My smart adv

How To Be Successful With Google Adwords

Are you thinking of using Google Adwords for the first time or have you recently tried it and gave up because you didnt get the results you had hoped for?

There are many people who give up using Google Adwords because they are not getting the traffic they wanted or its costing them more money that they can afford or both!

A lot of people think that to be successful with Google Adwords you either have to be lucky or practicing some black art.

However the good news is that Google Adwords does work and you can make it work for you. By simply following the following steps you will have a well performing Google Adwords campaign which will bring the right type of visitors to your website.

Many advertisers do not follow these basic rules and they get there advertising all wrong. So just by making sure you follow these basic steps you will already be ahead of your competition.

Understand the link between keywords your ads and your website.

This is the golden rule for Adwords.

Google is all about relevancy.

Google wants to be sure that when one of its customers searches for something that they find websites that are relevant to that search. So you need to make sure that your list of keywords in your adgroup work well with the ads you have set for that adgroup AND that the page you send visitors to when they click on you ad also has relevancy to the list of keywords.

Keep this rule at the front of your mind when you set up your campaigns.

Avoid Broad Searches

When you set up your keywords for Google Adwords the default setting is Broad Match.

What this means is that Google will match your keywords against a search if your words are present in the search regardless of the order of the words whether they appear together are plurals etc.

As an example if you use the term used shoes as a broad match then the following searches in Google would match to your keywords

used shoes

used shoes shop

used horse shoes

shoes used in modern dance

new and not used shoes

As you can see this can give quite a few matches that may not be relevant to your website.

You should avoid broad searches and target you keywords with phrased and exact matches.

A phrased match is one where the keywords will only match if they are used in the exact sequence of your keyword. You enter a phrased keyword by putting quotes “” around your keyword.

So for our example if I used “used shoes” then

used shoes

used shoes shop

would match but

used horse shoes

shoes used in modern dance

new and not used shoes

would not.

An exact match is one where the keywords will match only if that exact phrase is entered and no other words are used for the search. You enter an exact keyword by putting a square bracket around your keyword.

So for our example if I used used shoes then

used shoes

would match but

used shoes shop

used horse shoes

shoes used in modern dance

new and not used shoes

would not.

Avoid using the Content network.

You can set up your campaigns so that you ads appear on both Googles search network and its content network.

The content network consists of websites that allow Google ads to appear.

I recommend turning off the content option when you set up your campaign because you ad may not always appear on websites that a very relevant to the ad you are running.

Only advertise to locations that it makes sense to.

When you set up your campaigns you can select which countries you want your adverts to appear to. So for example if you sell a product in the USA that you would not ship outside then there is little point for your ad to appear to people in Europe or China for example.

Pick the times you want your adverts to appear

You can select what time of day you want your ads to appear. So if you are trying to advertise to UK buyers who are surfing during the evening then those are the times you should be setting your ads to appear.

Organise your ad groups and campaigns

One campaign with one adgroup and one massive list of keywords is doomed. This is the one single mistake that many first time users of Google Adwords make.

Before you start using Adwords I strongly recommend you sit down with pen and paper to plan out your campaign and adgroup structure.

What works best does tend to vary based on what you are trying to sell. However as a guide for each campaign you should aim for no more than four or five adgroups each with ten to twenty good keywords. This will give you a set of campaigns which are easy to maintain and the keywords in each adgroup can be targeted effectively.

This is only a guideline though. Ive actually had an adgroup with only one keyword and it performed wonderfully.

Use Landing Pages

So many people make the serious mistake of sending their visitors to their home page when they click on their ads.

You really want to send then directly to the page that is relevant to the ad you are running.

So for example if you have an online clothes shop then for any adverts you are running for mens gloves you really want to send them directly to the page for mens gloves.

So dont use your home page unless it makes sense. Send your visitors to land on a page that is relevant to the advert they clicked on. If you dont have a page that is relevant to the advert then why are you running that advert!

Use more that one Advert and TEST!

Always always have more than one advert running for an adgroup. This allows you to see which advert is getting the best clicks through rate. You can then change the lower performing adverts and try to beat your best one. You will soon find that you have some very effective adverts.

However to test properly you need to set the adverts to rotate evenly. This is set in the campaign settings. In the ad serving option under the advanced settings make sure you select the radio button for Rotate: Show ads more evenly.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Mike Seddon is the founder of KKSmarts. Their site contains many free guides that will show you how to drive traffic to your website.

Their Free SEO Training is also very popular and can be enjoyed online in the comfort of your own home.

