Pay-Per-Click Strategies
for Search Engine Marketers
- Part 2
We continue
with our PPC special, talking
to three very experienced pay-per-click
operatives - Ammon
Johns , Andrew
Goodman and Jim
Banks who
have all kindly agreed to share
their knowledge. Continued
from Part One.
Since Part
One of our interview
last week, there has been
discussion by some SEO's
concerned that PPC might
be an alternative to SEO
- a good place to pick up
part two....
PD: Is PPC
an alternative to SEO?
AJ: PPC
could be used instead of more
'traditional' SEO, but I find
it better as a complimentary
marketing technique.
While PPC
offers a very cost effective
method of advertising, SEO
can bring visitors at no cost
at all apart from the time
and effort spent in the SEO
work. SEO can offer greater
value for money in the long
term by far.
There are
many SEO professionals who
disregard PPC because they
see SEO as the superior technique.
I feel that all such professionals
are missing out due to personal
bias.
A PPC campaign
can be running at full tilt
within a week (within an hour
using Google AdWords!), while
an SEO campaign typically takes
3 months to gather any real
momentum, and won't reach full
speed for 6 months or more
because certain engines and
directories take considerable
time to index.
Therefore,
a holistic search engine marketing
campaign should use PPC to
'kick-start' the effort and
bring results from the first
week until the SEO campaign
matures, and then it can be
cut back (if desired) as traditional
SEO placements appear in the
rankings just below the PPC
ones, one listing at a time.
While SEO
offers the greater long-term
value, it requires a different
form of cost and investment.
SEO requires that the site
content be optimised for the
search engines, and not for
the presentation that the company
might have wished to make to
customers.
With PPC
I can have a completely Flash
based site, to which I have
been given no rewriting access
riding at the #1 slot in many
of the largest search engines,
with a Title designed not for
ranking, but for customer appeal,
and a description written for
the same purpose.
PPC offers
a combination of speed, flexibility
and reliability that SEO cannot.
I think some SEO professionals
feel threatened by that, and
fail to realize the opportunities
that this tool presents to
them.
PD:
Jim, you wanted to pick-up
on something
Andrew mentioned that's related
to the cross-over point between
seo & ppc?
JB:
To Quote Andrew: "Have
you noticed how popular those
online dating
services have become, by the
way?"
Indeed we
have. One of our clients has
taken their membership base
from 26,000 to 50,000 in only
3 months, thanks to PPC. We
have been able to geo-target,
have been able to target according
to sexual persuasion, have
been able to obtain feedback
instantly on the success of
keyword and ad combination,
and have been able to experiment
with numerous landing pages
safe in the knowledge that
each page will not suffer at
the hands of a search engine's
algo.
Not only
that, we can tell the client
all of the important keywords
for converting into sales,
or actions or both. This is
invaluable in ascertaining
the optimum price PER KEYWORD,
to work out ROI.
Sure, we
work at building traffic via
SEO too, after all it works
out cheaper generally on a
cost per visitor basis, but
as Andrew said it can take
3-6 months to get results and
most of the clients we deal
with want results and want
them NOW. I also think that
inside the next 6 months we
will probably be working exclusively
on PPC and outsourcing the
SEO stuff.
PD: OK, so
how do you go about PPC? Can
you describe the approach you
take on behalf of your clients?
JB: The first
thing to note is that every
client is different. The objectives
are always different and it's
important to define what success
looks like before doing anything.
It's
important to establish the
budget, the
timescale for the campaign,
the reporting structure. It's
crucial to know who they are
competing against and how the
competition bid, and to what
degree they are bidding (are
they just using Overture/Google
or are they using others).
We'll tend to follow the bidding
patterns of competitors to
establish what tactics to employ
in the bidding "war".
As Ammon
rightly pointed out it's all
about ROI and getting the best
return is a combination of
doing a lot of little things
right, rather than it being
big things. Every penny you
can trim off the bids is more
ROI, every new niche keyword
that delivers some clicks is
more ROI, every out-bidding
maneuver against a competitor
is less on their ROI.
