I have been asked this so many times I thought it might be a good idea to post this article from the  “Frequently Asked Questions” page on my website.

Is Pay Per Click a good way to get quality traffic to my website?

Yes of course it is, although the percentage of people who use search engines to find websites will click on the main organic listings, sponsored links still bring quality traffic to the websites listed. PPC listings are particularly useful for websites that have not been optimized and therefore do not show in the main organic listings and to get exposure for keywords that would not normally get you listed on the major search engines. Just remember that you do have to pay the search engine every time someone clicks on your listing and that the click thru. rate of these listings is significantly lower than that of organic listings.

For more info. about Google Adwords or other pay per click (PPC) programs feel free to contact us direct.

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover – Canada
info@spiderchoice.com

If you are just setting up a Google Adwords campaign for the first time or you are trying to figure out how to use all the options available, then understanding the terminology associated with Pay Per Click management might be a good place to start.
You can get most of this info. by following the FAQ’s provided by Google however I thought if I just went through the basics I might save someone some time.
These are just the basic terms you will encounter for a view of the full Google Adwords Glossary Click Here.

Click

A click (sometimes called a clickthrough) occurs when a user sees your ad and clicks on the title of your ad, leading them to your website.

Clickthrough rate

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (impressions). Your ad and keyword each have their own CTRs, unique to your own campaign performance.
A keyword’s CTR is a strong indicator of its relevance to the user and the overall success of the keyword. For example, a well targeted keyword that shows a similarly targeted ad is more likely to have a higher CTR than a general keyword with non-specific ad text. The more your keywords and ads relate to each other and to your business, the more likely a user is to click on your ad after searching on your keyword phrase.
A low CTR may point to poor keyword performance, indicating a need for ad or keyword optimization. Therefore, you can use CTR to gauge which ads and keywords aren’t performing as well for you and then optimize them.
CTR is also used to determine your keyword’s Quality Score. Higher CTR and Quality Score can lead to lower costs and higher ad position.

Keyword Matching Options

You can set each search-targeted keyword to have one of four settings: broad match, phrase match, exact match, or negative match. These four keyword matching options can help you control who sees your ads.
To use a keyword matching option, just add the appropriate punctuation to your keyword (shown below). If you don’t add any of the specified punctuation, your keyword will be broad match by default.
Here’s a summary of the four options:
• Broad match: keyword (no punctuation) ?Allows your ad to show for searches on similar phrases and relevant variations
• Phrase match: “keyword” ?Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase
• Exact match: ?Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively
• Negative match: -keyword ?Ensures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term
See examples and more details for each option.
We suggest using a combination of two or more keyword matching options to run an effective ad campaign. By refining how your keywords target users, you’ll be able to spend less money on irrelevant clicks so that you increase your return on investment.

Impression

The “Impr” located on your reporting statistics refers to the number of “impressions” for your ad. The number of impressions is the number of times an ad is displayed on Google or on sites or products in the Google Network.

Average cost-per-click (Avg. CPC)

The average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Average CPC is determined by totalling the cost of all clicks and dividing it by the number of clicks.
Here’s an example: if your ad receives two clicks, one costing US$0.20 and one costing US$0.40, your average CPC for those clicks is US$0.30.
Average CPC is not the same thing as maximum CPC

Campaigns

Campaigns are used to give structure to the products or services you want to advertise. The ads in a given campaign share the same daily budget, language and location targeting, end dates, and syndication options.
Within each campaign, you can create one or more ad groups. While a campaign may represent a broad product class, the ad groups within that campaign can be more focused on the specific product you want to advertise.
For example, if you sell different types of garden tools, you could have a ‘Garden Tools’ campaign. Within this campaign, you could have one or more ad groups named after different types of garden tools. This type of account structure allows you to create keywords, placements and ads that focus on each specific product or service. ?Learn more about campaigns.

Ad group

An ad group contains one or more ads which target a set of keywords, placements, or both. You set a bid, or price, to be used when your ad is triggered by the keywords or placements in the ad group. This is called a cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bid. You may also set prices for individual keywords or placements within the ad group.

For more information about Google Adwords go to Adwords Help or contact us at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

PageRank (PR) is a numerical value Google assigns to a site as a measure of “authority.” A marketing coach will emphasize that building PR is one of the most affordable SEO methods. Understanding PR and using it to craft a link-building campaign is a first step toward higher search engine results.

