© Herman Drost

If you are looking for a fast way to market your productsor business, then Google AdWords is a great solution. You can set up an AdWords campaign within a few minutes and bemaking good money within days.

What is Google AdWords? These are small pay per click ads that are displayed on the right side of Google search results. The ads provide highlytargeted text or image ads based on what words people use to search for your product.Steps involved in setting up an AdWords campaign?

1. Read an overview of Google AdWords to become familiar with how it works.

2. Find a product, service to promote that is in high demand. This can be an affiliate product or one of your own products. Don’t create and promote a product which has no demand. Do your keyword research first.

3. Keyword research – try to think of the main keywords people would enter into a search engine that is related toyour product. Then use the keyword research tools below tosee how many times these keywords have been searched onin last month. Also research alternative or similar keywords.

Google Adwords Suggestion Tool

Overture Suggestion Tool

Wordtracker

4. Create ad groups – create an ad group for each mainkeyword or keyword phrase. Use Wordtracker to researchanother 10 to 20 keywords related to your main keyword.This will enable you to target people who are specificallyusing those words for searching. Now you can create anumber of different ad groups for each main keyword.

5. Check the number of AdWords campaigns – enter any ofyour main keywords in the Google search engine and see howmany ads are displayed on the right side of the searchresults. This will tell you how many AdWord campaigns arerunning already. If there are only a few Google Ads displayedand your targeted keyword is in high demand high number ofsearches, you have the potential to create a winning adcampaign.

6. Write your ad copy – look at the ads people are alreadyusing on Google to give you an idea of how to write them.Use your main keyword or keyword phrase in the title ofyour ad copy. You may even be able to include otherkeywords within the body of your ad. Here is an example of atypical ad:

Effective Web Site Promotion
Promotion strategies formarketing your product or service
sitebuild.com/web-site-promotion

You can write three lines of ad text with a total of 95 characters. The Display URL has a 35-character limit. TheDestination URL can be up to 1,024 characters and is theactual web page users will land on after they click on yourad.Write different ad copy for each of your ad groups. Younever know which one will pull the best.

7. Create a Google AdWords account – there is a US$5.00activation fee for Google AdWords. After that, you decidehow much you are willing to pay per click and per day. Youcan choose a maximum cost-per-click CPC from US$0.05 -US$50 and set a daily budget as low as 5 cents USD or ashigh as you want.For example, if you set your daily budget for $50/day/ad at10 cents/click, you will get a maximum of 500 clicks/ad.Once you have reached your limit for that day, Google will automatically suspend running your ad until next day.

8. Test and monitor your AdWord campaigns – start with 3 adgroups, then keep the other ad groups for later as you monitor your current campaign. Make the necessary changes to your ad copy, keywords or bid prices to improve your clickthrough rate. Google automatically tracks the click throughrate for each of your ads.To identify how many of your customers clicked through toyour site from your Google AdWords ad, use a unique trackingURL for each ad. This will also give you an indication which ads and keywords converted the most clicks to sales.To use tracking URLs, just place the following parameter atthe end of your URL: ?referrer=source.Example: If your URL is: www.your-domain.com, your trackingURL could be www.your-domain.com/?referrer=GoogleOnce you've created your tracking URLs, you can get yourtraffic data from your Web server logs or from third partytracking software.

9. Tracking Phone Calls: if you want to track phone calls you should use one of 2 diffrent sources, Google Voice or TokTumi. While google Voice is free TokTumi give you alot of features that Google Voice doesn’t and is better for business users as it also give you a800 number.

sign up for TokTumi Voip service

via How to Set Up A Successful Google AdWords Campaign.

Barcamp Sarasota is comming up in just a few months, if you were interviewing for a job in SEO would you know the answers to therse questions?

Open-ended SEO questions

1. What is your favourite aspect of SEO?
2. What is the most difficult aspect of SEO for you?
3. What has been your biggest mistake in optimising a website for search engines?
4. What has been you biggest success in SEO?
5. Do you have your own website(s)?  What are they?  What is their purpose? How effective have they been?
6. What business sectors have you previously worked in as a SEO?
7. What is the most competitive sector you have worked in as a SEO specialist?
8. Do you like Matt Cutt’s?! 

