Residual Victory Blog

Bringing Traffic to your Website

Google Adwords advertises on the web to new audiences.  Any website trying to be noticed through the billions of websites indexed on the web knows how steep the competition is.  Google Adwords is a great option for your marketing mix. 

With Google Adwords, you create an advertisement using your keywords and phrases.  When someone searches using your keywords or phrases, your ad results will show up in the side column of the search result page with a link to your site.  Google has an advertising network that your ad may also appear in that includes popular websites such as the New York Times, AOL, Ask.com, and Earthlink.  

There is no spending or time requirement when you sign up with Google Adwords.  You are only charged when a user clicks on the link in your ad.  You can set your daily budget.  A keyword search cost estimate is available at www.adwords.google.com. You simply enter the keyword you wish to use, type in the average amount you want to spend per click, and it will present you with a list of results of the cost per click, the ad position, and additional keyword options.  For example, if you type in the word “car” and enter ten cents per click, you will get a list of keyword choices that range from five cents per click to ten cents per click.  Based on the variables entered, the phrase “cheap cars” was nine cents per click, but had a low placement value.  “Snow Patrol Chasing Cars” was five cents per click, but was at the top of the list for placement.  This convenient tool helps you decide keywords for your ad and determine your potential costs.  You can then weigh your costs against your returns.

Google uses a bidding system to determine ad placement.  The higher the bid, the higher the placement for advertisement.  If you win the bid, you might be able to pay less than you actually bid.  Google only charges you one penny more per click than the bid under your bid.  For instance, if you bid 50 cents per ad and another advertiser bid 40 cents per ad you would win the bid and be placed at the higher position.  However, you would only have to pay 41 cents per click.  Even if you have unlimited funds (at which point you probably wouldn’t need Google Adwords), you would not be able to “buy” all top placements if you have very few clicks for your ad.  Google Adwords keeps track of clicks per ad and factors this into the bidding wars.

Google Adwords also offers an option to list business in specific regional and city searches.  This option will take note of not only the users search words, but also of the user’s IP address.

Google Adwords is an easy valuable service to your marketing mix.  It is important that you measure the cost of the clicks with your actual user data to determine if it is worthwhile.  A free online training program for Google Adwords is available at www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/. 
 

Pay-per-Click Search Engines are useful to gain ranking in web search results.  If after developing a quality website you still find yourself far from the top, pay-per-click search engines may be the answer for you.  With this form of advertising, you pay a search engine sight to place your website with the top search results.  Pay-per-click (PPC) is the fastest growing segment of advertising according to the January 2006 issue of Wired. 

How much you pay is determined by a bidding process.  You bid on how much you are willing to pay for each click on your site.  The winning bidder gets higher rankings.  The bids include a bidding war on keywords.  These keywords are the ones that the search-engine user types into the search engine.  This search request from the user will have results showing your website on top.  This is where relevancy and planning comes in.  In order to have a successful pay-per-click campaign you must consider the keywords you choose.  If the keywords are too general, they may be costly and your advertising wouldn not result in financial gain.  If your advertisement is focused on specific keywords, your ad may not come up as frequently, but you might pay less per click and it will target the specific customers you are trying to reach, thereby resulting in a healthier gain. 

Monitoring the ranking and action of your website once it has been submitted for pay-per-click services is crucial to your income.  Rankings change, bids change, keywords change.  If a keyphrase isn’t working, try another one.  Keep track of visitor habits and click-through rates so you can tailor your campaign to reach your customer’s habits.  Tracking your data is also useful identifying click fraud.  An unethical competitor could continuously click on your PPC site and wipe out your advertising budget.  A study which was cited on MarketingExperiments.com stated fraud occurred in  “as much as 29.5%” in three experimental pay-per-click search engine campaigns on Google.  Estimations on fraud vary widely, but there is no doubt that it does exist.  Fraud protection programs exist and are worth looking into.  Your records for your PPC campaign should be monitored as often as your financial records.  Most pay-per-click search engines have budget tools so you can limit your monthly amount.
 
All of the major search engines offer pay-per-click advertising and there are hundreds of others.  Keep in mind that the major search engines pull results from smaller search engines.  There are pros and cons to each of them and it is important to become familiar with their demographics before putting your link out for clicks.  Start with one search engine until you are comfortable with your budget and conversion rates.  It might also be wise to develop a special “landing page” for your URL that is specifically related to the search term.  Determine whether you want a short-term campaign for brand recognition or a long-term campaign focused on return on investment. Pay-per-click search engine advertising can be a worthwhile compliment to your overall marketing strategy.  After all, it rarely hurts to be number one!