All Entries in the "PPC" Category
Are You Even Ready For PPC Yet?
I get calls all the time about PPC Management. The potential client wants to know how much I will charge to run their PPC campaign. The first thing I do is look over their website. In most cases I find their website is not even ready to close sales yet.
Today, such a client called me. Again I went to his website. No phone number on the landing pages, no contact form or contact page, no calls to action, no terms of service or privacy policy, just four pages of useful information about what he does for a living.
This website was in no way ready for a PPC campaign. yet he had already obtained four bids for managing his PPC project. None of those companies had actually looked at his website and made any comment whatsoever about whether or not he would be able to convert PPC traffic into sales.
There are two big problems with PPC.
1. Misinformed customers who have read they need to do PPC but do not know it will do them no good without the proper landing pages.
2. Unethical or just uninformed companies willing to sell PPC management to anyone who will buy with no regard as to whether or not the client will make sales.
You need to find a PPC management company that actually cares whether or not you make sales. Here are some clues to look for;
1. If the person you speak with does not even bother to look at your website before giving you a bid, they are not going to do a good job for you.
2. If the company you are talking to has set packages that apply to every customer regardless of topic, level of competition, keyword list, etc., you are not about to get personalized service.
3. If the person you are speaking to cannot take the time to look at your competitors to see what they might have to bid to get the PPC traffic you want, then you are not talking to a real PPC management Company.
Buyer beware. Every web business is unique. Different levels of competition, different goals, different budgets, different situations and obstacles to overcome. Seriously, if they do not even take time to look at your website, look at your competition and they just give you a price, look elsewhere.
New Web Business Guide Chapter 8 – Website Promotion Part 2 – PPC vs Organic Traffic
The New Web Business Guide Introduction can be found here. The last chapter on getting traffic to your website is right here.
Should I Use My Budget For PPC Or Organic SEO?
Ok, you have submitted your website to web directories and search engines and your website is optimized so you will get great organic/natural search engine placement and that traffic will come right? Eventually, yes. Organic search engine placement takes time, so that will not solve the immediate need for traffic and sales.
There are a lot of people who debate whether natural/organic search engine optimization or buying traffic is more effective. Where do you spend your money? Buying links? Buying advertising? Or on organic seo?
The answer is both. You need to optimize your website and build links so that your website will rank well in the search engines and so you will get traffic from those organic listings. More people click on organic or natural results than click on the sponsored links. Most estimate that 80% of the traffic will come from organic listings and 20% from the paid listings, but your mileage may vary. Every site and topic is different.
But even if you get great organic rank in the search engines, you still should not ignore the sponsored listing options like google adwords. That 20% might even spend more money on your products than the 80% coming from the organic listings.
Both work together very well. Your ultimate goal is to be both in the top 5 in the search engine for your key phrase and also be the paid links near it. Then you capture a large majority of the traffic for that key phrase.
How Long Does It Take For My Website To Rank Well In The Search Engines?
This guide is intended for new web businesses. So let’s assume you are just starting out and your domain name is not very old and the website was just completed recently. The chance that you will rank high for your keywords right away are low no matter how well you do the seo.
Natural traffic will come as your website propegates across the web and as your domain name gets some age if you have optimized the website properly and you have built up some one-way inbound links.
In the meantime you want to make sales now, right? Everyone does. Clients always ask how long I think it will be before they are making some money. It’s all related to what you do in the beginning and what your budget is.
Should I Use PPC Right Away For My New Web Business?
PPC is very important in the early stages. You don’t have natural traffic coming in yet so you need to advertise. The best place to start that advertising is with a PPC campaign. PPC = Pay-Per-Click so it’s self-explanatory. You pay a certain amount for each visitor the PPC program sends you.
It’s based on how much you bid for each keyword or key phrase you want to target. Your competition is also bidding on those same key phrases.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE NUMBER ONE FOR EVERY KEYPHRASE YOU WANT TO TARGET!
Can I Manage My Own PPC Campaign
I suggest that you hire a professional to run your PPC campaign or that you at least hire a “Coach” to guide you and teach you how to do it. Take google adwords for instance. Letting google set it up and manage it is like letting the fox into the henhouse.
Why Don’t I Just Let Google Manage My PPC Campaign For Me?
If all of your clients let you tell them how much to spend it would be nice wouldn’t it? That is exactly what google is offering to do for you. They are offering to tell you how much you should spend with them. If you think that is a good idea, then you are in big trouble already. 
Will I Make A Profit If I Spend Money On PPC?
ROI is return on investment. Let’s say you get 1000 visitors from adwords. Let’s say you made 40 sales from that traffic. Let’s say you make $20 per sale profit. Let’s also say that the average click from adwords cost you 50 cents.