Knowledge of the SEO Industry / engagement in learning about SEO and engagement with the SEO Community

1. What is your favourite SEO website/blog, and why?
2. Who do you most respect in the SEO industry, and why?
3. Who do you least respect in the SEO industry, and why?
4. Which website do you go to learn something new every time?

Analytics

5. What Analytics packages have you used?
6. Talk me through the process of setting conversion goals?
7. Explain the process of advanced segmentation and an example of why you might use this?
8. If you could develop a new feature for an analytics package that is not currently/easily available what would it be?

Algorithms

9. Please explain the PageRank algorithm…
10. What is the most important aspect to you of the PageRank algorithm for link-building?
11. What is page segmentation?
12. What is LSI / LSA and its relevance to SEO?
13. Explain to me how phrase-base algorithms work?  Clustering?
14. Describe any perceived differences in the main search engines?
15. Have you noticed any algorithm changes lately that you believe to have affected your rankings?  How do you work to protect your online visibility?

Keywords

16. What process do you typically go through when researching keywords?
17. How could this process be improved?
18. How do you carry out competitive analysis of keywords/SERPs as part of the keyword research process?
19. When targeting keywords on-page, discuss some considerations you might make?

Accessibility

20. What factors hinder search engines access to a website’s content?
21. What is the most responsible way of using Flash?
22. Tell me how you might use the Robots.txt file?
23. What is the difference between an xml sitemap and an html sitemap?

On-page Ranking Factors

24. If you were reviewing a landing page, what on-page ranking factors would you consider?
25. How would you analyse the strength of that page as part of the site?
26. Are you competent with HTML and CSS?

Onsite Ranking Factors

27. Talk me through factors you would consider in building an optimised website. (Possible answers might include the discussion around information architecture, site structure, title tags, link structures, keyword relevance, etc).
28. What are onsite ranking factors for building a successful landing page strategy?

Offsite Ranking Factors

29. What would the perfect inbound link look like?
30. What do you like and not like about link-building?
31. Explain to me your involvement in link-building in the past?
32. What approach to link-building have you had most success?

Linkbait Development and Marketing

33. Would you consider yourself as creative?
34. Have you ever successfully carried out a linkbait campaign for a client / in-house? What was the success?
35. Talk me through the process you might go through in developing a linkbait strategy?

Copywriting

36. Are you confident writing and publishing content online?
37. Please provide examples of the content that you have written. What was the purpose of this content and what keywords were you targeting?

SEO Tools

38. What keyword research tools do you use and why?
39. What is your favourite ‘SEO tool’? Why?
40. Do you think SEO tools are effective in competitive markets? Why?

Testing

41. Have you carried-out split-testing / multivariate testing of content?
42. What did you learn from this process?

Image Optimisation

43. What factors can you do to encourage the chance of ranking for images?
44. What is hotlinking? How can this be successfully optimised?

Video optimisation

45. Have you ever carried out video optimisation?
46. What are a few considerations of optimising video content?

Social Media Interview Questions

Open-ended Social Media Questions

47. Which social media sites do you most like?  Why?
48. Which social media sites do you most dislike?  Why?
49. What has been your biggest achievement in SMM?
50. Do you feel that you are well connected in Social media spheres?  Does your social media account carry influence?
51. Do you prefer to use the same pseudonym across your social media profiles? What are the pros and cons of doing this?
52. When did you get into social media (and marketing)?
53. What is your oldest social media profile?
54. Would you ever sell or buy social media profiles?
55. What has been the most effective social media marketing campaign you have been involved in?  How was it effective?  Metrics / exposure / links?
56. How do you effectively use social media to support SEO campaigns, or vice versa?

PPC Interview questions

57. Although not strictly SEO, the understanding of the cross-over of visibility in paid-listings can be very important for effective SEO campaigns.
58. Have you worked on/with PPC accounts?  How did it go?
59. How do you integrate PPC and SEO?
60. What considerations might you make when carrying out paid search competitive analysis?

