Paid Search: The Basics
Posted by Kevin on Apr 30, 2008
Paid Search is an advertising platform, typically driven from Search Engines and/or directories. The model typically follows a CPC (cost per click) model, only charging a fee for visitors that reach your website. Paid Search ads appear two ways: search placement and content placement. Ads within search placement appear when searchers search for a particular term that you have elected to purchase. Ads appear within the content placement model when relevant content is served from the search engine partner (news sites, industry sites, etc.)
Todays Relevancy
Today, Paid search is responsible for more than half of the overall traffic from search engines. In a 2008 study by Engine Ready Software, Paid search (PPC) listings outperformed organic search. Paid search ads prequalify traffic with brand and direct response ad copy.
Visitors who clicked on paid search (PPC) ads were 17 percent more likely to buy. Plus, paid search (PPC) average order value was about 18 percent higher.
How Paid Search Can Support Your Goals
Paid search is quick and effective. With today’s interfaces it is possible to be up and running in the same day. This means instant traffic to your product. Paid search can be used to ensure 100% visibility in the search results, often playing a large part in support cases like product launches in the media and other media mentions. Paid search can be directed toward specific pages and products within your website allowing you to channel traffic exactly where you want users to go. Finally, paid search can be used to drive strategies in other marketing channels, answering the question, “Where and why are people looking for us?” In the case of a geographic campaign, using location based keywords can drive offline media spends like DRTV as well as marketing messaging by replicating the Paid search ad copy messaging in other channels.
How Paid Search Can Support Your Audience
Being active in paid search ensures that your business is available when your customers want to find you. Unlike natural search results where your company may appear somewhere deep within the results, paid search let’s you have control of your placement. In addition, by synching messaging across channels, paid search can be used to support DRTV and other offline media by referencing special offers seen elsewhere and providing ongoing experience management with drive to online based campaigns.
When and How to Get Started
There is never a wrong time to get started in paid search. Even if your website already has quality natural rankings, studies have shown that having listings in both paid and natural search at the same time can significantly increase the site’s overall performance. “When appearing in both natural and paid search for the same keyword impression, clicks lifted 92 percent, actions lifted 45 percent, orders lifted 45 percent, page views lifted 44 percent, visitors increased by 41 percent, and time on site increased by 40 percent.” Mediapost’s Search Insider – March 28, 2007
How to Get Started
A correct approach to paid search starts with a clear understanding of the campaign goals. The goals should define the landing page message, the ad copy, and the keyword buildout. Keywords should be chosen carefully based on their ability to not only drive clicks and visits, but also to drive conversion if that is the goal of the campaign. Conversion can mean anything from completing and application, signing up for a newsletter or making a shopping cart purchase on an e-commerce website. Once the account structure and goals are laid out, you can begin to create the structure in the search engine interface. As the campaign begins, careful attention should be paid to the quality of the traffic being generated by each keyword and ad copy recommendation. If the goals are not being met both keywords and ad copy should be altered within the search engines, and the landing page messaging and layout should be improved as well.
General Best Practices
Measure everything back to the keyword level. That is, make sure the tracking in place is capable of tying back actions on the site back to the keyword that activated the paid search ad that was clicked on in the first place.
Make use of negatives. Search engines allow you to specify keywords that you do not want to show ads for. This way if you sell cars in every color but red, you will want to use red as a negative so that you will never serve an ad for a ‘red car’ search query. This will cut down on unwanted clicks and overall cost.
Make sure that the messaging matches. If your ad copy says you have widgets for $29, make sure the landing page and shopping cart are also showing that $29.
Measure everything. There is nothing worse than flying blind in paid search. You created the account for a reason, and that was more than likely to drive some sort of acquisition. Paid search has the unique ability to provide you with instant feedback on your offering, so make the most of your click cost and track everything about it.
Be cognizant of your geographies. If you’re offering something nationwide, remember that most people will still search for local offerings. Qualifying keywords with local geographies will make them feel as if they are dealing locally and also cost you less for that click through.
More Best Practices
Get as local and granular as possible. In paid search it is the generic terms that cost the most per click. Instead of trying to attract business on a generic term like car insurance rates which will cost upwards of $20 per click, create campaigns around qualifying terms like car insurance rates in Miami, FL or BMW 3 series car insurance rates in Miami, FL. Remember that most people are using the search engines knowing that it may take a few tries to find what they’re looking for, and because of this they tend to over qualify their search queries in order to cut through the junk. Because of this, we can also qualify our search terms to match their queries on as many keywords as possible. The general rule of thumb is the more you can match on a query the less you’re going to pay for that click because there will be less competition and your match will appear to be very relevant to the query involved. It also gives you a great opportunity to serve up very targeted ad copy and landing page content since you know so much about the specific things the customer is looking for.
An SEO’s Dream Come True
Posted by Kevin on Dec 19, 2007
SoBeVIPs is one of my pet projects. SoBeVIPs offers South Beach nightclub VIP services among other things. Last year, some of the nightlife venues we were working with offered us the chance to sell New Year’s tickets to the most popular South Beach nightclubs. Needless to say we jumped at the opportunity and tried to make some quick cash and a reputation for ourselves as a major player in the New Year’s scene.
Being a new site, we ranked well for our normal terms and had to quickly try to rank for “South Beach New Year’s” terms which were obviously extremely competitive. Shortly after the new year, we decided that the next year we were going to build a dedicated site for our New Year’s South Beach 2008 efforts, and we went and registered sobenewyears.com.
Well, Christmas came early for us as we soon found out that not only had we stumbled across a great domain name for our new site, but we were actually the second owner of an 11 year old domain. With the combination of an old domain, Google’s history component of their ranking algorithm, and an extremely relevant and well built site, we were ranking #1 for south beach new years eve almost immediately.
Sometimes things just work out.
Let’s get this thing going
Posted by Kevin on Nov 15, 2007
Now that all the formalities are out of the way, let me give you some background.
My name is Kevin and I’m not quite as cool as my URL would lead you to believe, but I’m pretty close and that’s all that counts. During the day I’m a mild mannered online marketing professional, meandering my way through the complex world of the Internet. Throughout my past lives I’ve been a graphic designer, a Flash designer, a programmer, a better programmer, a slightly less creative designer, and most recently a pretty darn good online marketer. I got interested in search after I created a product called CarmenRez and began to sell it around the Internet. I learned link building, optimization, the works. Before I knew it I had optimized my way onto the front page of Google for my most competitive term and shortly thereafter I was at #1. I was hooked and more importantly I learned how to do it for all of my clients.
A few years later and hundreds of front pages later, I decided that online marketing was where it was at. I was never the most creative designer or the most mind blowing programmer, so this made perfect sense. After all, you could have the best site in the world but if no one finds it then what does it matter.
Nowadays I spend my time developing new projects and focusing on the all the optimization that goes into marketing them. I’ll get into some of my projects later on and talk about the hows and the whys and the whats, but suffice to say that I’m always very busy.
My life is like, so cool.
Posted by Kevin on Nov 6, 2007
Welcome to my new site. It’s not my first site and it most likely won’t be my last.
I guess I should probably start off with an introduction. It’s been a while since I sat down to reflect on things and I’ve begun to realize just how fast time is flying by. It’s no surprise to me that it takes so long for us to solve the world’s problems when you stop to think about how much time you spend trying to solve your own. My friend says that “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” The days continue to go by faster and faster and the little things start to become the blurred background of the big picture. If I did everything I feel like I need to do, the stuff on my list anyway, I’d probably never see another soul for six months. You hope you can start to realize things like this, if you’re lucky anyway, with enough time to apply the brake pedal and slow the car down. There are already too many casualties on the roadway and it’s time to fess up and admit it. You see, I’m an addict.
Success. Or the notion of it anyway. Yes, I’m addicted to the notion of success. I use the word notion because that’s what it is for me, an idea. Until I get my hands around it, that’s all it will continue to be. It’s an obsession and a pleasure and a pain all at the same time. It keeps me up late and gets me up early. Actually, mostly up late. It’s what I read about, it’s what I study. This blog is going to be about what I do in my quest for success and everything else that matters to me along the way. After all, I better start writing some things down before I stop paying attention and miss the next off ramp.