The steps
we go through would tend to
be :
1. Take a
detailed brief
2. Establish objectives/budget
3. Establish competition
4. Research market
5. Build keyword pool using : Wordtracker, Overture suggestion tool, Good Keywords
Professional (which is a sort of pumped up version of Overtures tool), Keyword
Grabber (scours the meta keywords for particular keywords to build a more comprehensive
list)
6. As Andrew alludes to in his book, there are so many variations on keywords
that you can use. Even with the advent of Match Driver there is still masses
of inventory going cheap in every industry, if you can find those keywords
then the bid management is easy..... being the only advertiser for a keyword
and bidding 10p (new figures) makes the monitoring a cinch.
7. Put in place tracking. This is the most important part of the entire process.
You need to be able to build your ROI calculations for each sub-campaign to
see where you need to concentrate your efforts. Rather than looking at an entire
campaign as a whole if you can tweak a title here and there or change a description
or a landing page to extract a few more conversions, then in a campaign with
2000 keywords this will make a big difference.
We use HyperTracker*
(www.hypertracker.com)
because it's comparatively
inexpensive and does all that
we need it to do. But, it's
like most things, in the hands
of a novice it will just be
another expense. We have worked
hard to make it work for our
clients, we've tried other
tools as well, but Hypertracker
is the one for us.
8. We break
up our campaigns into logical
groups so we can segment according
to the objectives for easier
reporting.
We set up
all of the accounts for the
clients in our name, but provide
complete transparency by giving
them log-in details. If there
are any issues with keyword
rejections, ad group anomalies,
we are best equipped to deal
with them, plus the PPC's are
starting to send out more propaganda
and we want to protect our
relationship with the clients
by only passing on the important
stuff. They don't really want
to know the mechanics of how
things work, although we are
happy to explain if they want
us to.
Armed with
our accounts, we tend to try
things out with Google for
a few days first. This is because,
as Ammon said they are quick
to get campaigns up and running.
But, with Google we tend to
go slow to start.
With the
relevancy kicking in at 0.5%
if you hit them with too many
ads and keywords too soon you
find you may get poor results
early on and it's difficult
to recover once you are in
that stage. If you have done
your research right and got
the right keywords with phrase
and exact match installed,
and then monitor the keywords
through the tracking for obvious
negative keywords then it is
fairly easy to get high above
the thresholds needed to have
a successful campaign.
Once you
have some anecdotal evidence
from Google Adwords you can
go to the other PPC's.
There's a
lot more we do, I'll elaborate
later, but want to give the
others a chance to talk!
AJ:
Focus on ROI (return on investment).
Spending money to attract visitors
that don't convert is a sure-fire
waste of money. You've always
heard that Content is King,
well in PPC, Conversion is
the Emperor.
This means
that you need to begin a PPC
with either good tracking or
good experience, and preferably
both. You must be able to assess
which search terms attract
the best sales prospects, and
not just the most visitors.
This is where having an experienced
SEO manage or train you to
manage a PPC campaign really
pays off.
A good SEO
can bring a wealth of knowledge
and experience on how people
really use search, which kinds
of searches convert best, and
how to select and evaluate
search terms. Naturally, they'll
also bring a lot of experience
in tracking results, and so
can help set up measures to
measure your return on investment
in real terms and real time.
Lets go through
the steps of using PPC.
Selecting
Search Terms
Just like
keyword selection in SEO, the
selection of the search terms
you'll appear for is important.
With PPC however, these need
to be focused on ROI to a far
higher degree because you are
going to be paying for every
click-through and therefore
want to attract only the most
qualified sales leads.
The danger
in selecting keywords and phrases
is usually that the person
doing the selecting is approaching
the words with an inside knowledge,
and may include insider or
trade terms that the customers
are far less likely to use.
The simplest way of getting
good ideas for search terms
is to ask people outside of
the company how they would
go about trying to find a product
like yours. Some of my clients
have sent employees home with
a questionaire for their families
and found this very enlightening.
The keyword
suggestion tools provided by
the PPC providers are useful,
but ignore the actual search
numbers shown. Use these numbers
only to show relative interest,
and assume the figures to include
a vast number of searches where
no listing was eventually clicked.
