What is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising?

Pay per click is a form of paid for online advertising by Google. These adverts are found in the shaded area of a search engine page above the ‘organic’ or natural links (usually the first three links), and the remainder are placed in the area reserved for Sponsored Links in the right sidebar.

PPC, also known as Google Adwords, comprises a headline link (which is extremely important, as it contains keywords that are relevant to the search details), two lines for the description (carefully composed to contain highlighted relevant words plus being meaningful) followed by a URL which shows which website you are going to. The headline is the live link and should be directed to a highly relevant webpage for maximum effect.

Every time a visitor clicks on an Adwords ad, the company pays a fee ranging from 1p to £25. How much is paid depends on the value of the keywords in the headline. The more popular keywords command a higher price, and that depends on the subject and how many people are searching for that particular word.

But the more you pay doesn’t guarantee a higher position in the sidebar, this is dependent on the performance of the ad. So if you’re clever, you could have your ad with a lower paying keyword performing better above a more expensive advert. The more relevant your keyword is to the destination of the link, the better its chances in placement.

You don’t need to spend a fortune in PPC if you employ a wise Adwords adviser. As well as selecting inexpensive and highly performing keywords, you can juggle the price during a campaign, and set a ceiling per day so you don’t go over budget (once you’ve reached the maximum amount of clicks, your ad is automatically withdrawn). The more relevant you are in your adverts, particularly when directed to squeeze pages or highly suitable webpages, the more you’ll succeed in your conversions.

Top tips on PPC

• Take time to properly research your keywords
• Use wordtracker.com or digitalpoint.com or tools.seobook.com to find keywords
• Services: acknowledge the problem rather then offer the solution; products: be specific with particular items rather than the general shop
• Reverse thinking: don’t go for the most popular general keyword because it will be extremely expensive and you won’t position very high
• Look for highly relevant selected keywords for more poignant searches that get you further to the top of the page for less money
• It’s vital your ad is relevant to its destination, your headline keyword should totally match the webpage it is directed to
• If necessary, create specific webpages for each advert to maximise conversions

Forget your blog, forget your readers, forget SEO

There is nothing worse than setting up a blog and then forgetting about it – like someone said in a Twitter post, “a blog with no new content is like a cheese sandwich”. Although this made me smile, he is right. An inactive blog is the same as a brochure website, looking pretty but with no search engine optimisation activity it is worth nothing.

The answer? Get off your backsides and start contributing.

How? There is lots of material all around you. Look at your old articles, e-newsletter material, past emails answering questions from your clients, stuff you may have read from other blog posts or whatever that you would like to put your own slant on it, articles from business magazines, overhead conversations at networking events, general gossip: this forum is full of it!

How often? Regularity is better than frequency. Michael Martine of Remarkablogger stated in a recent post that he now blogs less than before, but his posts have a much higher value in their content so his SEO impact is higher, as well as the quality of comemnts. See what he says in one of my posts: http://www.designyourmarketing.co.uk/2009/07/blogging-less-can-be-effective-too/

What should you say? The aim is to provide value for your readers, give them something to think about, provide solutions to their problems, pose a question to encourage comments: comments are treated as new material too, so getting lots of these is also good for SEO.

Create an editorial diary so you can draft a number of posts in advance and come back to them later to spruce them up for posting. If you’re really clever, or if your original post is too long, split up a subject into many installments: this will keep the audience’s interest going, and incorporating cliff-hangers will encourage them to look out for the next post. It also will make it all the easier for you if you know what you are going to write next.

Don’t make your posts too long. People don’t have time to read huge articles on blogs, keep it down to five paragraphs, or more if they are short ones. Short, snappy and sweet is my motto. It makes it quicker to write them too.

If you get an idea, write it down in a notebook, or if you’re online, create a quick draft and go back to it later. Once you’re creative juices are following, why waste them?

Constant contributions are more important than making your blog look wonderful, stuffed full of imagery and widgets, but with no content. Get writing – the more your readers, and therefore potential clients, get to know about you, the more likely you are to do business with them.

Oh, and another thing, try and put a purpose into your posts. Blogging aimlessly about everything and anything is also a waste: there must always be an ultimate aim in whatever you do.

