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

Many online marketing consulting firms look at SEO and search engine advertising in a vacuum. They don’t consider the big picture. The idea behind all search engine marketing is increased revenue. That requires conversions, not just more traffic. And certain website design problems can kill your conversions!

Don’t Destroy Your Online Marketing Results with Bad Website Design

Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Paul Marshall

So, you’ve embarked on a search engine advertising program, maybe even SEO. Whether you’re doing this on your own or using an online marketing consulting firm, there are key points to become aware of.

If you miss these, you won’t increase conversions.
What good is a Number 1 organic search engine ranking or AdWords ad listing, if you don’t have increased sales or if you don’t generate more sales leads?

Too often, we get all focused about the Internet marketing — the ads, the offer — that we don’t think the whole process through step-by-step and consider the experience our website visitors will be having.

If we did, we’d be thinking “big picture” and we would head off some of these potential problems before they occur.

Overcoming Your Website Visitors Anxiety

When people come to our website it’s natural for them to feel anxiety. After all, look at all the cr*p on the Internet today, all the too-good-to-be-true products and services.

But when you and I offer REAL products or services, we have to overcome that concern, even if we’re treating our site visitors fairly and not making outrageous claims.

So, how can you overcome these anxieties?

1. Offer more than a 1-page website. Credible companies have multi-page websites, including Privacy Policy, Terms of Use | Service and About Us pages.

They also have more than 1 page about their products or services.

I’m surprised by the number of 1-page websites I see from companies using infomercials to advertise their products. Often, they have the purchase form right on their home page, their only page (and often their page isn’t secured for credit card ordering).

Websites that are only 1-page don’t seem credible. And having the purchase form right on the home page comes across as very pushy!

Doesn’t this type of site seem all about the company and NOT about their customers? Why would we want to buy from that type of company?

What kind of online marketing consulting firm did these companies use…or did they use any??

2. Next to any sign up or contact form buttons clearly state that you don’t sell your customers’ private information and link to your Privacy Policy page.

3. Effectively communicate what your Value Proposition is, also called your Unique Selling Proposition. If you don’t know why someone should buy your product or service versus your competitors’, now is the time to figure it out. (And by the way, based on my experience, if you don’t know this, you’re not alone, by any means.)

But our websites have to be about more than just us. They have to be about our visitors. What’s in it for THEM, to do business with us? What unique voids in the marketplace can we fill?

As a Small Business Owner, Personally Relate to Your Site Visitors and Communicate Directly with Them

People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people! So, how can you apply this to your own website?

1. For many small businesses and solo proprietorships, their website text should speak to your visitors directly in first person.

This should be written from the voice of the Owner or President. They shouldn’t use third person, institutional-sounding language, getting rid of “we” and “our”, using “I” instead, speaking first person, in an actual conversation. Don’t try to sound like you’re Microsoft!

And while your at it, be careful about overuse of words about you…whether “I”, or those words, “we”, “our” or “us”.

Check out the WeWe calculator (Google: wewe calculator). Make sure to focus on customer-focused words and NOT on words about you or your company.

2. Include your picture on your Web pages.

For a larger small business trying to make that personal connection with their website visitors, try the idea used by the nutritional supplement company Lumina. (Google: Lumina Health Contact Us)

In this execution, notice how Lumina gets you to relate to their customer service department. I still remember it was John I spoke with and that’s been over 1 year ago that I called them!

Again, people buy from other people, not from websites.

For us as small businesses, why should we sound large, pretending to be something we aren’t? And why should we run from our advantage of being small: low overhead, friendly, personal service and accountability, among other advantages.

Make Each Step in Your Marketing a Smooth Handoff from One Step to Another

Whether you’re using AdWords, SEO, or both, make sure your title and description matches the experience your website visitor will have when they come to your landing page.

Quite often when I’m Coaching my small business owner clients or performing online marketing consulting, I find the wording for their organic listing or AdWords ad says one thing and their landing page says something that doesn’t sound the same.

This causes confusion is the best case scenario. In the worst case, it causes a lack of trust. Dangerous!

We should understand our products or services. And we know what we want our visitors to do on our site.

Our potential customers may not understand either. We need to think like them, when we explain what we have to offer them and how to use our website to take advantage of what we have to offer.

And when “shifting” from one page to another, we need to hand-off from one page to another naturally and smoothly, like a car with a smooth automatic transmission.

Don’t advertise one offer in AdWords or organic search, only to have your landing page sound like it was written for another advertising offer. I see this problem a lot!

Often times, having an affordable online marketing consulting firm reviewing what you’re doing can offer easy, inexpensive fixes that can yield big improvements in your search engine advertising and SEO conversions.

Your Action Plan

Let’s review what we’ve talked about.

First, overcome visitors anxieties by offering a multi-page website which answers questions about your company and your services or products, while inspiring confidence in your company. Effectively communicate your Value Proposition.

Second, personally relate to your site visitors. Avoid using the wrong words that may put off your site visitors. Use your picture on your Web pages.

Third, hand-off from one page on your website and one step in your selling process to another smoothly and naturally. We should understand what we want our site visitors to do, but they won’t unless we make the process really clear.

Whether your using an online marketing consulting firm or doing the work yourself, if you take these steps, your search engine optimization | advertising plan will convert at a MUCH higher rate, when you take these steps.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consulting expert offering marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). You can learn more about Paul on his Internet Marketing LinkedIn profile and at Strategic Web Marketing.net.

Read more articles written by: Paul Marshall

For more information about Website Design and how it can affect your Internet Marketing campaign contact us at  info@spiderchoice.com

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

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