Business Acumen and ROI

61. What are the key performance metrics you have previously reported to clients?
62. What are effective metrics for highlighting return on investment from SEO?
63. What would you like to change about the SEO reporting process?
64. What other areas of business present opportunities for organic search visibility?
65. If your SEO efforts aren’t getting the visibility you would hope, what would you do?

Pitching for Business

66. Have you prepared proposals for SEO clients?
67. Have you presented proposals to SEO clients? How did it go?
68. What was the biggest mistake you have made in a meeting with a client?
69. What is your greatest strength when presenting to prospective SEO clients?

Retaining Business

70. What do you think is the most important factor in retaining a client?
71. From the previous company that you worked for, what was one process that they could have improved in retaining and gaining clients?

Closing questions

72. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
73. What are you salary expectations?  Availability?  Etc, etc…
74. How did you feel the interview went?!

via 80+ SEO Job Interview Questions for Free! | Ben McKay | Search Marketing.

Sara Hand Perspective Consultant

Sara Hand was looking for a company to take over her portfolio of web realestate and make it rank again. Frustrated with other web companies she decided a company that specialized in web marketing, was the route to go. Day one we got her back in the top ten now she is Number 1 in google once again.

via Free Automated Link Exchange Manager by SwapWords.com.

How much of this article do I need to read?

If you are serious about improving search traffic and are unfamiliar with SEO, I recommend reading this guide front-to-back. There’s a printable MS Word version for those who’d prefer, and dozens of linked-to resources on other sites and pages that are worthy of your attention. Although this guide is long, I’ve attempted to remain faithful to Mr. Strunk’s famous quote:

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.“

Every section and topic in this report is critical to understanding the best known and most effective practices of search engine optimization.

It is important when you are creating a new website that you choose a good domain name because your choice of name can have a positive effect on your future search rankings!

I am going to highlight below the three ways which you can improve your rankings by selecting a good domain name!

Including a keyword(s) in your domain name

Your domain name is considered when the search engines decide where to rank your website in their search results page. If you include keywords, (i.e. the main area of your business) in your domain name then it can help you rank better in the search engines for that keyword, as it helps to promote your website for the chosen keyword.

Need Proof?

Sainsbury’s purchased SainsburysKitchenAppliances.co.uk, if you search for ‘Kitchen Appliances’ in Google you will notice Sainsbury’s are in the number 3 position, compared to Amazon who are other 6th, and do not use a keyword rich domain.

Improve the quality of your incoming links

Links are a very important factor in determining where your site ranks in the search engines. The anchor text (the actual text used for the link), determines what keywords the link is promoting your website to the search engines for. Unfortunately many webmasters will just create a link using your domain name. Therefore by having a keyword rich domain, as mentioned in point 1, any incoming links to the domain will include your chosen keyword.

So using the Sainsbury’s example above, if I was to create a link to the website I would be including the keywords Kitchen Appliances in the link, this would help convince the search engines that the page is relevant for the search terms Kitchen Appliances. Yet all I have done is link through to their web address.

It’s a very clever way of getting people who only want to link to a web address of highlighting exactly what you do in the link without having to chase these people into changing the link text!

Register your domain for as long as possible!

When you are registering your domain name, register it for as long a period as possible! It will not cost you any more to sign up for a longer period, compared to renewing it each year. It also shows to the search engines that you are committed to the website and the domain. Many ‘spammers’ who use ‘throw away’ domains will only purchase the domain for one year to minimise costs on a domain they do not plan on using for longer than 12 months, or they think might get banned within 12 month.

Therefore only registering a domain name for one year potentially puts you in the same group as the ‘spammers’, which will have a negative affect on your website!

Caution

A few words of caution before you go off and research your perfect domain;

Make the domain name easy to remember, and do not use more than two hyphens (-). If you sell goods/services in many different areas try and find a domain that can sum up the whole company, or you might find it difficult to expand the business into different areas.

