| |
| |
|
|
|
SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)
In parts 1 - 6 you learnt how to develop your proposition, identify your key words and optimize and promote (for free) your site and pages. You were also introduced to our mythical Doug (who sells antique doors, door handles, knockers, door bells or pulls and fitting services) in Windsor in the UK. Now we turn our attention to paid site promotion, which will be relevant to those of you trying to enter an already crowded marketplace, where your key words are saturated! (a) Pay-per-click (PPC) AdvertisingRun a search on Yahoo or Google for a popular consumer product like "MP3 players". In the results, you'll see a set labeled as 'Sponsored Links' or 'Sponsor Results'. Some results will appear in colored text boxes along the site of the page, whilst others may appear in the same format as the main search results. All these results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads. The ranking order is a product of the bid amount (CPC) and the popularity of the ad (CTR%) and are purchased through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising suppliers. The largest two are Google's Adwords (displayed on Google, AOL, Ask Jeeves) and Yahoo's Sponsored Links - run by acquired company Overture (appearing on Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, and others). MSN are planning to release their own PPC scheme soon. If you have tried and failed with free promotion tactics, the chances are that you are operating in a highly competitive area (where a PPC campaign may well be justified). After all, if you can make more money from a converted click-through than it cost you to buy the click-through, why wouldn't you look at PPC? Look at your A-list of keywords. Refer back to your research on Overture. How many searches are conducted per month on your keywords? How much are you - and your competitors - willing to pay for those keywords? For your first campaign, use a large number of relevant search phrases, so that you can test and learn what works best. Build unique ads for each search phrase, as this will help to optimize your click-through rate or CTR% (defined as clicks - or unique visitors - divided by page impressions on the ad pages - expressed as a percentage). This in turn means more targeted traffic, in some cases paying less per click (due to the methods by which advertising is priced). Make sure you use a suitable (and perhaps even a dedicated) landing page for each campaign. Simply sending people to your homepage (from where they have to navigate your site) will not help your conversion rates (defined as sales divided by unique visitors, expressed as a percentage)! Help them to buy, as they are likely to be in a hurry! The PPC providers give you useful interfaces with which to track the effectiveness of your campaign and overall return on your investment. Pay close attention to which keywords are delivering for you and make notes for future campaign planning. Whilst there is no hard and fast rule, a CTR% of 1.8% - 3.5% is in an acceptable range (and anything over that represents a very good performance). On Google, if your ad achieves less than 0.5% CTR, your ad may well be de-listed. The lower your CTR%, the more you will have to pay in cost-per-click (CPC) to get into the top 3-4 results in your chosen keywords (vital if you want to appear on partner sites like AOL). (b) Paid Directory SubmissionI mentioned earlier that Yahoo! Express Submission is the best way to get a listing on Yahoo! Directory. With a node-level PR of 10, Yahoo! Directory carries much weight with Google and the $299 fee (whikst steep and not absolutely guaranteeing a listing) is probably worth the cost. Do not submit to Yahoo! until you have really tested which site description works best on the free search engines. (c) Express Search Engine SubmissionIn the past, it was only worth doing a paid submission with Ask Jeeves, as this engine continued to enjoy a small but loyal following but did not grow it's index as aggressively as the big boys. This meant paid submission was the only way to guarantee a good placement. However, Ask Jeeves withdrew this service in 2004 (in favour of a strategy that mirrors the larger players). As such, I would not recommend paid listings with any search engines now. Next we turn to tools you can use to monitor your ongoing optimization effectiveness... Navigate the guidePrevious : SEO Expert Guide - Free Site Promotion (PR) (part 6/10)Next: SEO Expert Guide - Black Hat SEO - Activities to avoid (part 8/10) About the author:David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the Intranet Portal Guide; 31 pages of advice, tools and downloads covering the period before, during and after an Intranet Portal implementation. Read the guide at http://www.viney.com/DFV/intranet_portal_guide or the Intranet Watch Blog at http://www.viney.com/intranet_watch.
