paid search

Advertise on other search engines

Over time you might want to consider advertising in other PPC networks besides Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Often the clicks cost less, but the quality of traffic is a concern. That being said, if you sell any products that are gifts, I recommend trying FindGift.com.

Besides the site traffic they get daily, Findgift.com is a very SEO friendly site that has their pages well indexed in search engines, especially for competitive keyword phrases around holidays, occasions, sentiments and more.

Basically, they get a lot of traffic and you can tap into that traffic through their advertising platform. Through their extremely simple interface, you can:

• Advertise particular products - so if you only sell some gift products, you can put just those into their system.
• Include a promotion with every product listing
• Build text based ads in certain sections of their site through their Merchant Spotlight feature - this is a BIG opportunity, check it out!
• Gift Spotlight opportunities
• Gift Registry opportunity for your site

Regarding cost, they tier their cost-per-click (CPC) charges by the amount of the account balance you deposit into their system. Currently, CPC rates are $.25 for a $25 deposit to a low CPC rate of $.13 for a deposit of $2000. Even the mid-tiers are very reasonable CPC rates making FindGift.com one of the best advertising bargains online!

Examples of other 2nd tier PPC opportunities include:

• Ask.com Sponsored Listings
• Adbrite.com
• LookSmart AdCenter Platform
• Searchfeed.com
• Bidvertiser
• Miva
• Business.com (B-to-B)
• Thomasnet (Industry B-to-B)

If you try any of these 2nd tier engines, keep a careful eye on your PPC campaigns. You will likely see some good results and some poor results. When you find the good traffic drivers, you just found a new source of on-going traffic for your business!

Good luck,
David Wauters
OnlineStoreCoach.com

paid search

Advertising Your Keywords on Google Adwords

One of the keys to success for online retailers is the ability to establish a consistent, profitable traffic stream of new and repeat customers from diverse sources.

Here is an article on online marketing regarding cost per click keyword advertising within Google Adwords and other search engines.

Hopefully, I don’t have to sell you on the idea that you should be using Google AdWords, those paid text links found on Google, Google properties and other sites where Google syndicates their ads. For this discussion, I am assuming you have an active Google AdWords account.

I believe every online retailer should have a strong and reliable pay-per-click (PPC) program on many ad networks but if you could only spend your time optimizing one, Google AdWords is it!

Google is the 800-lb gorilla in search engines with approximately 70% of all searches performed with them. Through Google AdWords, you can get your messages in front of this incredible traffic source!

Now, if you do have a PPC program and it is not performing as well as you would like, there are several issues that are likely at hand including:

• You’re bidding on the wrong keywords
• You’re bidding on the right keywords, but you are attracting unqualified traffic because your ad is too generic
• You’re bidding on the right keywords, but your ad is weak preventing traffic from getting to you
• You’re bidding on the right keywords, but you are getting unqualified traffic. Perhaps you don’t have the right negative keywords in place.
• You’re bidding on the right keywords, but you are sending traffic to the wrong landing page
• You’re bidding on the right keywords, but your landing page or site is not structured to convert the traffic
• You’re not bidding on the enough keywords
• And on and on and on…

There are many ways to optimize a Google AdWords campaign. I could spend several days on this subject, I will keep it simple and give you four proven traffic tactics to optimize your Google AdWords campaign.

1. Get more out of your best performing keywords.
If you are not already number one in terms on bidding, bid higher to try to attract more traffic and watch the results. Usually, long-tail keywords, which are likely multi-word keyword phrases (e.g. “send gift basket NYC”) are good candidates for this higher bidding strategy.

2. Work to improve the quality score of your keywords.
A quality score is a proprietary feature from Google that provides insight into what they think about your ad. Basically, it helps show you how appropriate they think the ad copy and landing page are to the keyword(s) you are bidding on.

See, Google wants to ensure their visitors have a good experience on your site. So, if you get a low quality score (the scale is up to 10 being highest quality), say a score of 5, you will pay a penalty - meaning, you will need to bid more that some other advertisers to have your ad show in higher ad positions.

Said another way, you will be overpaying for PPC traffic. No online retailer wants that…but Google won’t stop you if you want to overpay. Aren’t they nice? You will want to improve the quality score to reduce your cost-per-click costs and improve your ad position.

For keywords with low quality scores, you can adjust the destination URL or adjust the ad copy or move the keyword to a new, extremely targeted ad group. You may be able to get a better quality score, so you get traffic at a discount.

3. Bid on your trademark terms
I hate to even include this one on this list because it should be obvious enough, but too many online retailers miss this tactic. These trademark terms are often the best performing keywords in your arsenal. So, you should be bidding on your trademark terms including your company name, misspellings of all and your URL (including misspellings). If I may use a sports analogy, if we were playing basketball, these keywords would be a slam dunk.

I have seen some companies argue that they shouldn’t have to bid on their own name or trademarks especially if they are indexed well on the terms. I say, hogwash!

You will want as much search engine real estate as possible, so customers have every chance to find your site or products. If you don’t get this real estate, your competitors will or other “partner” sites such as resellers, Amazon.com, eBay, affiliates, shopping comparison sites and others. Protect this valuable real estate!

4. Implement appropriate negative keywords
One of the easiest ways to save money in your PPC efforts is not bidding on bad traffic.

It is an easy enough concept. By using negative keywords in your PPC efforts, you can effectively filter out search terms to avoid unqualified eyeballs from viewing your ads. Save money and get negative keywords working within your PPC program today.

Also, there are some advance techniques to consider:

• Dayparting - bidding different amounts at different parts of the day
• Geo-targeting - bidding on traffic from different parts of the country/world
• Demographic targeting - bidding on traffic based on age, gender, etc.

Each of these techniques can increase traffic to your online store while minimizing your PPC costs.

Good luck,
David Wauters
OnlineStoreCoach.com

paid search

Paid Search - PPC Quick Tip

Paid Search Tip

One of the fastest ways to get targeted traffic to your online store is from paid search. These PPC (pay-per-click) programs can be extremely effective when done correctly. Read more

paid search

Time Management of Paid Search

Let’s define Paid Search as paying for traffic from search engines (and their partner sites.  The secret to good paid search marketing is to avoid the bad traffic and convert the paid traffic, profitably.  I’m over simplifying, but this is the goal. Read more