A recent
discussion at Cre8asite may
help show why this happens.
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1333
The value
of WordTracker* (www.wordtracker.com)
is superb in helping to evaluate
search terms. WordTracker allows
you to see how many searches
that include a particular word
or phrase have been made in
their massive sample of actual
searches, and then to dig down
to find the exact and specific
search terms that were used.
Evaluating
Search Terms
Use a balance
of four criteria to evaluate
potential search terms:
Relevance
Cost
Popularity
Performance
Relevance:
Relevance is not just making
sure that a search term can
apply to your product or service
but, more specifically, that
it is unlikely to apply to
any other product or service.
Cost: In
a competitive market, you may
often find that the top bid
for a search term is far higher
than your own margins allow.
In general, you can attain
far better value by choosing
more specific search terms.
Popularity:
Popularity is simply the relative
usage of one search term over
another. People searching for
a product may often be more
likely to use certain words
than others in their search
request, e.g. ‘buy’ and ‘purchase’ may
mean the same thing but people
are generally much more likely
to use the word ‘buy’ than ‘purchase’ when
searching.
Performance:
Performance is something you
will have to determine for
yourself by tracking your customers
from initial referral through
to the sale. You will often
find that while some search
terms will generate more visitors,
others will actually generate
more sales. This is because
many people will simply be
researching a potential purchase
while those who are ready to
buy will use slightly different
search terms.
Effective
Titles for search listings
Titles
are the text shown as the
main
link in your listing. Select
your title carefully as this
is the ‘headline’ of
your advertisement in the search
listings. Titles should be
very short, ideally no more
than 5 words, and to the point.
The greatest
advantage of PPC search listings
over other forms of SEO is
that you can craft titles to
draw clicks, without fearing
that it will affect your rankings.
Select a title that shows what
the page offers, and promotes
brand awareness.
Effective
Descriptions for search listings
The description
can be a little longer than
the title, but ideally should
be no longer than 25 words,
and should likewise be to the
point. The description should
be one or two punchy sentences
that show how clicking on your
link will answer their search
query.
Example
Search
Phrase: ‘cheap
widgets’
Title: Best value widgets from DigiWidget.com
Description: Wide range of widgets to suit all needs and budgets. DigiWidget
gives you great quality and even better prices.
Effective
URLs for your search listings
People
online generally want to
answer their
queries and find the resources
they seek as quickly and effortlessly
as possible. Additionally,
many ‘Net users are not
particularly adept at using
search engines most effectively,
and find that results for their
searches are often not as relevant
as they had hoped. For these
reasons it is best to use a
URL that will take the visitor
direct to the specific content
they are seeking, and not to
the homepage of your site.
Managing
campaigns on Google AdWords
Google provide
the most advanced system for
managing keyword variations.
With Overture or Espotting,
your search terms must match
almost exactly with the words
used in the search (Overture's
'MatchDriver' overcomes this,
but can lower relevance considerably).
On Google, however, your listing
can be shown for any search
that merely includes your selected
words, unless you have deliberately
excluded them.
To put this
into context, DigiWidget's
AdWords campaign may target
any search that includes the
word 'widget' but exclude those
who use the word 'purple' or
'tin' or 'free' in their search
words because they don't offer
those widgets and are trying
to attract customers, not just
page impressions.
Google
have an extra level of ‘review’ for
listings, in that if any campaign
fails to attain a 0.5 percent
click-through rate, they will
drop the campaign automatically.
Google are
the only PPC search listings
provider that will allow you
to have multiple ads targeting
the same keywords. One advantage
of this is that you can simultaneously
run more than one style of
ad, and directly compare the
performance.
Google do
not display their AdWords advertising
in strict order of bid price,
but rather factor in the click-through
rate too, so that relevant
advertisers can compete with
companies with less relevant
(but higher ROI) products and
services.
With
all Google campaigns, you
need to focus on gaining
the highest click-through
rate that you can, as this
will give you better exposure
for less cost.
...
part
three....
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product placement, honest.
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