MORE RESOURCES: Buy Website Internet Traffic. Website online advertising. Buy full page popunder advertising and increase website traffic to your sites. Bad Credit Loans - Loans for people with bad credit. Access online government grants and financial credit services instantly online. Digital Streaming Radio On Your Mobile Phone - La Vella Mobile Radio. La Vella Mobile Radio Gives You Access To Over One Hundred Of The Hottest Streaming Radio Stations From Around The World And Brings Them To The Palm Of Your Hand, Right On Your Mobile Phone. Get Streaming Radio On Your Cell Phone! Audio And Video Streaming For Multimedia Purposes. This Is A Complete Step By Step Guide To The Beginners Who Want To Install And Setup Audio And Video Streaming For Multimedia Purposes On The Internet.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Weather Google Algorithm Changes If you spend much time reading the various webmaster forums, you're no doubt well aware of the grief that many webmasters experience after seeing a Google algorithm change send their web pages sinking like a stone in the search results. But there are always other webmasters who do well with the changes, and many whose rankings are pretty much unaffected. Search Engine Optimization - A Must As you surf the web take a look around at many of the sites you see. Do you notice anything that seems strange? Well, let me point it out to you. Possibly The Biggest Misconception About Ranking Well In The Search Engines Onpage search engine optimization are things that you can change ON your webpage.* Title tag* Header tags* Bolding, Italicizing, Underlining* Alt image tags* Meta Tags* Etc. Should You Be Linking for Traffic or Rankings? Just for a change, rather than a technical article, I would like to tell you a story. To begin, imagine your website is a little country bar, now let's go back to when the internet began, and reciprocal linking was being done properly. Search Engine Submission - What to Look for when Selecting an Australian SEO Company Every business owner I've met has been encouraged at some point to invest in a website; often convinced with hype that if their business didn't have a website then they might as well pack their bags and retire to the social security queue.Hype aside, this statement is basically true. Cache in the Bank: Understanding Googles Advanced Operators If you would like to know when your site was last indexed by Google, you can find out easily by using the Google cache command. By typing "cache:www. SEO India: Tips & Techniques SEO is all about "Individualism"According to me SEO is not only getting rank for keywords (Of course that is the primary objective) but apart from ranking your objective should be "Conversion" getting "Sales" (No matter if its personal site or clients site)SEO Steps:1. Understanding Business. Search Engine Monopoly Ever wondered how one search engine is dominating the entire web. In any business, you have so much stiff competition. Make The Search Engines Love Your Site Most webmasters have no idea on how to make a search engine friendly web site. If you are one of them this will all change by following these steps below. Keywords: The First Step To Recognition Open Wordtracker [ http://www.wordtracker. Monitor Your Visibility in Google, MSN, and Yahoo with these DIY SEO Tools This is the second part of an article series in which you'll find many tools that you can use to monitor your site's search engine position and see how your do-it-yourself search engine optimization efforts are coming along. The following tools are for monitoring your search results in the three major search engines. When to Hire a Professional SEO Firm? In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more companies are turning to online marketing initiatives - specifically, search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) is the art and science of blending technical and marketing skills together into a finely tuned website that is both search engine-friendly, ranks well for specific keywords and phrases, and is tailored to your audience from a buyer and seller perspective. Find Best Keywords For Your Site Keyword optimisation is probably the most important thing that you want to concentrate on with regards to search engine optimisation (SEO). Unfortunately, not many people know this, or do enough to optimise their sites' keywords. Top 2 Ways To Get Higher Rankings in Major Search Engines Top 10 search engine rankings. Everybody wants it but a few achieve it. A Link From An Ugly Duckling Website With A PR=1 Could Give You 10 to 80 Times More PageRank Whether you want to start a business and sell on the Internet or you're an old pro and want more Internet sales, here's the easy way to do it.To get the most sales on the Internet you need to have a high PageRank on Google. How to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings When people think of search engine optimization, they immediately think of time consuming very tedious tasks that are way beyond their capabilities. That might be true if they put no time and effort into it. Torpedo and Sink the Ship SS Search Engine Ranking I was recently contacted by one of my best clients who asked me what I thought of his decision to make a major change to one of his highly ranked pages. His initial concern was that visitor sales conversion ratio was low. Advanced Uses for the Google Algorithm Previously.. The Google Sitemap For Idiots I don't mind admitting that every time some new fangled idea or piece of technology arrives online, I have a small fit and wonder how long it's going to take me to understand what it is, what it's for and whether I need to use it to stay 'up there'. It's even more frightening when the experts start explaining it and really only serve to confuse the matter when they use their 'techno-speak'. How to Avoid Being Dropped by the Search Engines For websites, one of the most important things in their existence is their ranking with the search engines. The reason why this is so important is because when websites are ranked high by the search engines, they get flooded with free, targeted web traffic from visitors who are looking for information or products.
|