Monitoring Web Traffic Through Site Analytics

Do you know who is visiting your web site? Wouldn’t it be great if you also knew where they were coming from how long they were on your site and most importantly from which page they were exiting your web site and why? Web analytics software and real time web site tracking solutions have now made it possible for web masters as well as for those companies for whom a robust Internet presence is critical to success to use this form of dynamic data to review performance correct pitfalls and plan highly successful online marketing strategy. Let us begin by first exploring site tracking and analysis terminology:
Page Views
You have probably noticed this phrase in online marketing brochures where web sites proudly proclaim the large quantum of visitor traffic they have experienced on their sites. A Page View refers to the total views of every page on your web site. A Unique Page View is a page view by a unique person within a twentyfour hour period. Where as page view counts are site specific unique page views are visitor specific. Both communicate important information about visitor behavior patterns and provide valuable insights into your search engine ranking.
Hits
The reason why there is some confusion about this term is because it emanates from server technology and not from the art and science of visitor tracking and web analytics. A Hit merely refers to the number of information requests received by a hosting server. The number of hits is determined by the number of objects on a page. For example if your home page has twentyone objects your site hosting server will record the page access as twentyone hits. A word to the wise… It is best to use this statistic cautiously for what it is worth and not to be misled by inflated hit counts when implementing your online marketing plan.
Referrer or Visitor Source
A Referrer or Referring Link also known as the Visitor Source is a page which links to your web site. By looking at your referrers it is possible to accurately identify the pages from where your site visitors are arriving. Visitors usually arrive from one of these three sources:
From another web site that has linked to your site
A search engine results page
Directly from a browser launch
Referral data is a gold mine of information because it clearly pinpoints the keywords or key phrases being used by searchers to arrive at your web site and the search engines that are sending you the traffic. You can use this data to conduct more targeted and meaningful keyword analysis refine existing keywords and submit your site to search engines and directories where you are not listed. This data can also be used to further optimize the content of your web pages for improved search engine rankings SERs.
User Agent
A User Agent is the software that is used by site visitors to access your web site. A User Agent could be a:
Browser such as Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox or Safari
PHP script pasted on a web page that points to your site
Search engine spider programmed to index your site
This valuable data can be leveraged to precisely identify the last time a spybot visited your web site to index it. You can also use this data to map traffic trends spot site abuse and trigger corrective action.
Geographical Location
Many web analytics packages and hosted services provide this information using IP lookup technology. They compile data about the geographical location of site visitors as well as the time of the day during which they visit your web site. You can deploy this data to finetune your marketing strategy specially in those regions of the world from where site traffic is below average.
There are still other types of traffic intelligence web analytics systems can provide. They include:
The length of time a site visitor stayed on your web site
The URL of the page on which site visitors land and exit your site
The operating system Windows XP Vista etc. and browser resolution settings on the
monitors of site visitors
Web Analytics and Improved Customer Service
The manner in which you can use web analytics data will depend largely on your site’s functionality and its purpose. For instance if your site has a customer service orientation and provides live chat support for your customers web analytics data is critical since it will enable you to further tweak the type and nature of your customer service. This key aspect of the overall customer service delivery process is of paramount importance because customer surveys continue to reveal the general level of dissatisfaction among customers regarding the quality of service on Internet etransaction sites. According to a Harris Interactive survey conducted in August 2007 nine out of ten customers were unhappy with the type of customer service they received when shopping online. The Harris survey polled 2430 US consumers aged 18 and older and concluded that most online shopping customers were experiencing significant problems when trying to interact with customer service personnel a problem that a live chat solution can address and effortlessly remedy.
In the next issue of Live Wire Plus we will objectively evaluate some of the leading web analytics solutions to help you select the service or product that best meets your needs.
Information in a Box
Web traffic statistics or web stats as they are commonly referred to are extremely potent tools used to generate organic data about web site usage. They provide critical information about which web pages on your web site receive maximum traffic. They also generate statistics on the web pages that attract the least amount of site traffic. Site analysis solutions also tell you who is on your site how long they were on your site on which page they landed and from where and finally from which page they have exited from your web site. Some of the more sophisticated site analytics packages can identify which web browsers are being used by site visitors and which ones should be optimized for improved results. Since these analysis tools compile crucial data on the search engines your visitors are using to arrive on your site and the keywords and key phrases they are typing into search engine search boxes these tools can go a long way in implementing innovative marketing strategy for your web site or portal. Some can even check for dead links and send error messages.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Live2Support Inc.
http://www.live2support.com
Email: newsletterlive2support.com

How To Magnetize Your Brand And Attract More Customers

What makes a company brand magnetic one that effortlessly
attracts customers revenue media attention and employees alike? A quick examination of the laws of nature will reveal the answers. Forces such as magnetism and gravity while seemingly subtle have a powerful and constant influence on our lives. They govern us without our awareness of their presence. Their “pull” is not overt and goes largely unnoticed yet they govern so much of what we do. They are natural vs. mechanical powerful vs. forceful and attractive vs. coercive.