Marketing Coaching: Understanding the Basics of Page Rank

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Marshall

You’ve just built your website and you want to show up on the search engines. You start reading about SEO and one of the first things that jumps out at you is something called “Google PageRank.” You know about the big dog of the search engines, but what is PageRank and why is it important in what you’re trying to do?

Any good marketing coach can explain that easily. If your site is placing high in free (organic) search results, you’re getting free advertising. Notice the word “free.” That’s always a good thing. Building a strong PageRank (PR) by getting good quality links coming in to your site takes time, but it isn’t going to eat a hole in your pocketbook.

You want to work on raising your site’s PR to get “authority” with the search engines. A site with “authority” gets better visibility in search results. Really understanding the algorithm behind your site’s PR will likely have you reaching for a bottle of aspirin. In the beginning, just concentrate on understanding the basics and how they relate to your efforts to promote your site.

How Is PR Defined?

Google says PR is all about the “uniquely democratic nature of the web” and “using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” Basically, a link from one page to another is a vote for that page. However, not all votes in this democracy are equal. Some votes come from higher-quality pages and are weighed more heavily. (Other factors in determining PR include the relevance of search phrases on a page and actual traffic to the page.)

How Is PageRank Expressed?

PR values are expressed on a scale of 0 to 10. Sites from 0 to 2 are probably pretty new to the Web and have few incoming links. Sites that have made it to PR3 to PR5 are fairly well established; PR6 and above are really popular and have a lot of high-quality links. There are very few sites that make it to the PR7 to PR10 range.

The ones that are ranked that high are usually owned by big corporations or major media outlets like the Wall Street Journal (PR8). Improving your site’s PR by getting relevant, high-quality, incoming links is one of the most affordable SEO methods at your disposal. Rather than trying to get to a specific number, just concentrate on improving your number.

Is My Site’s Index The Only Page With PR?

No, each page in your site will be assigned a PR, something that is emphasized in marketing coaching as a valuable tool. You can use relevant interlinking to distribute PR throughout all your pages.

Huh? Well, just hang on to that thought for a minute. For right now, just understand the concept that some pages in your site may earn a higher PR than others, and that you can use that to your advantage.

PageRank Passes From One Page To Another

Here’s how it works. A page with a high PR passes some of its value to a low PR page over a link. You can use this to promote your site in a couple of ways. When your site’s pages are interlinked in a relevant way, PR gets distributed more evenly throughout the site. Also, you can “court” relevant sites that belong to other people through your link-building campaign. This is really how your site starts to gain “authority.”

Start By Building Your Index Page’s PR

Generally, marketing coaches will tell you to begin by working on your home page’s PR. This can be time-consuming, and not just because you’ll be building relationships with other site owners. You have to do your time in what’s popularly called the Google “sandbox.” This just means that new sites like yours probably won’t get any PR at all for the first few months you’re on the Web.

How Do I Check My PR?

There are a number of free, online tools for checking PR including PRChecker and SearchStatus. At PRChecker you type in a page’s URL to see its PR. SearchStatus is a FireFox extension that show a site’s PR at the bottom of your browser. (It also shows your site’s Alexa rating, another method to measure online “importance.”) You an also install the Google Toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer and enable the PageRank function.

Is Building My PR All I Need To Do?

A marketing coach will tell you that having a strong PR is only one part of your SEO campaign. For instance, say you’re looking around for a site to link to yours. You find one with a high PR, but it’s a site that sells links. Move on. Their high PR number doesn’t do you any good because a link from that site to yours will have a lower quality and will pass less authority to you.

Understanding the basics of PageRank is essential in putting together a high-quality link-building campaign for your site, but don’t get fixated on the PR number and ignore other important facts. Just gain a basic understanding of what PR is and how it functions and use that to your advantage in building a reputation of authority for your site.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s a Marketing Coach offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

For more information about Search Engine Optimization and Google services visit us at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

Four Reasons Google Adwords
is Not Meant for Beginners
By Trish Thackston (c) 2010
Google Adwords is an incredibly powerful marketing tool with an instant global reach that can take your business from nowhere to an overnight success. Why wouldn’t a new marketer take advantage of such a powerful tool? I can answer that question with another question. Why wouldn’t you let someone with a new driver’s license behind the wheel of a race car? Because, unless they are extremely lucky, they are going to crash and burn. Google Adwords is the Formula One of marketing online and it is not for beginners.

As advertising goes, the reasons to avoid Google Adwords early on in your education is overwhelming.
For more information on Google Adwords visit our Spider Choice Pay Per Click page.

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada