimately effective pay-per-click campaign is difficult.
Although the paid search engines like Google Adwords and Overture (now re-branded as Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions) want you to believe otherwise.
A goal of ?getting website traffic? is logically appealing since marketers tend to directly associate website traffic to producing website actions like sales, subscriptions and so on.
The problem is ?all website traffic is NOT created equal.?
Just because you receive ?traffic? does not mean you will achieve website actions.
For example, if you are selling a real estate course on buying foreclosures and you bid on the keyword ?real estate? ? you may receive thousands of website visitors yet not sell a single real estate course.
A large percentage of the businesses that come to us for assistance relate their pain from this experience by commenting, ?We were getting x,xxx visitors to the website per month and no sales, we can?t figure out why??
Let me tell you ?why?? ? All traffic is not created equal.
What this means is that you need to attract visitors (your target market) who are most relevant to your product or service.
In the example above, the keyword ?real estate? is so general that its relevance is diluted especially for a niche market for a course on buying foreclosures.
You need to actually perform a search for each of your primary keywords and look at the type of websites that rank high in the natural search listings.
They have earned (well...in most cases) a high ranking because they are highly relevant to the meaning of the keyword.
A search engine?s mission is to deliver highly relevant search results to their customers.
Therefore the natural search results indicate what the search engines believe most effectively satisfies their customer?s expectations when they search on a particular keyword.
Paid search increases the simplicity of ?getting website traffic? yet the difficulty lies at the heart of your primary goal - getting actions that drive business growth like sales, subscriptions or contact us form completions.
Here lays the challenge not advertised by the paid search engines ? how to generate website actions.
You are faced with a number of real challenges when aimed at achieving website actions from your paid search engine campaign.
The challenges focus on two key aspects: the cost you pay per click and the relevancy you present to the click-through.
These are important because they affect your business growth in terms of conversion and profitability ? the intersection of website visitors with website actions.
Paid Search ? Bidding Strategies
The first aspect is your cost per click.
It is controlled by your willingness to bid and budget a certain amount for an ad placement.
All pay-per-click search engines possess unique bidding nuances.
However, for the two largest, Google Adwords and Overture do not become fixated on the top bid position.
Test how each keyword performs in achieving your primary website actions all the way up to the seventh bid position.
Depending on your product or service, you may be amazed how bid position six attracts less click-throughs but produces more website actions.
Or maybe position four generates more actions.
Regardless - test, test and test ? the outcome may mean lower costs and higher actions for you.
One tested strategy is to determine the keyword ?click price? you are willing to pay using your performance metrics (e.g. your cost per action, conversion rate, value of a buyer and so on) and then search for that keyword on the major search engines where your ad will appear.
Check out where each bid position is listed on the search results page.
Recently Overture and Google Adwords have increased their number of displayed results to up to eight ?sponsor results? or paid ads on the first page.
In some cases, the fourth and fifth or fifth and sixth bid positions will show at the bottom of the first search results page and again at the top, right margin of the page ? in essence two ads for the price of one.
Be aware of this strategic opportunity!
Here is another proven strategy that has worked wonders for our clients.
In Overture?s direct advertiser center, a marketer only views the top five bid placements.
Bid a penny below the fifth bid position to attain the sixth one.
Typically, because this bid placement is not ?visible? in the marketers? control panel, you can obtain a great bid placement at a dramatically lower click cost with sustainable or increasing conversion rate.
For example, we set a real estate client?s bid for a high demand / high cost keyword to the sixth bid position and paid $0.59 less than the fifth position and increased actions significantly while drastically reducing their cost per action. Even better, this bid position was sustained for the keyword for over four months!
Because it?s under the ?radar screen? in the Direct Advertiser Center in Overture and marketers never bothered to view the actual search listing results, we made a killing!
If you want to conquer your competition ? follow this strategy.
Landing Page Development
Have you heard of landing pages?
If not, you must get familiar with them this week and immediately start implementing them for your paid search campaigns especially your primary and most competitive keywords.
Why the sense of urgency?
Because highly-relevant landing pages have proven to increase website actions.
In one of many possible examples, a client?s website actions to website visitors? ratio increased from 0.7% to 10.8% in one month because of implementing and testing different landing pages.
That?s a ten times increase! Landing pages work.
So, what are landing pages?
Landing pages are simply web pages designed specifically for a keyword or related group of keywords.
They are highly relevant to the keyword searched and consistent with your ad?s claim. They immediately focus a visitor?s attention to a primary action.
In essence ? landing pages ask your visitors to take an action.
One of the reportedly major reasons why pay-per-click marketing programs fall short of their intended goal is because businesses direct all of their click-throughs to their home page.
Since most businesses? home pages are designed to serve mutliple audiences (i.e. media relations, investors, current clients, potential prospects, customer services, etc.) they do not provide the level of relevancy and consistency expected from the visitor.
If your pay-per-click marketing is not living up to your expectations, consider which web pages you are sending visitors to.
Are they relevant and consistent with your pay-per-click ads and keywords?
Do they offer too many calls-to-action?
Do they ?fit? the expectations of the visitor searching on the particular keyword?
For example, are you sending a visitor searching on the keyword ?Sony LCD TV? to a web page with twenty varieties of electronic products?
An effectively designed landing page would present the visitor a ?Sony LCD TV? with customer benefit oriented copy, an immediate ?buy now? call to action and all applicable guarantee, shipping, customer service and return policies.
A study conducted in April 2004 by Atlas DMT called ?Search Listing URL and Conversion Rate? connected the use of landing pages to their affect on increasing website actions.
The study showed the following astounding results?
? Headline of landing page matches keyword = 0.79%.