Magnetism occurs when charged electrons align themselves in the same direction. As in nature magnetic companies and brands are ones that are aligned and “pulling” together toward a common goal. Once that alignment takes place the rest is easy. Target customers are no longer “targets” since they will gravitate towards your message. The emphasis slowly shifts from artificially capturing customers to naturally attracting them.

Magnetism then comes from a distilled and powerful sense of purpose. This purpose reverberates throughout the organization and intuitively guides the organization’s members to act and behave in ways that promote this vision. The cost of topdown internal messaging is greatly reduced. The process becomes more natural more fluid and instinctive.

So is this purpose the same as a mission statement or brand strategy?

Yes and no.

Most mission statements are written in boardrooms and sit nicely on the lobby wall. Purpose is something that comes from the heart and it needs to come from the heart of top management not the ad agency. Again this is about alignment and if top management is all about maximizing the bottom line it cannot create a magnetic company whose mission statement expounds the virtues of altruistic self sacrificing service.

It just won’t vibrate resonate and ultimately attract the desired customer. So it can also be said that magnetic companies are genuine in nature. Their values are consistent at all levels of the organization. Profit then becomes a natural byproduct of doing what the company believes in whether it’s delivering on price quality or service.

How does a company find its purpose? It’s already there waiting to be acknowledged and promoted. For example many business owners I deal with feel passionate about the quality of their products and services but also feel compelled and pressured to compete based on price. They are brainwashed by their sales force and outside influences to believe they can only compete by selling for less. Once they gain a true sense and understanding of their core purpose they become emboldened and that energy translates throughout the company energizing everyone. Soon “the talk” is about product quality and innovations new customers appear and old time consuming complaining incongruent ones begin to leave. The company the brand the image begin to align and “pull” in a quiet but powerful way.

An Optometrist came to me years ago desperate to create an image of quick service in order to combat the onehour vision centers that were devouring the market. When I asked him how long it took him to provide the same service his reply was “one week but I think I can get it down to three days.” A customer needing glasses in one hour won’t wait three days. So I designed a campaign with a headline that read “We Take Time.” It went on to extol the vital role of vision in our lives and why it’s important to wait to make sure an eyeglass prescription is done right by a professional.

The doctor felt I had completely missed his point but he trusted my judgment and ran the campaign. The phone began to ring and one lady said “I haven’t had my prescription filled because I was waiting to find someone who took more than one hour to ‘grind’ my glasses”. He has run the ad for over fifteen years and “taking the time” has now become his position in the market. His revenue share and bottom line all increased when he became comfortable and congruent with who he was and what he did best regardless of the market.

Transforming a company or brand from mediocre to magnetic requires refocusing on the passion that created it or now drives it and aligning everything around it. Rather than finding the right market the right market will find you.

A good example of a company that reinvented/repositioned itself is British Petroleum. BP recently launched a new look but more importantly a new focus one that reengineered the BP acronym to now stand for “Beyond Petroleum”. In fact I could not find one reference to the original name on its web site. In much the same way that KFC moved away from proclaiming itself “Kentucky Fried Chicken” BP moved away from the image of a profit driven European oil conglomerate to a globally involved environmentally friendly organization working to explore new energy sources vs. exploiting old ones.

How congruent is your company? Are your goals marketing name image and mission all aligned? Do they all communicate the same message? Are you easy to summarize and describe. To see just how “magnetic” your company is ask yourself the following questions…

*What are your core competencies? What does your company do well/best?

*Is that reflected in the name tag line logo and marketing materials?

*Which of these attributes best describes your company and it’s products quality price or service?

*Does your marketing match your attributes i.e. do you preach quality but sell based on best price?

*What do your customers most value about you?

*What do your employees value most about you?

*What does management hold as their top priority?

*Do all these match up? If not why?

Taking the time to align your company with its core competencies can greatly increase the momentum and effectiveness of any organization. The intuitive selfguiding nature of a highly congruent company makes it powerful and memorable. Apply some of these principles yourself. Rather than chasing indifferent people you will begin attracting perfect customers. After all it’s only natrual.

About the writer:  Phillip Davis is president and founder of Tungsten Branding company naming consultants located near Asheville NC. Phil and his team have assisted over 200 regional national and international corporations with business and product branding strategies. To view his company naming portfolio visit http://www.PureTungsten.com