Melville, NY (The New York Enterprise Report)
5 Creative Ways to Avoid Mistakes with Paid Search
New Rules for Paid Search
By: Andrew Hazen
The key to paid search is relevance. Try to match what your website is offering to the needs of the searcher at the exact moment they ask for it. However, once a searcher clicks on your site, you will most likely have one chance to impress that visitor. Your website has to represent your business, and your paid search has to represent your website. If you think the success of your online marketing effort relies solely on the paid search campaigns, then paid search can and will compromise your online marketing initiatives.Paid search sponsored ads are textual advertisements that appear above or to the right of search engine results. Advertisers bid on a cost per click (CPC) model, which can range from $.10 to $100 depending on how competitive your keywords are. The ads consist of a limited number of characters, so you must be crafty in writing them. To set up an account you only need to have a credit card and then you can literally appear on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and so on, within a day or less.
Before you start paying for traffic to come to your site, consider the following: If there are many advertisers selling the same product or service, what would set you apart from your competition? Why should someone buy a product from you as opposed to your competitor? Think of how you compare with respect to these qualities – price, return policy, customer service, and shipping charges. If you are a service provider, again, what differentiates you from your competition? Think about testimonials, trial periods, and pricing. For all types of businesses, is your site easy to navigate? Is it clear what action you want your visitors to take? Are the steps involved in this action clearly identified? These considerations will enable you to create strong copy for your paid search ads that will encourage searchers to click. You can and should prevent unqualified visitors from entering your site by creating ad copy that pre-qualifies them. For example, if your services start at $5,000 per month, then say so in your ad so that people looking for services that start at around $500 a month will look elsewhere. This way, you don’t pay for clicks that will never result in customers.
Optimized paid search campaigns drive relevant traffic to websites by using ad text relevant to the search query. If your website doesn’t offer what the ad leads the reader to believe it will, then that person is most likely to leave without converting. A conversion is the completion of a desired event, such as when a visitor downloads a form or places an order. You might end up paying for a search that doesn’t convert visitors to customers and the visitors will most likely never visit your site again.
Keep in mind that not all offline businesses can translate successfully to the online world. Online marketing can drive a larger share of the existing audience to your site, but if the interest in your type of business is not there, paid search alone will not be successful.
One more thing to consider is whether or not your chosen keywords have excessive search volume. The keywords might be so competitive and expensive that your profit margin just won’t support the cost to bid on them. Every advertiser must consider their own unique business model and make advertising decisions based upon individual circumstances. For example, if you only make $10 profit on the sale of your product or service then it would not make sense to bid $20 per click. Test everything and then only promote products and services that are profitable. While the Internet levels the playing field so that all businesses, big and small, can compete in the same arena, the strategies need to be tailored to what works for you. Keep in mind the following tips to ensure that your paid search campaign is truly enhancing your online marketing.
Creative Tip #1: Before you start the paid search campaign, optimize your website for organic search listings as well as for paid search listings and check your website for usability. Being listed based on both paid and organic search results increases your visibility and ability to convert users. Do not start the paid search campaign until the website has been optimized and checked for usability.
Creative Tip #2: In order to generate additional buzz on the Internet, start an online viral campaign through social media (Blogs, YouTube, etc.). Participating in social media can increase the amount of traffic your site gets through search engines. Utilize Google’s offline products such as Google Audio, Google Print, and Google Television. By promoting your website through all of these mediums, you will ultimately increase search volume.
Creative Tip #3: It may seem that your broad search terms are not generating a lot of conversions or at least profitable conversions. Depending on your tracking software, you may be able to assign an “assist” value to the first keyword that started the keyword search resulting in a conversion. For example, a web surfer may click on a paid search ad for “high definition televisions” and then do a second search for a model such as “Samsung PN50A650”; it’s that second click that would “assist” the first keyword search. Broad searches may lead to bookmarked conversions, which is when a visitor bookmarks your site and then returns via the bookmark and converts, or a visitor finds your site through a search engine and then returns later and enters your URL directly. It may also lead to a phone call. Don’t discount the value of the broad search terms that may not be directly attributed to your website’s success.
Creative Tip #4: Bid on your company name and website name. You are the most relevant for your own name and therefore you will see top listings from very inexpensive clicks. Even if you have great natural rankings, you will see increased activity by having listings in both organic and paid results. Just remember, if you don’t bid on your own name, then your competitor might, and they could be stealing your traffic. On the other hand, bidding on your competitors’ name is a sticky situation. While it is good to offer searchers choices, bidding on a competitor’s name will result in a poor user experience because, unless your landing page content specifically references the competitor, your listing will be completely irrelevant. The search engines will penalize you by raising your cost per click. It is best to compete on the keywords focusing on what your website is offering and clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors.
Creative Tip #5: It is not necessary to target position 1. You may see better conversion results being in a lower position. Use analytics and bid management tools to give you as much information as possible regarding the behavior of your visitors. Paid search can compromise your overall online marketing if you expect it to perform miracles. All aspects of online marketing work together to create a user experience and if you only look at one piece of the puzzle, you may be disappointed in the results. Also, remember that even a highly optimized paid search campaign can generate poor results if your website is not optimized or your business model does not lend itself to being profitable online.
Original article published on: January, 2009
Original Article: http://nyreport.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Feature.showFeature&FeatureID=779
Kathy Baka on 5 Creative Ways to Avoid Mistakes with Paid Search | Prime Visibility Finally something new to read…keep me updated (lets be friends on twitter http://twitter.com/kathybaka
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