Gaining more value out of pay-per-click programs
1.7.1 Determine the value of a visitor to your website
Determining the value of each keyword, and in turn each visitor, is vital. The simple formula goes like this: Divide the average number of new customers each month (a long enough period to be statistically significant) by the average number of monthly visitors to get the percentage of visitors who actually become customers. If you multiply this percentage times your average profit margin on sales to new customers, you get a good idea of how much a visitor is worth to you on the first visit.
For example: If I average 10,000 visitors per month to my website and sell 150 of them a product with a $20 profit margin, then I can easily calculate the percentage (150/10,000) to be 1.5%. Multiplying the 1.5% by $20 yields a $0.30 value for each visitor.
It’s interesting to look at the bigger picture of this example as well. While making $0.30 per visitor doesn’t seem like much, the dollars get big quickly when you multiply pennies by thousands of visitors. My profits for the month with 150 sales would be $3,000 if I had no advertising costs. If I can generate the visitors for a cost of $0.10 each for a total cost of $1,000, then I have a profit of $2,000.
1.7.2 Submit targeted keywords
Submitting an extended list of keywords may be not be useful. In fact, you won’t get as many potential customers to your website with an extended list of keywords as you would with focused and targeted keywords. Besides, you would also end up paying more without any benefits.
Targeted keywords would ensure that only those visitors who are actually interested in your product or service click on the search listing and visit your website. Thus, there are more chances of a visitor becoming a loyal customer.
1.7.3 Develop a catchy title and description
When the search engine user gets the result of a search, they’ll see the highlighted titles for each listing followed by a short description. You should think of this just like a classified ad with a headline and short copy.
Here are some tips for formulating effective titles and descriptions:
• Use an attention getting headline to get as many people as possible to read the description. Here’s where you want to be sure to use the important proven successful terms like "free" and "you".
• Write a description that succinctly tells the reader why he or she would be a fool not to click on your link. For most keywords this is the best plan because you’re only paying a penny or two for the click-through. But, you’ll want to be more selective about the copy for the more expensive bids. If you’re going to pay a quarter for each click through, then you may want to have higher quality traffic. You don’t want just anyone to click through. You want people more likely to buy.
• You should have the ability to track each keyword so you can determine the success ratios of clickthroughs to sales. All programs discussed above will allow you to use their system to track clickthroughs.
1.7.4 Re-evaluate and adjust your bids
If you determine that the traffic generated by a specific keyword is more valuable to you than other keywords, you can go online and immediately raise your bid for that term. You will instantly increase your traffic.
It would be a good idea to even track the patterns of which days and times generate the most sales from Search Engine traffic. During this prime time, you should raise your bids to increase traffic. As soon as the slot ends, you should lower your bids to the old levels.
1.7.5 Bid on as many low-cost relevant terms
The cost of a top position with any of the big PPC's depends upon the keyword you are bidding on and how many people search for it. If you have to bid on a popular word such as 'Internet marketing' be prepared to pay around $2 - $4 for a decent position. But what
if you went for "Internet marketing articles" it costs less than a quarter of the price, it will produce far less visits of course, but is much more cost effective. Imagine doing this on a wide scale basis, securing lots of low-cost positions, the combined traffic from these positions will add up to the level produced by a popular keyword - but at a fraction of the cost.
1.8 Disadvantages of Paid Programs
Disadvantages
Costs
The primary disadvantage of paid inclusion is the cost, although this factor naturally depends on your means. Typically, submitting to a few paid programs would cost anywhere around $1000 a year.
Reach
A second disadvantage, perhaps more accurately described as a limitation, is that Google does not offer paid inclusion (and maintains that it never will). Since Google currently provides the primary results for three of the top four engines (Google, Yahoo, and AOL), engines that offer paid inclusion may only account for a fraction of your overall site traffic. Google typically updates about once every month, and there is no way to add your pages to their index any faster- which means that you will be waiting for Google to index your new (or newly optimized) pages regardless of which paid inclusion programs you use. Only after Google lists your pages will they appear in Yahoo and AOL results.
Considerations
There are many factors to consider when examining paid URL inclusion. The following five are some of the most common:
Are my pages already in the index?
Just because you can't find your pages when you enter search terms does not mean that your pages haven't been indexed. To see if your pages have been indexed, go to the engine and search for each of your exact page URLs in quotes. If each page shows up for the URL search but not for a search of any key phrases related to the page, paid inclusion will not help your rankings (your pages are already in the index and have been ranked according to their perceived value). It would be much more beneficial to invest some time and/or money in optimizing your pages for better rankings (you can still consider paid inclusion afterwards if you don't want to wait for the spider to revisit).
Is it a good investment for me?
Naturally, budgetary constraints can be a primary consideration. If you can't afford paid inclusion, then it obviously isn't an option. However, simply because you can afford it does not mean it is a good investment. For example, a business that sells a very inexpensive product online that is counting on volumes of traffic may not see a good return on their investment (again, 3 of the top 4 engines do not offer paid URL inclusion). On the other hand, if your business has a high average dollar sale and you put a high value on each quality lead, you might consider immediate paid URL inclusion a no- brainer.
Do my pages change frequently?
If your web pages are subject to daily or weekly changes in content, paid inclusion may offer some additional benefits. When your pages are spidered frequently, all new content is indexed by the engine soon after it is added to your pages. This means that your pages will begin to appear in searches for terms related to the new content much more quickly.
Are my important pages dynamically generated?
