Archive for the ‘SEO/SEM Tips’ Category:
SEM Tips:The Most Important Thing About Adwords
There is ONE central idea, one key concept that Google wants you to understand.
If you have this right, Google will literally reward you by giving you lower prices on clicks, and your customers will reward you by buying what you have to sell.
If you DON’T have this right, you’ll pay way too much for clicks, your competitors will eat you up, and your whole Google experience will be very, very unpleasant.
The one thing that matters on Google is relevance.
You might think of this as “message-to-market match.”
This will make complete sense once you understand a bit of Google’s history.
Google started in 1998, after the “big boys” in the search engine game like Yahoo and AltaVista were already well-established.
At the time, few people would have bet that Google would overtake them all – but in less than five years they did exactly that.
What’s even more remarkable is they did so without a bunch of hype and loud marketing. They literally built a better mousetrap and the world beat a path to their door.
So what happened?
SEO Tips:The Most Important Thing About SEO
What is the most important thing about SEO?
Now everybody is talking about SEO,they keep submitting their site to some strange search engines,they even use paid submission services. Some tries to promote their site on forums or blogs,some even choose to resort to spam! They keep tweaking and modifying their keywords and website structure.
But they forget the most important thing about SEO:CONTENT! Let’s take a look at SEO from a different angle. Basically,SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.What does it do is that it helps your website to interact with search engines. Thus, search engines could very well expose your website to searchers and bring a lot of traffic.
But it helps you bring the searchers, but it is the content of your website that the searcher are looking for, not your listing in search results.
So the most important thing about SEO is you conent of your ste. Good content is your key to your site’s success.
SEO/SEM Tips: Google Adwords Negative Keywords
If you are managing a Google AdWords marketing campaign, it is critical to employ negative keywords.This is particularly true if any of the keyword phrases in the ad campaign are broad- or phrase-matched. Negative keywords cause an ad to not be shown if any of the keywords are in the search phrase. This is important for a few reasons. First, because the ad will not be shown for keyword phrases that are not relevant, there will be fewer click-throughs that do not convert to sales. Second, the overall CTR (click-through rate) will be higher because there will be fewer instances of searchers viewing the ad but not clicking. The higher CTR will cause the ad to attain a higher position without requiring a higher CPC (cost per click). This will save you money and increase the ROI of your Google AdWords marketing campaign.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose an online store sells organic food. The store’s Google AdWords campaign has an ad group with these broad-matched keywords:
organic food
organic food store
Using at least one keyword research tool (and preferably more) will reveal many keyword phrases that are searched on that contain the phrase “organic food” but are clearly not related to purchasing organic food for people to eat (as opposed to pets). For example, using the Overture (Yahoo) search term suggestion tool yields these results for the keyword phrase “organic food”:
24904 organic food 1286 organic dog food 1243 organic food store 1020 organic baby food 689 organic pet food 685 organic food online 465 organic cat food 373 benefit of organic food
It would likely not benefit the online store that’s selling organic food for people to eat to display an ad next to search results for the keyword phrase “organic dog food”. Adding “-dog” to the AdWords ad group will prevent the ad from appearing for that particular search phrase. Keep in mind that the Overture search term suggestion tool usually does not differentiate between singular and plural forms of keywords. From this list, here’s how to set up negative keywords for the Google ad campaign:
-dog
-dogs
-baby
-babies
-pet -pets
-cat
-cats
-benefit
-benefits
Only place one negative keyword per line. Precede each keyword with a dash. The preceding “-” indicates to the Google AdWords system that the keyword to follow is a negative keyword. If any of the negative keywords are in a search phrase, the ad will not appear next to the search results.
If the online store sells organic baby food, it is still worth including “-baby” and “-babies” for this general “organic food” ad group example. A separate ad group could be created for items as specific as organic baby food. Each ad group should have a very tight focus. Do include both the singular and plural forms of negative keywords as people often search using both. For example, “buy organic baby food” or “buy organic food for babies” are both searches that would cause an ad to be shown for a Google AdWords ad group containing “organic food” as a broad-matched keyword phrase.
The list of negative keywords for an ad group should evolve. Start with a list derived from a handful of keyword tools but add to the list over time. The web logs for your web server are an ideal source for discovering new negative keywords. Whether you sift through the raw web logs or have a web statistics program to access the log data, be sure to examine the searches yielding hits from your ad group. For example, if you see a search in the logs for “organic food gives me gas” then add “-gas” as a negative keyword. Often, there are hundreds of unique searches that people perform that do not show up in any keyword research tool. Gradually build up your list of negative keywords to avoid receiving traffic that will not convert to sales.
SEO/SEM Tips: 11 Tips for Google Adwords Success
1. Use keywords in ad text Show the searcher that your ad is relevant. Google will display the search keywords in bold in your ad if they’re present. This helps your ad stand out from the crowd.
2. Keep ad group keyword list short Instead of having a single ad group with a large list of keywords, create many ad groups, each with a short list. This will help you achieve tip #1.
3. Bid high initially Google’s ad system determines placement by both bid and CTR (click through rate). To earn a high CTR, you first need to generate some clicks. Bid high initially so your ad is seen early in the search results. Once you have a high CTR, lower your bids.
4. Set daily budget higher than Google recommends If you set your daily budget too low, your ad will be displayed intermittently. This is not what you want. You always want your ad to be shown when someone searches for your keywords. Control your ad spend through other means such as employing negative keywords, using exact matches, targeting by region and adjusting keyword bids.
5. Avoid bidding wars Don’t waste money getting into bidding wars for a handful of high volume keywords. Instead, expand your keyword list to include more specific keywords that have a lower search volume. Collectively, these keywords will reach the search volume of more expensive keywords. Your average CPC (cost per click) will fall dramatically using this tactic. Use keyword research tools to expand your list of keyword phrases.
6. Set higher bids on exact matches Include both broad and exact matches for a keyword phrase. Set the bid higher for the exact match. This allows you to control the position of the ad for the exact search. For example, if your ad group bid is set to 10 cents, you might set a 25 cents bid for the exact match:
[keyword phrase] ** 0.25
keyword phrase
7. Use negative keywords Your ad will not be displayed if the search includes a negative keyword. Add more negative keywords at regular intervals. As your negative keyword list grows, your ad group’s CTR will increase, saving you money and/or improving your ad’s position. For example, if you sell products or services at a premium, include negative keywords like:
-free
-cheap
-discount
8. Use a relevant landing page For most searches, don’t point the ad to your home page. Choose a landing page on your site that includes the keywords from the search. In some cases, it’s worth creating a custom page that’s not in the normal navigation of your site.
9. Separate search and content campaigns Many people lose money using AdWords when their site is swamped with hits from content ads. Most people don’t realize that displaying ads on Google’s content network is turned on by default. Either turn off the content network or create separate campaigns for search and content ads.
10. Test multiple versions of ad Take advantage of Google’s feature allowing multiple ads to be created and rotated within a single ad group. Test different ad text and see which version works best, both from an ROI and CTR perspective. A better ad will lead to a higher CTR and lower bids for the same ad position.
11. Track your results Don’t rely on Google’s reporting tools. They’re good, but you need more detail, particularly to see which actual keyword phrases your broad matches are triggering. You’ll need this to help build your list of negative keywords for each ad group. Plus, click fraud is a problem and needs to be addressed. If you don’t have tracking software in place, use our free web analytics software.
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