Google Pay-Per-Click: The Truth Is Revealed

Last night I was wondering about my Google PPC ads and why my buddy was paying less per click than I was. We're marketing in the same niche and I couldn't quite understand the disparity. Then low and behold I get a link from a friend today on "Quality Score" and what determines your click price.

If you're trying to make sense of PPC and how it works, listen to this brief video from Google Chief Economist, Hal Varian, who explains the AdWords Ad Auction and how your max CPC bid and quality score determine how much you pay for a click on Google.com. More importantly, Hal specifically mentions which factors determine your quality score - definitely worth the next 9 minutes. Be sure to retweet and share with your marketing buddies...

All the best,

Michael

A Simple Formula For Effective Marketing

Ever since the first merchant promoted his product to make a meaningful trade, marketing has been an essential part of any sales or promotional formula. Today, the formula seems complex, but it doesn't have to be. At the core of any effective marketing strategy is value.

So how can you create value for your customers? Begin with a firm understanding of your market. Who are your best customers? Who has a need that you can meet with your products and services? Delivering value becomes easy once you understand what you customers need and you find a way to deliver it at a fair price.

If you're struggling to create real value for your customers, learn from the following example which is very easy to duplicate and delivers value for all involved. This company - we'll call them Services Unlimited (they asked me to keep their name confidential), has been delivering web design services for nearly a decade. They understand their customers and are always trying to deliver top notch service. However, business has been slow and they are looking to improve their marketing effectiveness.

One of the designers, who's established some great relationships with customers, suggests that the company share the materials he shares with his customers online. The material he's referring to is a guide on how to choose the right service provider. The agency likes the idea and repackages the guide as, "10 Things You Must Know Before Choosing An Agency!" before publishing it to the web. This is information that is valuable to their prospective customers and improves the agency's success.

The company promotes the online resource (pdf) via their web site, to customers, prospects, and through pay-per-click campaigns. Before being able to download the guide, entering a first name and email are required. Once the email address is confirmed through a verification email, users are given access to the downloadable PDF. This has been set up as part of an auto-responder, dripping messages on prospects at different intervals.

The purpose of the auto responder is to provide additional value, build a relationship/affinity for the agency and essentially move them through the decision making process. Now you might be wondering how successful a short list of do's and dont's may be, but done correctly, each touch provides value.

So How Did This Campaign Perform?
Okay, you are probably wondering what a free download and a bunch of emails could possibly do for a slowing business.. everything. The effectiveness of this campaign was better than any other direct marketing they had done in quite some time. The conversion rate of 5% was more than double what they were receiving on other campaigns. Additionally, many of the relationships they established were long-term and helped to shape much of the work they do today.

This company learning from their promotional efforts focused on value and now offer other promotions such as a 'web page makeover', 'free evaluation', etc. When you focus on delivering value, the business will come. Said another way, know what your audience wants and give them a taste - prove value before you ask them to take a chance!

Top Five Tips For Generating 1000's of Inbound Links

Okay, so you're already sold on the concept of link building. That's good... everyone knows how valuable inbound links are to your marketing pages and web sites. I know you've heard it countless times but are you implementing an inbound link plan each and every day?

I'm here to say that the majority (9 out of 10) clients I work with are not implementing a cohesive inbound link strategy on a daily basis. The good news is that about 80% understand the importance of inbound links and about 30% actually have plans for generating them, but a mere 10% are actually doing something about it.

Why Inbound Links Are Important
If you want to reach the top of major search engines, then you're going to have to tell the search engines why they should rank you. Do you have unique content? Are you a credible website? Can you provide a good user experience? These are all important questions you should be asking yourself as you consider developing an inbound linking strategy.

Tip #1: Here and Now
Start with an idea of where you are. Regardless of what type of tool you use (free or paid) to evaluate your current SEO status: rankings, keywords, sites linking in, etc., make sure you have a good idea of where you're starting from - and ultimately where you ant to get to. Additionally, plan to check your progress at least once a week. You want to see if your inbound links are helping you success on search.

Tip #2: Begin With Your Competitors
One of my favorite link building strategies is to start with your competitors. Who's linking to them? Are the links from high Google PR sites? What else can you learn about your competitors linking strategies? Start with your competitors or who is already ranked in the number one position for the keyword term or phrase you're optimizing for.

Tip #3: Focus on Anchor Text
Another great SEO tip for inbound linking is to evaluate all of the existing inbound links to your website. Whether you use the simple "link:" code via the Google search box, Alexa, or some other tool, create a list of sites linking in and work with them to apply the proper anchor text to the link associated with your keyword. For example, contacting a site and asking them to update your URL (ex: http://www.yoursite.com) with anchor text (ex: Improve search rankings) can make all the difference.

Tip #4: Quality Content and Social Media
If you provide quality content on your site or simply cover something that would be of interest to your target market, allow others to comment, bookmark and share. Quality content is what search engines like and so will your readers. Develop quality content and encourage others to share it. This creates quality backlinks to your website.

Tip #5: Three Way Linking
Okay, "reciprocal linking is dead". Yeah, I get it.. don't necessarily agree but we wont debate that here. The good news is that we don't have to talk about it since the best linking option is one-way linking. This can be achieved through a 3 way link. Trying to make a difficult to explain concept relatively simple, exchange links with another website but do it using a 3rd site, not your own. This allows one-way links in either direction.

These tips cover a great deal and have worked for me when it comes to helping my websites and blogs, as well as others, build a significant number of inbound links to their website steadily over time.

WARNING: You may be the anxious type, looking to build hundreds or even thousands of inbound links to your website(s) in the next 48 hours - DON'T DO IT! Although I successfully did this in the past, Google is penalizing sites who are too fast out of the gate when it comes to link building. You should look to ad 3 - 5 quality links to your site on a weekly basis. Slow and steady wins the race.

Find more link building tips and strategies in, "SEO Made Simple: Strategies for Dominating the World's Largest Search Engine" available at Amazon.com.