per click search engines
you guarantee you are
getting at least some good
traffic, and that your
business model is scalable.
Smaller engines provide
slower feedback loops, and
some may not even
provide quality traffic.
• The results will be scaleable.
• The feedback will be quicker.
• They offer many great tracking and targeting features free.
• Larger pay-per-click search engines generally present higher quality traffic
and are less susceptible to fraud.
• It is less complex managing two or three accounts versus 100 accounts.
• It’s easier to track the ROI on 2 accounts than on 100 accounts.
• Many of the extremely small search engines never have real traffic. You
are wasting your time registering with them.
• Even some of the better second tier search engines may waste a big hunk
of change. In early November 2004 I tried using LookSmart. It sent me
twice the traffic as Yahoo! Search Marketing and traffic from LookSmart
had a 95% bounce rate. That means that 19 of 20 site visitors from
LookSmart immediately left and I paid for garbage traffic. The quality of
traffic from smaller engines will vary from term to term, but its best to go
with the biggest guys off the start, and then, if you have spare time, try
some of the smaller engines.
Case Study: the Ignorant Bidder
If a term does not convert well for you then it may not be worth it to rank near the
top for that term.
7 SEO BOO K
Not too long ago a person was bidding on an eBay ad for “SEO Book” at over $1 a
click. Assuming I can get a 1.5% conversion rate I can afford to pay that much, but
this person was just throwing away their money.
Just to test the waters I placed my ebook on eBay and it did not go for anywhere
near what I usually sell them for.
I find it hard to believe the person who was bidding a dollar a click was making any
money. They later lowered that bid to 21 cents. In some markets there will be
dumb companies that rotate in, lose money, and then go bankrupt. By the time they
go bankrupt others may soon take their money wasting market position.
Some terms are not worth buying at the price the keywords go for. And if they are
valuable they may have more value at a lower position.
Landing Page Tips:
Conversion is a large part of how successful a pay per click campaign is. A few tips
to improve landing pages:
• Remove navigation: unless it is necessary remove other options. Let
people do what you want them to do, and don’t give them many other
options.
• Make link text appealing: people tend to glance over copy instead of
deeply reading every word. Since links are action points people tend to pay
more attention to link text. Make sure link text is appealing since it is far
more likely to get read than most of the page copy.
• Give them a clue they have found the correct page: Place the words
they searched for in large text at the top of the page to show them they are
in the right location. If you are a large merchant with many products maybe
use something like ‘search results for: their search term’. Typically it is best to
point people at a landing page instead of the home page.
• Other ideas: some of the other concepts listed throughout this ebook
(such as using short paragraphs and concise subheaders) also apply to
landing pages. Corey Rudl constantly retested his landing pages. You can
learn a good amount by seeing how he changed his landing pages over
time, by looking through how they changed in Archive.org.
MarketingSherpa also has a landing page handbook for sale.
Yahoo! Search Marketing
How Does Yahoo! Search Marketing Work?
Yahoo! Search Marketing is a large pay-per-click search provider. You write ads for
your web site, and they appear in the search results and content sites with ads
delivered by YSM. Before the end of 2006 most keywords were editorially reviewed
prior to appearing in search results, but with the launch of their long awaited
couple minutes.
YSM Stemming
YSM also truncates search terms for ad targeting, so book and books are treated as
though they are the same keyword phrase.
YSM Advanced vs Standard Match
YSM typically places standard match listings above advanced match listings if the
advanced match listings are not as close of a match as the standard match. This
means that if you bid on the exact term that someone is searching for you, will rank
above ads that are matched via broader matching options.
If you bid ten cents for best seo book and someone else bids 25 cents for seo books
your best seo book ad will show above theirs if someone is searching for best seo book.
At the end of 2006 Yahoo! aimed to make their platform less transparent, so how
they mix matching types may change over time.
YSM Bid Prices versus Click Costs
With YSM, you pick a maximum bid price and your bid will never exceed that.
Their software has a bid discounter built in, so oftentimes your average bid cost
may be less than your bid prices.
Prior to the end of 2006 YSM bid prices were transparent, which meant you could
usually see exactly what your competitors were bidding at any given time. With the
launch of the
ranges, estimated clicks, and estimated share of clicks.
Please note that their estimates are just estimates, and that by adjusting your ad
copy relevancy and appeal you can drastically alter your click costs and traffic
volumes.
• If you use appealing ad copy an ad at position number 2 or 3 may get
more clicks than an ad at position number 1.