That means that you paid $500 for the traffic and made $800 in profit. Your ROI is $300. Many would look at that and say wow! google adwords took more than 50% of my profit! I would say wow! google adwords made you $300 you did not have before.
You also benefitted because your competitor did not get those sales. It’s called market share. You also now have 40 new customers that may return and buy something later and whose information you have so you can send them special offers.
Even if you had broken even, you are still ahead. If you lost a little money, you are still ahead. If you hire a professional PPC manager or a PPC Coach, you will not likely lose money or just break even.
Summary
This blog post and the new web business guide will not tell you everything you need to know to run a successful PPC campaign. That is a whole other series I will write someday. But for now, I just need you to understand that you need to do both organic seo and ppc when getting started. I also want you to know that you need to hire a professional ppc manager or ppc coach.
Here at SeoServiceProvider.com, we no longer manage ppc campaigns for new clients, but we do offer a PPC Coaching Service if you want to manage your own PPC campaign. You can call us at 786-317-8774 to discuss that or to have us recommend a PPC Manager to you.
In the next chapter we will discuss buying links, reciprocal links, and advertising.
Google and Matt Cutts Ignore Their Do No Evil Policy and go into SEO Business
I posted about this when Google was still in the process of aquiring Doubleclick, which also owns Performics, which is an SEO company. Many in the SEO industry, including Danny Sullivan warned that Google would use this to monopolize the SEO industry. Original post on google getting into the seo business was here.
Now Matt Cutts will be moving over to Performics to capitalize on the name he has built through his blog about google. The perception being that since matt Cutts worked at google and yahoo before that, he will have a better chance of ranking your website with those search engines. (April Fools Prank I feel for. ) (edited so I do not disaparage Matt Cutts)
From SEO Round Table; As of press time, Mr. Cutts was unavailable for comment. His personal press attaché, Ozzie Houndslayer, did confirm that Matt would be moving over to Performics, but would not comment on the allegation that Performics would be listed as a primary recommended SEO in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Fact: Google is now selling SEO services through Performics. An investigative team recently contacted Performics directly and was told that Performics was unable to offer SEO services to anyone not spending over $1Million U.S. per year with Google AdSense. This seems to be strong evidence that there is in fact a correlation between Paid Search spending and organic rankings, as long suspected . Search Engine maven Danny Sullivan is one of many who have officially suggested that Google should divest itself from Performics. The transfer of Matt Cutts is obviously a sign that this discussion is far from being over.
Good prank. Got me.
Google has manipulated users into the content network without their knowledge and by default, they have allowed domain tasters to make money with google adsense when they know it is a scam, they have been sued over click fraud in regards to adsense, and now they are trying to tell you they will be the trusted name in SEO?
This is the same company that had to pay Yahoo a settlement due to promising Yahoo that Google would never be a search portal. Anyone who trusts any company owned by Google is totally out of their mind.
Google going into the SEO business is totally unethical. It is an attempt to hoodwink companies into thinking that only Performics can get them placed well in Google. To insiders this is obvious and it’s a joke. Unfortunately it is a joke that many companies will fall for.
From Search Engine Land; Open Letter To Google: Do The Right Thing, Divest Yourself Of Performics
At long last, Google owns DoubleClick. In doing so, the company has done something else that many people would have never believed possible. Become an SEO. That’s right — Google’s in the SEO business now, selling services through DoubleClick’s Performics to people who want to rank well on — um — Google.
Conflict of interest? You bet. And worse from an image perspective, the purchase puts Google in the paid inclusion business, something it dissed as evil back in 2004, when it went public.
Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with Performics as a company and have good friends that work there. But Google shouldn’t own it. The Google announcement yesterday should have said that Performics was being quickly spun off. Larry, Sergey, Eric, Google! Please do the right thing and make this a priority. Below, more on why this should be done, plus the official Google stance, so far.
Google has a webpage that gives advice about choosing an SEO company. On that page it says, “While Google doesn’t have a special relationship with any SEO company”.
Yes they do. It will imply that performics has a special relationship with Google. This is an outright lie on google’s own page.
It also says “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Webmaster Tools and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.”
Yet, now Google has given Performics a special relationship with Google. They don’t have to use it in solicitations.
The board of directors in any public company is bound by law to assure that they will do their best to make a profit for their shareholders. So if performics needs to improve their bottom line, it is the board members duty to try to improve it, including making sure that performics gets some kind of priority submit or other advantages other seo companies do not have. That simple.
Fortunately, Google also includes this on that page;
If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on “File a Complaint Online,” call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:
Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580
Hmmm, someone should lodge a complaint.
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