SEO Knowledge

To start this article, let’s make certain that everyone knows what a search engine (SE) is. This is a website that will accept an input word or phrase and search a database to give you information that matches the input information that you supplied to it. The best known SE’s are Google and Yahoo.

Pay per click search engines are where the advertiser pays money for each visitor that visits his site through the ad that is posted by him. The best part of this kind of advertising is that you pay only if someone clicks on your ad. You will not have to worry about sinking too much money into your advertising campaign.

Why be concerned about the SERP ranking.? This is what produces the free traffic to your site. These people found you all by themselves using the SE and they arrive at your site open to read what you have to present. They are not suspicious as they would be if they arrived at your site by clicking on a banner ad or on a Google Adwords or Adsense ad. This traffic is the life blood of your business. Readers who arrive at your site by a search engine are much easier to sell than those who come from pay per click or banner ads.es resentful.

Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising system maintained by Google. If you use Google, you have probably noticed a bunch of sites, usually 8 on the right hand corner of your computer screen. They appear as little text ads next to search results on Google. They also appear on other Google properties such as Froogle(Google product search) and Google search network sites like AOL

Pay per click search engines do not charge a fee to run your ad. You can even set a budget of your choice, as low or as high as you wish, to set up an advertising campaign, where the amount of money spent can be controlled, based on the amount you bid on each keyword. Many times, you can get targeted traffic for very less, depending on the keyword phrases used. You are only going to pay when your ad is clicked on.

You’ll probably receive more traffic from Overture than from all the other pay per click engines combined. However, because they are less popular, buying highly targeted traffic is much cheaper than at Overture. 7

Pay per click advertising can be a good way to quickly get visitors to your web site. However, pay per click advertising should only supplement your normal search engine optimization activities. Another advantage of Google AdWords is its algorithm for ranking adwords. It allows the small businesses to compete with the large corporations. Cost Per Click (CPC) is not the only factor that Google looks at in determining the ads ranking position. If that was the case, only the large corporations with huge advertising budget will dominate the pay per click listings entirely leaving the small businesses in the dust.

Results are seen in real time and you can monitor them every few minutes to see how you are faring and make changes to your ads as and when you please. This is one of the greatest things about pay per click advertising.

Paying a high CPC alone will not guarantee you a number 1 position in Google AdWords. In Overture it will. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your ads ranking will be on Overture.

The first one is not something most people are aware of. There are sites on the internet that provide what is called, ?incentive advertising?. They pay people to go to websites all over the internet. This is unfortunately not really targeted traffic because these people are going to these websites only to get their payoff. What makes it far worse is the fact that these people are also paid to go to the sites via pay per click ads. What actually is happening is that people who are running these ads are paying for the clicks, when in reality, this traffic is not real at all.

The worst offenders are people who sabotage a pay per click campaign intentionally. They send bogus clicks to a competitors campaign to ruin the click through rate and raise his minimum bids and lower the position for the keywords. This is something that many people resort to.

According to statistics released by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) on 1 June, online readership grew with more than 25% from 2008 to 2009, increasing from 4.8 million to over 6 million users.  While the online and search marketing industry is not recession proof, it does appear to be recession resistant.  It is well-known that online media offer more benefits than traditional media, including cost-effectiveness and measurability.  According to the OPA there is another reason:  brands are finally catching on to changing consumer behaviour where consumers are increasingly utilising online media, and brands are starting to follow their consumers there.

Clearly traditional advertising’s loss is online’s gain. Spending in search marketing is growing and savvy businesses and marketers need to become far smarter about the way they implement their marketing mix. Search engine optimisation clearly remains a staple, while Search Pay per Click (PPC) strategies need to be refreshed, revised and optimised for maximum ROI.

In competitive industries where PPC advertising is becoming increasingly costly, it becomes all the more important to increase your conversions as the cost per click (CPC) rises.  Specifically within certain verticals (such as competitive industries like travel and insurance), the current CPC may not support current conversion rates.