My purpose for this post? To raise awareness of who I am, you’ll follow the link to the post above, and you’ll realise that I want to help women to blog successfully to further their businesses by visiting my blogging pages.

Keywords should entertain blog readers as well as search engine spiders

Keywords or key-phrases are particular words that are the most searched for in search engines. Found through websites such as Wordtracker, they are, in fact, search engine spider food, and including them in your blog posts will help raise your status in search engine optimisation (SEO).

Keywords or key-phrases should be inserted into four places in your blog post:

• in the headline (because it later becomes the permalink or URL for that post)
• in the first paragraph (preferably in the first sentence so that both readers and spiders immediately ‘get’ the subject)
• in the middle (because that’s a place spiders look)
• in the final paragraph (another place spiders are programmed to search)

But remember to keep your writing entertaining as well as being aware of how relevant keywords are to the subject.

I was reading a post about article marketing the other day and I noticed how the author had incorporated his keywords into the post. He had followed the concept stated above to the letter. The final paragraph was so bad (every sentence had the keyword either at the beginning or the end), the result was it was so incredibly boring to read I didn’t bother continuing.

Here are some other points it might be good to take into consideration if you wish to retain readership as well as spider interest:

• be aware that people skim read an article or post to see if it is relevant
• bullet points are a good way of highlighting elements
• keywords should be positioned also to catch the reader’s attention
• only the first 25% of an article is truly read before the reader decides it is worth continuing with or not
• small paragraphs also helps with the reader’s comprehension as well as attention span
• the average amount of time spent reading a blog post is 96 seconds
• therefore short and sweet posts fare better than long ones

Another keyword tip I picked up is that spiders cannot ’see’ punctuation, so if you adjust your sentences by inserting full stops or commas into the middle of your key-phrase, this will add enough variance to help maintain readership interest.

Use keywords for your reader’s benefit as well as strategically placed for spiders, therefore not penalising your audience purely for search engine optimisation.

Websites and blogs: how are they different?

Actually a blog is a kind of website, as they have many similar attributes.

They both occupy a presence on the internet, use an URL or web address, need a host server to keep them online, contain information such as text content, pictures, links and keywords, both benefit from search engine optimisation and can be tracked through Google Analytics.

But why don’t we call blogs websites? What is it that makes them different?

The difference is in their programming, and how they make use of Web2.0. The are pre-runners of social networking before Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They thrive on interaction, new content, feeds and optimisation.

Blogs are designed to be self-editable. This means you don’t to pay a web designer to make changes or add content. You can update them through very easy access (a username and password) from any computer in the world. The programming is self-contained, and if you can write in Word, you can update a blog.

They thrive on being updated frequently and regularly, their programming is designed to attract search engine spiders who are looking for new content all the time. This is very good for web optimisation which puts blogs higher up the search engines than websites. Another consideration is that blogs are visited by spiders hourly, whereas websites could wait for months.

Unlike websites, blogs only update new material each time it is posted. Every time a website is updated the new stuff supersedes the old content, whereas blogs store previous entries like a news-roll, each post dated accordingly and assigned it’s own URL for access at a later date.

Blogs are designed to encourage interactive communication between author and readers. Those who comment can link back to their own sites, and this content is also considered as new material by internet spiders. This concept is not available in ordinary websites, except through sign up forms, and then contributors cannot view afterwards what they have written.

And another consideration to note: blogs are much cheaper to create and maintain!

OK, so what else makes blogs better?

Blogs are created to help businesses to spread their expertise, explain what their business does in different ways, maintain a relationship with their visitors and customers, offer subscription services for regular contact, channel traffic back to relevant websites, and can be fed to other websites like social networking for a higher readership.

Most websites, especially ‘brochure style’ ones, are static and once created are rarely updated, and can’t provide an opportunity to explain everything as space is often limited. In fact, over cluttering your pages with too much information can be counter-productive. Visitors will not return for new content, websites are unlikely to get bookmarked, and only through a sign up form to a newsletter can the business maintain a relationship with potential customers.

But this is only my opinion, what do you think about this subject? Since this a blog, leave a comment in the box below to share your views.

