Netvantage Ranked in Top 50 Pay Per Click Companies List
We discovered today that we are ranked 34th in the Top 50 Pay Per Click companies according to topseos.com, whom describe themselves as an independent authority. The full list is available here. I must say we are a bit surprised by this ranking, and honored. I do notice a few other prominent search marketing Michigan firms that are not on the list, so I am a bit surprised/mildly concerned about the actual list. I also do not see David Szetela and Clix Marketing, who I know are tops in our industry, which also makes me wonder.
However, good PR is good PR, and we will certainly take it. We do strive to develop and maintain strong returning campaigns for our clients, using base principles rooted in strong click through rate, testing, and pay strict attention to our clients’ PPC budget needs. Hopefully this good news is a sign of even more great things to come for Netvantage in 2010!!
Two Methods to Help Decide Between Organic SEO and Paid Search
As we have covered in the past, there are many differences between organic search engine optimization and paid search marketing. Many small and medium sized businesses that are new to the platform of search marketing have the dilemma of using both mediums, or choosing between. The question came up during my most recent speaking engagement. I am going to offer two quick criteria points based on my experiences that you may be able to use in your decisions.
1. What is your target audience? If you are serving a local market, you may want to target your keywords and then leverage the geo-targeting advantages that pay per click marketing offers. You can use this to serve ads on search engine result pages defined across very specific geographic areas. For organic SEO, this can be tricky, especially in the area of on page optimization. If you have to focus on queries like “book store in Lansing”, it takes some very good attention to detail in your meta titling, and body content. By contrast, in paid search we can focus on broader keyword variations but define what geographic locations you want your ads to be served in, and not be concerned with being burdened by geographic keyword orientation in the content and code on your site.
2. Conduct a quick benchmarking study using the free Rank Checker from SEO Book, and you can see what keywords your site is ranking out for. If you have some that are ranking out within the top two pages, perhaps this is a good window of opportunity to focus on SEO and gain first page, and consequent top three rankings. If keywords that are important to you are ranked out very low, like 86th, or not ranked at all, it may be time for paid search. The reason being is that even if you aggressively focus on SEO, you are probably 3-6 months away from seeing rankings, and an even greater amount of time away from seeing quality traffic from those rankings. To get quality traffic - may be time to deploy a paid search campaign.
And finally, it is can be a good idea to test both mediums. If you are committing resources to both tactics, often times there can be intelligence gathered from each to help the other. (Note: sometimes this is not the case as paid traffic can behave much more differently than organic traffic depending on your sector) For example, you may deploy a paid search test over a month’s period, and from this use Google Analytics to evaluate which keywords deliver higher performing traffic.
Remember, aside from your overall conversion goals, pay attention to metrics per keyword such as bounce rate, average time on site, and pages per visit. (To view this, go to Traffic Sources>Keywords) If you are using Google AdWords, you can link up your campaign directly to Google Analytics by going to the Reporting tab>Google Analytics drop down option to initiate the link. Using this data in a short term test, you can evaluate what keywords tend to deliver higher levels of quality traffic. Developing those clusters of keywords, you are now armed with keyword research in which to embark on your longer term SEO strategy of optimizing on site for those keywords. Again, I will caution that in some sectors, paid traffic will behave much more differently than organic search traffic, but it is worth the test.
Hope this helps as you try to decide where to commit your search marketing time, resources, and budgets.
Lansing, I mean, Landing page Development
In these posts, we always try to bring to your attention the more overlooked elements of strong online marketing campaigns. I have covered ad text, timing, and accountability. My new topic is landing pages. I was recently reading a very good article on landing pages here, by Tim Ash on Search Engine Watch, and it tipped me off to an idea regarding landing pages within geographic campaigns. Many of our clients at Netvantage Marketing use geo-targeted campaigns, meaning that the search engine marketing we are performing are only serving ads for those Googling in certain geo-graphic pockets. A key piece of a successful geo-targeted ads is utilizing the local area within the ad text, as well as bidding on keyword variations with a geographic orientation. For example, instead of “copier suppliers” we may select “lansing copies suppliers”, and then write accompanying ad text that highlighted the geographic area you serve. It can be a great tool to increase click through rate and customers. But then what?
One of which is your landing page. Landing pages are an important element to your AdWords campaign. Sure, you can generate lots of traffic through your search ads, but are they converting? When users go to your site’s content, the real measure of success will be conversion to your goal. Landing page content gets even more intriguing when you enter in the realm of geo-targeted campaigns.
The first and more important recommendation I would make is to make sure that for each of your landing pages, you are taking into accounting utilizing geography within your content. This particularly important for your header tag structure. If a user has clicked on “lansing copier supplier” - have this be prominent within the lead h1 introductory text. Then be sure to use geography within the body content.
The second recommendation I would make is probably more work, but worth it. For each of your services offerings and corresponding ad copy, make a landing page for that geographic area. Your ability to convert customers from this page will certainly rise. So, if you are serving two geographic areas, or geographic areas that could have different names, construct landing pages that fit both. Using our copier supplier example - you may want to point users to a landing page that highlights “Lansing copier supplier” content, - and then also construct a landing page that highlights “Mid Michigan copier supplier”.
Of course, I am getting deep into online marketing strategy and I should stop to say, at the top of this process you should be running an entirely different ad group for “Mid Michigan copier supplier” versus “Lansing copier supplier”, including your keywords and ad text. This is what will make my landing page suggestion work the best.
Yes, this all seems meticulous. Yes, it is work. If you are starting out on your own, I recommend a few ad groups and corresponding landing pages to test and gain a comfort level. Once you are comfortable, add onto your campaign with this strategy. The overall major trend in search marketing is the power of localization — be sure to take advantage of this and use it your benefit with strong landing pages.
Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 3
Time to finally wrap this series of posts up. (AKA, time to put the egg nog away and get back to work, but more on that in my next post)
So far, in our review of AdWords ad text tips and tactics, we have discussed the following points:
- Utilizing tight ad groups with small amounts of keywords in order to incorporate keywords into ad text.
- The tactic of using keywords in your Display URLs : www.example.com/giftbasket
- The importance of qualifying and providing incentive for your prospective users to click through with strong content writing in your headlines and text lines, given the challenge of the character limits.
- Setting up tangible business goals that are aligned with your keyword campaign.
- Evaluating your target audience’s mindset when searching and structuring your ads around that persona.
- Using the various keyword tools out there to select the right keyword variations, and then utilizing that as a guide for your ad writing.
- Evaluating your competiton and their ad text.
- Putting strong analytics into place for the measurement of your campaign success based on the different ads that your employ. (My business partner Adam Henige has some great posts on that subject)
Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 2
In today’s post, I will continue to discuss tips and tactics for ad writing pay per click marketing campaigns. Now, keep in mind that there are several great resources on the web for this, and some fantastic articles written by experts. Last post we discussed creating small ad groups to enable the ability to use keywords in ad text, and the tactic of using keywords in the “/” of Display URLs.
The next tips center around the body of the ad itself. Here is where the two campaigns - holiday gift baskets, and plastics manufacturing, bring examples to bear as to where campaign goals have an impact on writing.
Headlines: Don’t forget about headlines. From a usability standpoint, this is what gets your searcher’s attention. We have 25 characters in the headline to stay within. Again, based on my previous posts, using keywords in your headlines is an important tactic to qualify and motivate a user to click. However, sometimes due your competitors, it isn’t that easy when it comes to improving your click through rate. In light of this, use motivational headlines that stand out from our competitors. For gift baskets, “Act Now, Save $20″ can appeal to a consumer. For the plastics manufacturer, “Plastics Molding Experience” may appeal to the purchase engineer or plant manager looking for a trusted partner.
Lines 1 and 2: In our ad lines, we have 35 characters to work with on each, which of course makes the challenge fun. For holiday baskets, ads are crafted against a heavy amount of direct competition. In this environment, where most players are using keywords in their ad text, it is important to differentiate to get a qualified click. Ways to do this in an consumer driven environment would be:
- Including cost
- Phone number
- Any sales or offers: “Holiday Gift Baskets, Act Now to Save %20″
Another way to differentiate in this case is to try to be specific on the details of the product.
“Comany X Gift Baskets”
“Holiday Gift Baskets, wine,
cheese, and tasty chocolate”
The key to this approach to do searches and study your competitor’s ads. (And don’t be malicious and click on them, of course) Just like any advertising, be thinking what will make your “billboard” on the Google highway stand out.
For the plastics manufacturer, it is important to differentiate against your competitors. The goal is entirely different, we are not selling online we are trying to generate a lead. In this case, less energy in the ad is needed, but we still need to stand out. Again, relying in keywords in ad text is very important here, so that we may best resonate with the user. Focusing on your experience, your location, sub segements you reach:
Plastic Molding Company
80 years of plastics exp.
Focused on Medical Suppliers
Some very broad key points before I wrap this post up:
Keywords in your ad text. The most important point that I am driving home and have talked about before on this blog is to use keywords in your ad headline and text. Nothing helps out better qualify and motivate your users to click, as well having a positive impact on Quality Score. If you do nothing else, do this. And in order to do this, you must craft small ad groups with focused sets of keywords. It is very hard to write a relevant ad for a keyphrase “holiday gift baskets” if your ad text is focused on Wine gift baskets.
Writing ads for search engines is challenging, and requires creativity! You must qualify the searcher, motivate them to click, and tell your message all in about 90 characters. And, many times you must do this with competing ads all around you.
Which is why my final point is important: Research and test. These two items are coming up on my next post.
Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text
Now, either I have been really lazy or really busy — no posts since November 11th? Terrible! Especially when my blogtastic business partner Adam Henige has been posting like crazy. Oh well. Things have been busy at Netvantage, we have several new Pay Per Click campaigns starting this week. Two of the campaigns are in very different sectors - one is for higher end, consumer based, luxury goods, and very seasonal - wine gift baskets. The other is manufacturing based, business to business focused, and is very widgety, for lack of a better term - plastic molding.
There are the obvious advertising thought processes that needs to go into developing and launching this campaign: audience targeting, audience personas and associated keyword selection, product mix, landing pages, bid amounts, you know the usual. However, despite the massive differences in the two campaigns, there are some definite similarities. And one of those is in the make up of the ad text.
As you consider your search marketing campaigns, an often overlooked component is ad text. I spoke of it at the Google 101 event in October, and it is important. Ad text in structured for your target audiences for your search results pages is tricky. All engines, Google included, have character limits on each of the lines for headlines, ad text, and display URLs. Some basics:
Use keywords within ad text. And to do this, create ad groups with a low number of keyphrases. As I covered in my horrible stab at Halloween humor in the attack of the Adblob, large ad groups in your campaigns do not lend themselves to well written ads. So that is tip number one, and the most important for running good foundational campaigns, not use writing good ads. Use small ad groups to give yourself the opporutnity to write ads that incorporate your keywords. Remember, as keywords appear in your ad text, they will be highlighted and provide visual incentives to click.
Display URLs An interesting tactic that we are seeing that has positive impacts on click through rate is the use of effective display URLs. Keep in mind that you must use the domain name for your website. However, in the display URL /, you can leverage your keywords to display in your ad text. For example, www.netvantagemarketing.com/seo. But, keep it in mind that you’ll have to keep it within the character limits, and if you have a long URL, this may not be an option.
That’s all for now, more tips to come this week! ( I promise, not January 11th,)