Some search engine spiders have a problem finding and indexing pages that are dynamically generated (such pages often have a question mark somewhere in the URL). By paying to include the important pages of your dynamically generated website, you can be sure that they are in the engine's index, even if the "organic" spider would never find them on its own.
Top 5 most common mistakes with do-it-yourself SEO
By Joe Balestrino
I look at a lot of sites on a daily basis. There are a lot of common problems I see on sites. Some people may have tags set-up improperly or use tags that have no real purpose. I have compiled a list of the 5 top do-it-yourself SEO errors. It's safe to say that many do-it-yourselfers may have at least one of these errors on their sites. These should help you omit these often costly mistakes and pull you up in the ranks.
1) Keyword tag A keyword tag is for keywords, but not for any keywords. You can't just stuff this tag with keywords that your entire site is related to. The tags should reflect keywords only on that particular page; not the entire site and not every keyword you think your site might be searched on. Also, you should have no more then 20 words in the tag. You should not repeat any word more than 3 times. If you sell tickets, for example, don't write: Broadway tickets, circus tickets, hockey tickets, boxing tickets and so on. Do use Broadway, circus, hockey, boxing, tickets and so on.
2) Abstract tag It is sometimes used as a replacement for or combined with a description tag. However, more and more people are using these to stuff keywords. Search engines like Google are interested in what is on the page. More specifically, what visitors can view. In my opinion, the abstract tag has no place on a site.
3) Description Tag The whole point behind this tag is to describe what the "page" is about. Keywords related to the page should be implemented as well. The limit on words should be 20 25. I see many website owners stuffing this tag with keywords, or having a description that is entirely too lengthy. Stay within these guidelines and you will be fine.
4) Title tag This, to me, is the most important tag. This is the first tag the search engine reads. It tells the search engine what the" page" is about. Don't put your web address here. Do not add your company name in the beginning of this tag either. It should not exceed 60 characters.
5) Content- If you notice, I have been commenting on relevancy to the "page", not your overall site. Each page has it's own keywords. Tag the title tag, description and keyword tags. All of these keywords should be the same. Add them to your content as well. Now your page should be fairly well optimized.
Why do sites fall short? Simple, content is not optimized. Search engines are, for the most part, pretty basic. You type in a search term and it retrieves sites containing those terms while also taking a few other factors into account. So, if your site doesn't have these terms, how will you be found? You won't. Over do it with keywords and you will experience the same result, but for different reasons. Sometimes reading everything about SEO can be bad. Trying too many tricks, tips or methods is like too many cooks spoiling the soup. In the end they can do more bad than good. These are very basic rules that should be followed by all. In, doubt? Always consult or hire an SEO professional.
About the Author
For affordable SEO, SEM, web design and more visit Joe's site http://www.mr-seo.com
To Read the latest News on SEO read Joe's blog http://mrseonewz.blogspot.com/
Or, read more articles on SEO visit http://mr-seo.blogspot.com
The Irony of Overture's Bidding System
(Overture was formerly known as GoTo.com)
We employed the use of a friend who has an MS in Mathematics to analyze Overture's advertiser bidding system. What he turned up was shocking! Could it be true that advertisers save by spending at Overture?
Often heard in traditional internet circles is that Overture is doinng something sacrilegious by charging advertisers for clickthroughs to their site. These people say that the internet should be free and public and full of "free love" (okay, so I embellished a little). By the way, if you do a background check on these people, you'll note that they are the ones who used the internet as an academic tool back in the mid-90's. This will help you appreciate their lack of interest in e-commerce.
Despite the objection of some people, there are people in this world who look to search engines to deliver traffic to their sites. We now compare advertising costs on Overture vs. Yahoo!
Background
Overture uses a real-time bidding system where sites that want to show up under various listings bid per search phrase or term. Contrasting with Overture is Yahoo! which depends on banner ad impressions for the majority of its income.
Analysis of Overture
Publicly-stated data says that the average clickthrough cost to an advertiser on Overture is 14 cents.
Analysis of Yahoo!
We now calculate the average clickthrough on Yahoo! With banner ads running at around $5 per 1000 impressions and clickthroughs averaging 0.5% (although we think the true number is about 0.2% or 0.3%), we get that $5 gets you roughly 5 clickthroughs (5 = 1000 * 0.5%). This means that you pay about $1.00 per clickthrough on Yahoo!
Conclusion
Clickthroughs are much more expensive on Yahoo! ($1.00) than Overture ($0.14).
Implication
Overture will continue to grow because it represents a cost-effective way for websites to gain much needed traffic.
(Editor's note: This article was originally published in January 2000. We were right about the above implication. Overture has been the only pure search engine to turn a profit. It is also one of the rare internet properties that does continue to grow to this day.)
Overture (formerly known as Overture) is search engine that consitently provides relevant search results. There are several reasons for this including:
- They have quality filters. Human reviewers help to make sure your results are relevant.
- They have an easy-to-use interface.
- Their one and only focus is search. This allows them specialize in search quality.
Overture has an advantage over other search engines in that it is the search engine least likely to lead you to a website that doesn't exist anymore. You'll see fewer pages that say "Error 404 - we're sorry but this page does not exist anymore".
Overture is a market leader. They now provide supplemental search results for Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Netscape, Lycos, InfoSpace, Ask Jeeves, CNET, the Go Network and HotBot. While Overture has always been a favorite here at SquirrelNet, we're glad to see our early praise of Overture has been echoed by several highly credible companies.
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