‘Blackberry’ doesn’t say ‘babies clothes’ to me

One young entrepreneur was asking for advice on her babies’ clothes business on a women’s business forum. She had decided to call it ‘Blackberry Babes’ and wondered if it was a good name or not. This is my response:

I’m still a little confused why you need to use ‘blackberry’ – is there some underlying reason for this? I immediately thought of the hand-held electronic system. I certainly agree that ‘babies’ is better than ‘babes’.

I should take a good luck at the USP of your product. What is special about it? What does it have that your competitors haven’t? Does it use special fabrics, are the colours significant, does it cater for specific kinds of babies’ requirements, or what?

Then I would think about how it change the lives of the babies, or their mothers. Concentrate on that phenomenon when you do your marketing. For example, an ironing service shouldn’t talk about what they do, ie your ironing, but what their customers can do if their ironing is done by the company, ie free time with the family, weekends free from household chores, no more ironing piles towering on your washingmachine! You should be describing ‘what’s in it for them’, not your product, because customers couldn’t care a tinker’s toot about you or your business, they only care about how it affects themselves.

What is so special about your babies clothes that marks it out as different from all the others, has a special element that makes the recipients lives better, and offers excellent value? Take these facts, work out your ‘keywords’ and create a name using them. For example, a courier service called ‘Fetch it now!’ – says exactly what’s on the tin.

Why this and not ‘blackberry’? ‘Blackberry’ doesn’t suggest to me baby clothing, it suggests to me more of food, or blackberry stains on sticky babies. If you are going to have a website for your company (hopefully an e-commerce one where mothers can buy on-line) by having a keyword rich name will not only make it easier for the search engine spiders to find your company, but easier for search engine users who type in those ‘keywords’ in their searches for baby clothes, not to mention the mothers who will understand exactly what you can do for them.

The result may be a little more boring than ‘Blackberry babes’ but if you want to survive on the internet, being cute and pretty won’t cut the chase.

New business? Want a website? My advice is: don’t!

You’re an entrepreneur and you want to start up a business. Great.

The first reaction to getting a slot on the internet is to get a website. Wrong!

Why wrong? This is because websites are notoriously expensive things! How much cash do you have? I suggest you should have a good think before you go throwing it away on unnecessary, inappropriate, uncostworthy things such as a website.

But surely everybody needs a website, or they won’t be taken seriously by prospective customers?

Of course you need a presence on the internet – it’s a requisite requirement nowadays. But not a website. What you need is a blog, and a good grasp of social networking. That’s how you get yourself known on the web. Only when you’ve made it, got a load of followers, built up your list of contacts, made some money, then you can go ahead and get yourself a website. By then you will know exactly what you want it for, and will build it with a proper purpose.

The trouble is, so many people get themselves a website, and it just sits there, looking pretty, and doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. They haven’t got the money to update it, because unless they have built it themselves they will have to pay a fortune to their webmaster to make any changes.

Now, if you have a blog, that’s exactly what you can, and should, do. This is because blogs are self-editable; they thrive on new material because they are designed for it. They are also little web magnets for internet traffic, as the search engine spiders are programmed to visit blogs extremely frequently, just in case there is something new for them to ‘read’. If they like what they find, and there are lots of keywords and key-phrases that match up to what is ‘hot’ at that moment, then you can get really high in the search engines!

And the other side of the coin is to get into social networking. The beauty of the web is that you can link and ‘feed’ all your blog content into social networking, so a lot more people can start reading about exactly what your business does – as long as you have written about it. And blogs are the place to write about your business: frequently, easily and regularly.

Don’t hide under a bushel – reach out and network. Tell the world about what you do. If people like what they read, you can start to make friends, contacts, business, liaisons, strategic alliances or whatever, all on the internet, through a relatively inexpensive blog – not by wasting your money on a website!

And does it work? There are plenty of businesses who are extremely successful today and have all started with just a blog, even before social networking got off the ground. Blogs are the beginnings of social networking, it’s just that the interactive side of the web (Web2.0) has developed a bit more recently…

Have you considered a blogsite?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a website that achieves almost immediate recognition from search engines and benefits from frequent updates that are achievable by you and not a web-designer?