? Headline of landing page is on Home Page = 6.31%.
? Headline of landing page matches theme of Keyword = 9.28%.
? Headline of landing page matches specifically to Keyword = 11.81%.
The study showed that the more relevant your landing page is to your website visitors, the higher your website actions.
Landing pages also provide an excellent format to ?split-test? different relevancy strategies like changing your headline, changing colors or graphical images, and alternating actions to determine which produce the best outcomes.
If you are not familiar with split-testing (also called A/B split-testing) then do a little research ? it has emerged in the mainstream as a proven strategy.
But a word of caution, don?t get caught up in the scientific application of split-testing.
Instead use a simple tool like www.Hypertracker.com and focus on trends ? like are your website actions increasing or decreasing.
Marketing whether online or offline has historically been viewed as a cost of business which breeds simplemindedness.
A laggard?s attitude of ?why spend the extra time to achieve a positive ROI??
To some degree in the offline world, the complications and costs of tracking campaign results supported this attitude; however, the connectivity of the Internet enables real-time campaign tracking.
It allows the extra effort focused on generating positive ROIs to reap significant rewards to those who learn and implement proven and tested strategies.
For your paid search campaigns, do not take the simple road to get more website visitors. Instead take the ?road less traveled? to get more website actions.
Start implementing landing pages and strategically building a paid search campaign that generates astounding ROIs and conquers your competition.
The strategies are now in your hands ? the rest is up to you.
About The Author
Kevin Gold is CEO of Enhanced Concepts, specializing in turning website visitors into leads or sales, co-editor of WebSalesability.com and published writer.
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Sony Mp3 Players
Sony Mp3 Players
by: Brian Lupichuk
Sony Mp3 Players have earned the status of being one of the best players on the market. The Sony Mp3 Players are quite versatile for style, looks, and of course accessories.
With the Sony mp3 players you can choose from either the Hard drive player, Flash Memory player, MP3 CD player, or the Mini Disc player.
Sony mp3 players come in a good affordable
price range from $100 to $300.
Lots of the Mp3 players with hard drive storage can hold up to 13,000 songs. This is perfect for those who need large storage capacity.
Some players even provide rechargeable batteries, USB cords, LCD screens, and AC power adapter for charging when needed.
The Flash memory, Sony mp3 players have large storage capacity too.
But flash players are smaller than hard drive players. Flash memory players range in size from around 512 MB to over 1GB.
Lcd tv > Sony Mp3 Players
All about HDTV
All about HDTV
by: Richard Gazzo
The HDTV has become increasingly popular since it?s introduction. There are many well-known electronic manufacturers that have designed many models of the HD style TV. There are multiple sizes, styles and colors that can be attributed to a HD television. Likewise, there are various price tags found on the HD television. With so many choices and decisions ahead of you, don?t feel overwhelmed; there are many great resources to help make your search as quick and painless as possible.
HDTV has been around since the mid 1960?s. In Japan, the first model of the HDTV was created. The innovative electronic geniuses of the United States were quick to follow and the race to perfecting the high definition technology was off to the races around the mid 1990?s.
Basically, the term ?HD? refers to the quality of the broadcast signal that is sent through the television set. The high definition signal represents images...
All about HDTV
Lcd tv > All about HDTV
HDTV is What Technology is All About
HDTV is What Technology is All About
by: Scott Bianchi
If you have not yet watched TV on an HDTV you do not know what you are missing.
When they promote high definition they aren?t kidding.
When my daughter was born I knew I?d be spending a lot of time at home so I invested in an HDTV and two years later I still think it was an excellent purchase.
Not only is the picture unbelievable but the sound is much improved as well.
More and more channels are starting to come out in HDVT format so buying an HDTV
makes much more sense now as compared to two years ago when I bought mine.
When I first got it I think there were only four channels I could watch in HD.
They happened to be four channels I watched a lot so it worked out well for me.
As time has passed the TV?s themselves become even cheaper and more channels are available so they are a much better purchase.
Many people are not...
HDTV is What Technology is All About
Lcd tv > HDTV is What Technology is All About
How-To: Build a Video Projector
How-To: Build a Video Projector
by: Andrew Seltz
Mix big screen home theater dreams with a skimpy budget and you
have the makings of a fantastic do-it-yourself project. Just think of
how impressed all your friends will be watching blockbuster movies on
a video projector you made with your own 2 hands. It was just these
motivations that landed me in front of my web browser digging for
information for this project. There are a lot of cheesy websites that
promise the moon and sell you a plastic magnifying lense and the
instructions to stick a television into a box and put this lens on the
front. You will get an image, but it will look like you made it
yourself. - dark, and blurry. Is there any way to make this work? The
short answer is yes. A video projector is essentially a high
resolution LCD video screen with a really bright light shining through
it and a projector lense enlarging onto the screen. New portable ...
How-To: Build a Video Projector
Lcd tv > How-To: Build a Video Projector
plasma Lcd tv The Art of the Pay-per-Click Start ? Round 2 of 2
Wall Mounting Your Flat Screen TV - Part 1
Wall Mounting Your Flat Screen TV - Part 1
by: Jason West
Choosing A TV Wall Mounting Bracket
So you have bought your new LCD or Plasma TV and decided it would look great on the wall ? so how do you go about doing that?
Once you have purchased your new LCD or Plasma TV then next step is to buy the correct wall mounting bracket and this is not as simple as it sounds!
There are many different types of brackets on the market; you have the manufacturer?s...
Wall Mounting Your Flat Screen TV - Part 1 plasma tv Lcd tv
Lcd tv > Wall Mounting Your Flat Screen TV - Part 1