Posts Tagged ‘Effectiveness’

PPC Basics

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

PPC advertising (Pay Per Click) is similar to search engine optimization in that it revolves around targeting consumers based on the search queries they are using to find products and services through search engines. Despite that, pay per click advertising is much different because it involves paying for each click you receive to your website rather than attempting to manipulate editorial results. Pay per click advertising is much more complex than it may appear to be based on your initial understanding; not only do you need the expertise and tools to develop a list of thousands of keywords, you also have to understand the processes involved in ensuring you both measure they effectiveness of your PPC advertising and also pay the least amount per click that you have to.

When contacting a PPC or internet marketing company to enquire about their services, you should initially look for a provider who appears to understand both your business model and the complications and challenges that surround PPC advertising. A great indicator of the likely skill of a provider is to speak to a past customer of theirs and find out if they are happy with the results they have attained from working with the company and if they would be happy to recommend them to you.

SEO : Find the Best Keywords

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

It would be a waste of your time to optimize your website for keywords that are not even being searched for. Therefore you should invest some energy into finding the best keywords. There are several SEO tools available on the Internet to help you find the best keywords. Tip: Don’t be deceived by organizations that require you to register first. The two most popular resources are WordTracker and Yahoo!. Because Yahoo! has a man-made database that truncates plurals, I prefer to use WordTracker (WT).

Below is a screenshot from WT that shows the results you’ll get when doing a query for “putter”. Notice that “golf putters” has the highest search volume with 100 searches in the last 24 hours, yet there are over 100,000 websites to compete against. Using the tool’s Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI), you’ll be able to see that “custom putter” would have a better chance at higher ranking, since there are only 2,640 competing.

Here’s a key part of the top 10 SEO tips: When using any SEO tool for doing keyword research, start by keeping your searches ambiguous like we did in the example above for “putters”. The results will always return suggestions, sometimes surprising ones that you may not have thought of.

You can get less comprehensive results by using DigitalPoint’s Keyword Suggestion Tool. This SEO tool will give you a summary of information without the KEI. Personally, I like to know how many people are competing before I design a web page.