This is all possible from a ‘blogsite’, a combination of a website and a blog from WordPress, the blog provider I use for my own blog here, but the difference is that a blogsite needs to be hosted and is obtainable from wordpress.org, not like my free blog from wordpress.com.

Think of it as a blog with static pages like a website.  Once main advantage is that these static pages can include shopping carts and other e-commerce activities, something the blog-police disallow on free blogs. It uses an ordinary URL like a website, unlike my blog URL which has to include wordpress within it. Each post has a permalink that contains more beneficial SEO qualities, and is not over-long with the date, category, abbreviated blog title and other unnecessary information.

Because a blogsite has a blog incorporated within it, it is picked up by the search engines within hours, unlike an updated website which can take weeks.  Having such immediate recognition helps towards building up your relationship with your clients, and yes, you can include autoresponder forms for your newsletters too. All this is, of course, enhanced by frequent blog posting, as this keeps the spiders happy and all those lovely contextual links get to work on your other websites and internet activities.

And of course the blog part takes advantage of getting more traffic through integrating with Web 2.0, the new phase the internet is going through which includes encouraging web interaction with visitors. Stuff your articles with keywords and tags, not only in the content but more importantly in the headlines as well, and keep everything short and sweet yet provocative to encourage comments, feedback and suggestions. Frequent visitor interaction enhances SEO, especially when it is of value.

Landing pages – how to attract visitors

People search the web for information. They type in either individual words or a question into a search engine such as Google, and this throws up a series of websites whose SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) relates to that request.

Therefore it’s important to make sure the ‘landing page’ your customer visits is relevant to their search.  This is not necessarily your website’s homepage, the ‘spiders’ (robots who roam the net for the search engines) may offer up another of your webpages that contains the information requested.  Don’t assume your homepage will always be the first point of entry, you should treat each webpage as a potential ‘homepage’ for the product it represents; it might be advantageous for you to present one item per page in order to make it easier for the viewer (as well as the ‘spiders’) to read and digest.

Here’s another thought. Once the surfer has ‘landed’ on a webpage, which, of course, contains all the information they are seeking, how easy should it be for them to leave?  If they do, where do they go? To the rest of your website? To a sign-up form for more information, a freebie or a newsletter, leaving their contact details behind them? Or back to the internet, never to be seen again?

How do you keep your visitor once they’ve landed? Research shows you have about three seconds to make an impression before they go elsewhere. Three seconds for them to act, whether it’s to realise this is the correct webpage they want, read the content, click on a link, sign up for something, note down your telephone number, send you an email or decide even to buy from you.

One way to keep your customer’s attention is through the headline on your webpage (this is both at the top of the page and within the head code). Hit them with a catchy, scintillating and, most importantly, relevant first line that says exactly what’s in the tin. Stuff it full of adwords, yet don’t make it too long; it should be clear, concise and uncluttered to entice the visitor to read on.  Try offering a provocative question, make an outrageous statement, provide a solution to a problem, play with the words through alliteration or a popular phrase, but above all, avoid ambiguity.

Be aware of what is immediately visible on your webpage.  If you have a lot of relevant and necessary content (the more you can say, the better chance you have) which results in a long page, position your most important information at the top.  The space ‘above the fold’, ie what can be seen before scrolling down, should contain an enticing summary with links to further material elsewhere on that page. Make sure you include everything that is needed to get your visitor to take action: sign ups for freebies or a newsletter, great graphics, your telephone number or email link, an effective navigation bar, all presented as clearly as possible from the beginning.  Don’t loose anything by placing it too far down to be noticed, you can’t guarantee further exploration.

And one final point – don’t clutter up your webpage.  Avoid unnecessary gimmicks such as Flash and moving images, they only distract, annoy and do absolutely nothing for your SEO. Simplicity is the key, with clear, relevant graphics (you could make them into colourful and noticeable links), suitably enhanced with alt tags; a restrained use of colour, keeping it to maybe just three including the text colour; a white or pale background: using reversed text and graphics on black results in reduced legibility; and carefully constructed text written by an experienced copywriter: the correct use of adwords is vital for SEO, especially if they match your metatags.