To put this into context, let’s use a simple example to illustrate. A retailer sells cellphone covers at R100.00 each.  Assuming his profit margin is 25%, he is making R25.00 off each sale. Let’s assume he has an average conversion rate of 2% (which is not untypical, albeit low) – this means that for every 100 people visiting his site two people purchase this product. So for every 100 visitors the retailer is earning an average of R50.00 in profit.

Now, dividing the profit by the number of visitors we can calculate that the bid to break even will be R0.50 per click. Therefore the average CPC of this retailer should be under R0.50. We can also invert this and consider the cost per acquisition (CPA) which is calculated by multiplying the CPC by the number of visitors (R0.50 by 100 = R50), and then dividing the cost of the campaign by the number of actual sales (2). So in this case the CPA is R25.00. Logically, this CPA would lower if the conversion rate was to increase.  He’s just breaking even with this CPC and conversion rate. Now if the conversion rate were to double to 4% – this retailer would be making a profit. At a conversion rate of 8% the retailer would be far more profitable, and therefore better able to remain competitive.

Of course there are other considerations – for example what the current maximum CPC is to gain a top position in the results. You may well find that at only R0.50 per click on a very broad keyword like “cellphone covers”, this advertiser doesn’t stand a chance of ranking among the top positioned ads. Naturally, one should try to select more niche, less contested terms.

A question that gets asked commonly is what are good click-through rates (CTR) and what are good conversion rates? It is very hard to say as the answer to this question hinges largely on the industry and product being advertised. David Szetela on Search Engine Watch says that it’s safe to make the following two generalisations:

CTR will always be higher for products and services for which there is already a strong demand. Conversely CTRs will be lower for products that are more obscure or less well-known. So for example an ad offering free MP3 downloads will convert more frequently than an advert for high-priced goods or services.

Szetela give a couple of projections about conversion rates saying, “A good conversion rate for a hard offer would be a minimum of 2%. For B2C eCommerce sales, it shouldn’t be difficult to achieve above 5%. And for softer offers — low-priced products, free trial software downloads, etc. – 10 to 20 % conversion rates, and even higher, are definitely achievable.”

How do you actually increase conversion rates? By optimising your campaign. Fine tuning and tweaking ad copy, keywords and keyword bids and of course your landing page. All of these factors are essential in ensuring a successful campaign that will give you the most bang for your buck.  Testing should never be ignored. The beauty of online advertising is that everything is completely measurable, giving you tangible ROI and costing data with which to work.

Recently Google announced their new Adwords ruling and have removed trademark protection for campaigns. Competitors are now allowed to bid on rival trademark terms and brand names.  This ruling was only valid in the UK, Ireland, USA and Canada till recently but as of 1 June 2009 has been extended to 190 other countries, including South Africa.  Previously advertisers have not been permitted to make use of trademarked terms (i.e. Nike, Adidas, Oakley) in their keyword bidding, therefore distributors and resellers of well-known brands could not promote these products via PPC advertisements and drive traffic to their own website.

This ruling can cause serious abuse of brand names and reputation since any other advertiser can bid on a brand name and essentially appear above the brand in the sponsored search engine result page listings.  This makes it even more important to make use of effective landing pages and persuasive and relevant ad copy.  Furthermore, it will be imperative that PPC campaigns are supported with a solid SEO campaign to promote increased organic presence on search engine result pages regardless of competitor bidding.

PPC advertising is also a widely used methodology for a number of other platforms including social websites such as Facebook. Although vastly more cost effective on a per click basis, converting from these platforms is very challenging as algorithms are not yet as refined as search algorithms for the most part, and advertisers need to ensure that a comprehensive strategy is in place to drive conversions from these platforms.  On the other hand, with search PPC campaigns they could be managed as a standalone solution.

If you would like to know how PPC, SEO and other social activities can add to your current online marketing strategy, feel free to contact us.  The AlterSage team work closely with each client taking in consideration the client’s current marketing campaign, goals and audience when designing an online marketing campaign to ensure clients achieve targeted brand exposure and the best possible ROI from their website.