Posts Tagged ‘sem’

Action List: Advertise your business using Google Adwords

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

google-adwords

Google Adwords is one of the most well-known pay per click advertising programs on the web.  No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and its vast advertising network and you only pay if people click on your ads.

You create the ads and choose the keywords that you would like to target. When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results. If the user clicks on your ad, he/she will be taken to your chosen landing page and your account will be charged.

Often you can start advertising from as little as 20c per click, depending on the industry that you are working in. Importantly, your advertising is highly targeted as the user has already indicated an interest in the keywords that match your advertisement.

Google Adwords takes some experimentation.  It is important that you identify and use keywords that will generate a genunie lead (ie for a sale), rather than advertise on generic keywords that do not achieve your ends.  Whilst it is easy to sign up and seemingly inexpensive to start attracting leads, the costs can add up if your campaigns are not well-thought out and go unmonitored.

To help you with your campaigns, this ebook is the most comprehensive specialised book about Google AdWords that is currently available. The ebook contains comprehensive screenshots, tables and check lists, which help you to get quick results and lower advertising costs for more profit.

To sign up for Google Adwords, click here:  http://adwords.google.com.au/select/Login

A TIP FOR NEW ACCOUNT HOLDERS – Most Australian small business magazines (Dynamic Business, Anthill) run Google Adwords promotions, whereby new account holders are given $50 or $60 credits to start off with – buy these magazines to receive the unique URL for signing up.  At the time of publishing, you could get a $60 credit from this Dynamic Business promotion.

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Action List: Develop effective ‘landing pages’ for your paid advertising

Monday, January 12th, 2009

landingAttracting customers to your website through Google AdWords is one thing, but it is an entirely different thing to persuade them to transact with your business once they get there.

Each time a person clicks on your Google AdWords advertisement, it costs you money. It doesn’t matter whether the page fails to load or if the visitors spend only 2 seconds on your site, your money still goes into the Google coffers.

That’s why it’s so important to develop effective ‘landing pages’ for your Google Adwords campaigns – landing pages are the pages that visitors ‘land’ on after they have clicked on one of your advertisements.

If you want conversions, your landing page must have a clearly defined goal. It must guide the visitor and it must contain a clear call to action. Your website visitors must be able to see within seconds what’s in for them when they visit your website. 

It’s also important not to distract the potential buyer by offering them ‘escape’ routes on your landing pages.  You’ve paid for them to arrive at your site (and they are a qualified buyer because they have used a keyword combination relating to your goods or services), so it’s not a smart move to distract them with third-party advertising banners, links to other sites, or with content that does not relate to the original keyword entered by that person to find your site.

If you are not following these guidelines, then your Adwords campaigns will not achieve their aim – that is, to convert visitors to leads.  You may very well be wasting your hard-earned marketing dollars if your ads and landing pages are not constructed correctly.

This ebook is the most comprehensive specialised book about Google AdWords that is currently available. The ebook contains comprehensive screenshots, tables and check lists, which help you to get quick results and lower advertising costs for more profit.

To read a little more about good landing pages, take a look at this article from Search Engine Watch – http://searchenginewatch.com/3632318

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Action List: Implement a weekly test regimen for your website

Friday, January 9th, 2009

healthA successful website requires constant oversight.  It’s important that your site is checked regularly to ensure that it is performing optimally. If you just ‘let your site go’, then it’s likely that the site will come undone over time.  A regular ‘health check’ – preferably weekly - will keep your site on track.

Here are some of the things that you should be doing on a regular basis – schedule it into your diary!

  • Check for broken links
  • Check for redundant or out of date information
  • Check your competition – what are they up to?
  • Check for site errors via your statistics package and rectify
  • Check, record and analyse your site statistics – unique visitors, repeat visitors, page views, page views per session, time on the site, most popular pages, etc.
  • Check for web accessibility and standards - does it meet Web Accessibility Initiative and W3C guidelines?
  • Check your search engine listings – where do you appear in the search engine results pages?  Has there been an improvement over time?
  • Check that all pages have correct metadata tags
  • Check that you have an XML sitemap and that the information is being sent to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer
  • Check your site navigation to ensure that it is logical
  • Check any search engine marketing programs (eg Google Adwords) that you are running to make sure that you are getting a good return on investment

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