CAT | Pay Per Click (PPC)
23
Ad Exchange Heralds New Dawn in Display Advertising for Google
0 Comments | Posted by andy in FAQ - PPC, Google, Google Adwords, Pay Per Click (PPC)
Having already conquered paid adverts on SERPs, Google is now looking to do the same for display ads to. Ad Exchange is a new initiative that is designed to provide a forum for advertisers and hosts to meet and fill websites with wonderful advertisements.
Based around its already hugely successful DoubleClick display ad that Google acquired last year, this updated resource is set to help the search giant gain a tighter grip on Internet advertising. The trade off between the provision of advertising space, provided by the host website, and the advert itself, provided by a sponsor, will now be done in an auction like programme on Ad Exchange. This opens up rafts of opportunities from both sides, and will doubtless be greeted by groans down in Sunnyvale, California.
Just as DoubleClick has been around for some time, both before and after its integration into the growing Google Empire, so has Yahoo’s own display ad platform – powered by Right Media. Yahoo have slowly grown a core group of advertisers and even beat Google to the punch in providing a universal display ad marketplace, launching My Display Ads back in June.
Whilst Yahoo are still a profitable and hugely successful search engine, they can’t compare with Google on most fronts. Until this point though, they had gained a decent foothold in the display ad field, a foothold which could be looking decidedly shaky with this announcement. The head start that they had may well melt away with the coming of their predominant search rival, although it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the coming months and years.
On paper though Google’s advertising formula is peerless. AdWords is the most successful and widely used paid search format and DoubleClick is one of, if not the leading display ad service. All told, this could be topping up the far from depleted coffers of the Google enterprise in no time at all.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Google Trial Local Listing Ads
0 Comments | Posted by andy in FAQ - PPC, Google Adwords, Pay Per Click (PPC)
With the initial Wave furore now settling down, it appears Google are continue to innovate; although this time it’s in one of their key monetising departments – paid advertising.
The Internet search titan is currently trialling a service that will incorporate local search with PPC. Whilst local search results will still be contained alongside a location map in a box near the head of the SERPs, the new Local Listing Ads will appear in the advertising banner immediately above it, with the businesses location still denoted by an alternative numbered pointer within the map itself (shown below).
Whilst trials are happening in San Francisco and San Diego areas, this appears to offer a very logical and interesting leap forward in both paid and local search. The new system though, at least as it stands currently, will require little in the way of management. All businesses need to do is select their location, determine what sector they’re in and just pay the amount Google defines for each click. Even the adverts use just a single uniformed style, with the name, web address and contact details displayed. All very simple.
This could therefore become a hotly contested advertising platform pretty quickly, particularly in business sectors that have numerous individual companies operating in a single area. But as this is still in the developmental stages, we can assume that Google will iron out any creases before the roll it out to the wider world, that’s also if they decide to of course.
For Google this represents another revenue stream, but for local businesses in competitive markets, it could well provide an invaluable source of traffic. Local search is an increasingly popular and important area of search engine optimisation. By targeting searches in your business’ immediate vicinity you can eliminate wider competition and focus on visitors who are more likely to be seeking your services. Local Listing Ads could well add another dynamic to this.
Of course it won’t replace traditional PPC services or Google AdWords, not in its current form at any rate. This is simply an additional option, something that should be used to compliment any PPC or SEO work you’re doing. The main advantage for site owners though is that it requires little or no management, meaning your ads could be created in minutes and left to their own devices. As this is only being trialled currently we will keep you posted on any developments, if and when it does land in the UK.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Five Ways to Increase your Click through Rate (CTR)
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Google Adwords, Pay Per Click (PPC)
n the past, this blog article has explained What is a Click through Rate (CTR) and why is it Important>?, so that is not something we need to explore further here. The purpose of this post is to help understand how exactly you manage the CTR and keep it at a good level.
Below we give you five top tips to help you along your way:
1. Use Keywords within your Ad Text
Use your main keywords within your ad text, not only to attract people’s eyes, but to confirm that your ad is actually about that search term. If people are more certain that another ad is more relevant towards them, they are far more likely to click on it, resulting in the loss of a possible customer for your site.
Imagine you were looking for car insurance. Compare the two examples below and think which one you would click on:
2. Choose Your Keywords Carefully
Your keywords are one of the biggest factors to keeping your CTR high, especially if they are chosen carefully.
Ask yourself this, if you were selling car insurance, would you bid on the word “Car”? The answer is, or at least should be, no; that’s because people searching for a ‘car’ are not necessarily looking for car insurance, and the same is also true of the opposite, not all those looking for ‘insurance’ actually want car insurance.