• Relevant ads that get clicked often are given a higher quality score. Ads
with a higher quality score are given a discount for their relevancy,
since search engines make more when searchers click on more ads.
Bid Jamming
Once the new
this explains how the process worked.
In some niche markets, there will only be a couple people who place exceptional
value on ultra-qualified leads. For example, a Chicago DUI attorney may bid much
higher for the term Chicago DUI attorney than a general nationwide firm would. If
there are only a couple competitors in a market, it is not uncommon for the top
few bids to be $5 or $10 while the rest of them are around 25 cents or less.
For example, if they bid $10, you can bid a max bid of $9.99. If the third placed
person is only bidding 25 cents, your clicks will cost you 26 cents each while
ensuring your competitor pays a full $10 per click.
Of course you want to monitor your accounts closely if you are using aggressive
bidding techniques or bid jamming people. Some competitors will be stupid and let
you take their lunch money. Others may be smart and readjust their bids to bid jam
you. Some will go so far as click fraud, so you need to watch your account closely if
you are bidding aggressively in competitive markets.
By default, ads are widely matched and syndicated to the content network, so if you
bid high on the search network make sure you check the content network ads and
bid lower on those. It doesn’t take too many $10 content clicks to come in to make
for a bad day.
YSM Programs:
YSM offers a $10 bid bonus when you open an account, but has a $5 startup fee
(which is converted to click credit), and it has no monthly minimum spend. They
also have a FastTrack program where their account representatives will set up your
account for a one time $199 fee. I recommend taking the time to set up your own
account. You know your products better and are more interested in your own
success than some random YSM editor is, they are more interesting in ensuring you
spend as much as you are willing to.
YSM offers a local product called Local Match, which allows you to target your ads
from a .5 to 100 mile radius of your business location. The Local Match product
requires that you have a business with a physical address, but it does not require a
website. These ads give driving directions to your place of business. Local Match
ads show up in the same location where other YSM ads appear.
YSM also offers a paid inclusion program by the name of Search Submit Express
(which I generally consider a waste of money for most websites). Search Submit
Express gives your sites 48 hour refresh throughout the Yahoo! powered search
products. SSE is a one time $49 review fee and also has an incremental cost per
click. SSE is good for sites which:
• are rapidly changing
• or are having dynamic indexing problems
• or need indexed quickly
• or need the associated tracking offered by Search Submit Express
Free Yahoo! Search Marketing Tools:
Yahoo! offers a suite of tools to help their advertisers set up their accounts.
• SEO Book Keyword Research Tool: cross references the Yahoo!
Search Term Suggestion Tool, all the Google keyword research tools,
and many other keyword tools
(http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Yahoo! Search Term Suggestion Tool: shows the frequency of
searches across the YSM network for the prior month
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
• Yahoo! View Bid Tool: shows the highest bidders for a specific
search term. Please note this tool will be shut down in December of
2006.
(http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/?Keywords=
casino&mkt=us&lang=en_US)
• Yahoo! Advertiser Workbook: free downloadable e-book released by
Yahoo! to help you get the most out of your YSM campaign
• Yahoo! Panama Preview: Video previewing the new
platform.
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_htnya.php
YSM Search Term Suggestion Tool Errors:
YSM truncates their search terms. While the plural and singular versions of search
terms will greatly differ in search volume YSM just lumps them together.
Please note that the Yahoo! search term suggestion tool tends to run high on highly
commercial terms since many automated bots and bid managers scour through
their partner network. Here is an example keyword research search for S.E.O.
WordTracker tracks click data from the meta search engines by the name of
Dogpile and WebCrawler. Since WordTracker makes their money by selling data
versus clicks you can usually expect more legitimate traffic measurements using
WordTracker. Digital Point created a free keyword suggestion tool which compares
both traffic estimates.
KeywordDiscovery.com and GoodKeywords.com are two additional useful
keyword research resources.
When doing pay per click advertising deep keyword research is a fundamental part
of most successful campaigns. Many of the keyword research tools are top heavy
(only showing the most common terms), but Yahoo! and Google both have
enough traffic to give deep keyword research results. WordTracker has a few cool
features called lateral search and thesaurus which help you find similar keywords. I
tested many of the keyword research tools and WordTracker is generally the only
traditional keyword research tool I feel is worth paying an ongoing subscription for.
Another option to finding deep keyword data is to run a broad matched Google
AdWords ad (AdWords and matching options are discussed later in this chapter)
and mine keyword data from the referral strings. Make sure you watch your budget
closely and use negative terms to filter unwanted traffic if you use this technique.
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