You do not need to purchase hundreds of domains that you think could be useful, as each domain needs to have unique content, and needs to be managed separately

Finally make sure you read and then re-read your domain name choice, do not do what some unfortunate companies did and get a domain name that can be interpreted differently, like The Therapist Finder’s website www.therapistfinder.co.uk (some people read this as ‘The Rapist Finder’) or a company called Pen Island www.penisland.com (who’s domain name appears to look like ‘Penis Land’)

In Summary

Think very long and hard about your domain name, it shouldn’t just be a quick purchase! A good domain name can dramatically help your business grow online. Use keywords, where appropriate, in your domain names and read and re-read your domain names, don’t get caught out with an embarrassing domain name!

via DomainInformer : Three ways your domain name can help you rank better in the search engines.

Generic website names that feature descriptive words of products and services deliver significantly higher click-through rates CTRs and overall clicks than those with non-generic domain names, according to a UK study conducted by MemorableDomains.co.uk.

The study was undertaken to test the seemingly intuitive theory that a generic domain name – such as TaxPreparation.com or CarNavigation.com – would attract more clicks and perform better in pay-per-click PPC ads than a web address with a less intuitive or lesser-known branded company name.

Significantly Higher CTRs and Clicks

To test the theory, Memorable Domains created a Google AdWords PPC campaign using electric bicycles as a test product. For the campaign, it set up identical ads with three domain names:

ElectricBicycles.co.uk generic domain name with an exact product match

YourBikes.co.uk an alternative generic domain name

InAHurry.co.uk a non-generic name

Results of the test showed that ads featuring the generic domain name with an exact match to the product had a CTR that was 15% better than identical ads featuring the alternative generic, and 42% better than ads featuring the non-generic domain.

memorable-domains-impressions-clicks-ctr-cpc-march-2009.jpg

In the same test, the “ideal” generic ElectricBicycles.co.uk ads produced 45% more clicks than the “reasonable” YourBikes.co.uk ads, and 105% more clicks than the InAHurry.co.uk ads, which did not intuitively explain the product.

memorable-domains-total-impressions-ctr-clicks-3-charts-march-2009.jpg

Name Choice Also Important

These results indicate that while the use of generic keywords is important, the choice of the domain name itself is also critical, since generic domain names perform particularly strongly where search and domain keywords match closely.

Because of these positive results, Memorable Domains recommends that marketers consider using generic domain names for dedicated PPC search engine campaigns for specific products, services and advertising initiatives. Moreover, businesses might do well to isolate keyword groups within their campaigns, and use an appropriate generic name for each group.

Reasons for Generic Success

Memorable Domains attributes the strong performance of generic domain names to several factors:

Because a generic domain name describes a product or service using the words people automatically associate with the topic, it encourages them to click more.

The presence of search terms in the domain name leads to higher organic rankings or a

better ad quality score in pay-per-click ad ranking algorithms.

Search engines commonly automatically bold any word in the domain name that matches the search term, drawing attention to the listing.

There is a potential positive impact of the domain name on ad quality score.

via Generic Domain Names in Ads Outperform Non-Generic.

So, how did I know you typed SEO Consutlant?

Well, while doing some research on the word SEO, the tool that I use showed me that there are around 31 searches a day for the mispelling “SEO Consutlant”, 14 per day in Google alone. That same research also showed me that Google only has 2 pages in it’s entire index of pages with that exact phrase. When I noticed this, I knew it would be easy to at least be in the top three right?

I thought it might be interesting to see if I could attract the people who accidentally typed “SEO Consutlant” by reversing the “L” and the “T” when they were typing.

So… by carefully researching my keywords and then applying that research in a creative way, on an SEO friendly page, that uses some basic search engine approved techniques, I can drive traffic to my site that I might have otherwised missed.

Want us to help you generate more traffic and/or leads to your site?

via SEO consutlant huh? Did you mean SEO Consultant? Learn how we knew you might mispell it..

Check out these great tips on how to optimize wordpress.  40 tips 40 minutes, very much worth your time.