Think about your words before you bid, think “What would I type in looking for my product?” Bear in mind that since Q4 2008, the average search string has risen to four words. The searchers are becoming more refined. Has your PPC campaign kept pace?
3. Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are a Google AdWords professional’s dream. In case you have never heard of them, they are described in our SEO Glossary as “A way of ensuring that adverts are not shown in conjunction with any of the keywords in your negative keyword list”. In other words they are the opposite of your normal keywords (the name makes sense now doesn’t it).
Using the example above, if I decided that I actually did want to bid on the word “Insurance” I would add all those words that I didn’t want to appear for into my negative list:-Home, Contents, Pet, Holiday etc. That way I can bid on the word insurance without appearing for them.
4. Watch Your Bid
Whilst Google AdWords is more than just a bidding system with the highest bid jumping to the top of the page, if you bid too low, your position within their rankings will be equally low and so will your CTR. The difference in clicks for ads between positions 1-3 can be a great deal more than those at position 4 onwards. Whilst we do not advise that you crank up your Cost per Click (CPC) to uncomfortable levels, make sure that when bidding for a keyword that it is at the right price.
5. Test Your Ads
Google allows you to create more that one ad text per campaign, which is great for you as that means you can test different text in each one, see which one works best and then test other text.
Using our Car insurance examples, we have created two versions of an ad text (we added the word “Over” if you can’t see it):
If the second ad text received a better CTR than the first, then we would take that ad and test that one with different text and then so on:
When testing ad text, remember to give it some time before changing the ad, as with any testing the greater the time period, the more information you have.
Of course, there are more than five ways to increase your CTR, too many for one blog post, but practice the above and you should hopefully see an increase.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Google AdWords Ad Scheduling Updated and Refined
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Pay Per Click (PPC)
The ‘ad scheduling’ feature within Google AdWords has always been a fantastic way to extend the budget of your Pay Per Click campaigns. Rather than running an advertisement all day, every day, ad scheduling would allow you to define certain time parameters and ensure you targeted visitors at peak times.
Previously this was all done on a standard hourly rate. Meaning that your adverts could run it from 9am to 6pm on every weekday ,and 10am to 4pm on weekends without any problems. This was always a hugely efficient way to streamline campaigns; that was until Google updated the system, making it even more versatile.
The shift from hourly time parameters to 15 minutes may not sound like a great deal, but even saving half an hour of unnecessary time each day could add up to a significant difference to your PPC campaign. Imagine, for example, your business gets 98% of customers between 9am and 5pm. You may not want to just have adverts running from 9 to 5, just in case some search slightly earlier or later, but due to a stretched budget you can’t afford for them to be running for an additional hour at either end; what do you do?
Well, with the new time 15 minute time slots you could set them running at 8:45 and have the campaign stop at 17:15. This way you only add 30 minutes extra online visibility, but you could still benefit from peak time traffic for your business.
So now you can be as specific as you want, ensuring that adverts are only showing when you need them to. Whether it’s eight hours forty five minutes one day and just two hours the next, you can get more from your AdWords budget with ad scheduling.
This is a fantastic way to drive down costs, particularly for smaller businesses where Pay Per Click management of spend is likely to be far tighter. It may only be a small change, but it could have a huge difference – particularly over longer campaigns.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
What is Quality Score?
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Pay Per Click (PPC)
Quality Score was introduced for Google AdWords to help Google decide which position an advertisers ad should be displayed and subsequently how much should be charged for each click on the ad.
Google assigns each keyword within an AdWords campaign with a score between 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest).
The Quality Score calculating method has been constantly changing over the years. One of the first algorithms was simply your Click through Rate (CTR) multiplied by your Maximum Cost per Click (CPC).
CTR x CPC = Quality Score
This has become more and more complex over the years and only Google know the actual calculation that they now use.
However, we are aware of some of the major contributing factors that will determine your score:
- Keyword Relevance
- Landing Page Relevance
- Page Load Time
Google openly informs advertisers whether their keyword has achieved a good score within the Google AdWords interface. Simply hover over the callout bubble within the ‘Status’ column in the Keywords tab and you will be returned with the following popup box.
Quality Score Indicator The Score Definitions
1 – 3 Poor
Keywords with a score of 1 – 3 need urgent attention and should be improved on or removed from your campaign.
4 – 7 OK
Keywords with a score of 4 – 7 are deemed suitable candidates to be advertising on Google but can still be approved on. Keywords with a score of 4 or 5 should be monitored closely to make sure that their score does not drop.
8 – 10 Great
Keywords with a score of 8 – 10 should be working very well for your campaign. Remember, there is no such thing as perfect so there will always be ways to improve on your score.
Stay tuned for the next blog in the series – The Benefits of a high Quality Score.
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