I’ve never really used Google Adwords before.

But I have decided that this year we are going to start using them. Not knowing how much to put into something like this I was thinking of spending around $4,000.00 a month on Google Ads.

So I started asking around and was told the best thing to do was come up with 10,000 non-competitive search terms.

As I started making my list I got to thinking, why not just create a page for each search term and get that page ranked?

Now I’m confused, if working with Google’s Adwords means finding non-competitive search terms then what’s the use in running the ads?

Can someone help explain?

Should I be biding on competitive search terms?

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Hi Janeth,

The answer is both :) It all depends upon what you are selling and I would say you need to try both competitive and therefore expensive terms and if you can find them some cheap niche/non-competative keywords.

One of my retail clients has a nice mix of both terms. One of the competative terms we do is about 60c US a click for 3rd spot and about $150 a week spend. He sells a couple of $400 items of it each week so he's not retiring but it helps his bottom line. Another niche keyword costs the minimum 15c we are the only advertiser and I think it must get about 10 clicks a month - no sales for 6 months of it then last weekend 2 sales $1500 and he's very happy.

Competative keywords cost lots, mean smaller margins but should be higher number of sales. Niche ones cost nothing but may be stagnant for months. It's trial and error and I always try to test new competative words on Yahoo Overture for a few months as its about 1/3rd the traffic volume of Google Adwords and 1/3rd the expense if it doesn't work.

Thats also the way to go off course. Use PPC until you get that No1 generic ranking for the niche term but as we all know that can take months meanwhile use Adwords, you know if you pay it will be No1. (Also I believe if you have a PPC link it gets spidered a lot more and gets generic Search rankings much quicker)

Read the books work out how much you can afford to 'lose' put in the effort and give it a try. If its done properly with the right amount of effort it normally pays off.

Julian

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Oh well everyone else does it - http://www.jctdesigns.com - http://www.swanseawaterbeds.co.uk - http://www.bathsrus.com/

Hi

You are on the right track !

If you can get in the top 5 for your keywords through content & ranking - why bother with adwords ?

Peter
Keyword = Languedoc http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...en&q=languedoc

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The Languedoc Page
www.the-languedoc-page.com

I agree with Peter. Find a good copy editor and pay him some paltry sum to come up with pages that reflect what your site is all about.

I do it all the time with clients because I'm a reporter as well as a web site SEO.

It's easy to put up pages that are well-written and rich in keywords that will attract the top search engines, really.

Here's a good example. I took over a boat yard site in San Diego www.nielsenbeaumont.com.

They basically had no ranking other than with their name googled so I knew I would earn my money with good content.

In addition to redesigning their existing pages, I threw up a few with relevant information on caring for your boat.

Also I put up a page of an article I had done on a product called PropSpeed.

Within a month a keyword search for the phrase "San Diego Propspeed" put them in first place with Google (although all the other boatyards in San Diego were mentioned in the article) and, through the use of RSS feeds their popularity soared to a point where the word Propspeed comes in 4th world wide.

They also enjoy excellent ranking with all their other important keyword phrases.

At present, I'm doing the same thing with the San Diego Port Tenants Association www.sdpta.com. They were a black hole of search results with their old site but after two weeks they are starting to really climb in keyword competition.

So find some good content and make yourself a dandy site that the search engines will love (and so will the public).

Jim

Janeth when picking keywords for PPC their competitiveness should not come into play, but whether they convert or not. This will greatly vary from business to business. Some businesses I see high conversions from very generic keywords, while other are nothing but a waste of money and it would be better to use less competitive or long-tail type keywords.

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KBK Marketing | Search Marketing Blog | Cheap Web Hosting

Hi Janeth,

Use adwords to pick up areas of your sites that are not competitive.

If you are being found for what you want to be found on certain pages, no problems. Its the less well found areas of your business, where you can use adwords to be "in the frame".

The biggest tip is to find out how or what phrases people are using to find your product. Then optimise those pages towards them.

Use the tools available, but do not spend to much. Adwords are a tool but experiment $0.40 at the most and set a time limit on how long you use them.

Your site stats willl verify whether they are working.

Top cometitive terms will cost you money. Your site is a house with many windows, its how you want to let people in.

Keimos

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Keimos - Always learning something new each day
www.keimos.co.uk , www.keimos.net , www.selfpacedit.co.uk

Why bother? Simply because the best conversions in many sectors come from PPC.

For example, our parts site. We see 60% of the sales from organics, true. But we see 40% of the sales from the 15% of the clicks we get through PPC. Would I give up 40% of our business because I don't want to pay to advertise any more? No way.

What you'll really need to do is try both and see what the results are. Being #1 in the organics is great, but if you can be above that you'll still get clicks. If your competitor has an ad above your #1 ranking, chances are there are sales being lost to that ad.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...FKJQ&ps=13&p=1

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...SRFO&ps=13&p=1

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...JURH&ps=13&p=1

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...QUHG&ps=13&p=1

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...GGAW&ps=13&p=1

http://playaudio-123.com/play.asp?m=...CVGF&ps=13&p=1

Find low hanging fruit, that is KW's with high usage and low competition.

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Competative keywords cost lots and higher listed Keywords may be more subjet to a greater level of Click Fraud.

$4,000.00 a month on Google Ads. This sound like a lot of cash, to me. Consider sharing it out with other services. Consider Affiliate marketing if you are selling stuff:-

How to advertise websites. Methods of internet advertising and promotion. Here are some advertising methods that you may have considered to promote websites. Free Tips.

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Dominate Google Search Results Pages
Business Support A Computer Portal

From experience I've found the more specific the keyword term the better its conversion chain:

Impressions to clicks, clicks to enquiries, enquiries to sales.

Work back from the sale and look to improve each linkage in the chain.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

Janeth
My early experience with keywords was that they can potentially limit your market(as in area)reach. The positive side (being that your company is based in sunny colombia) you have both the english and "spanish" lingual clients to consider - are there any cross-border phrases that may also work?

Web-aviso seems to work for me in the UK - even though aviso is not an english word - people seem to have a perception of its meaning!.

Steve.

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::web-aviso::website innovation solutions

Hi Julian it's been a long time, nice to see you again.

It seems we do not need as much money as I had thought to get started with this.

I guess the only way to do it is get started and see what happenes.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

We rank for the top 5 for a lot of keywords like "custom site design", "custom website design" and bounce around with top 20 for "website design" on both Google and MSN.

But if I can spend $1.00 a click and make back $1,000.00 it seems that the money being spent would be worth the effort.

I'm thinking of bidding on keywords we already rank #1 for as well. Just to see if we can make more sells or not.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

We are looking into this but would rather find a good copy writter for sales than for the search engines.

I'm not very good at writing English but I've found no matter what the text says adding some good links can get a page to rank.

I think the text needs to be written for the people, if I have to use it for the ranking I'd rather spend money to advertise. (-;

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

It seems I always agree with what you say. (-:

But it seems the only way to find out is with trial and error.

I wonder how much it cost to hire someone to handle all this for me? )-:

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

I want to let them in through as many windows as I can as long as each window is making enough money to pay for itself.

I don't want to limit myself in anyway but need to be able to track the results as we already rank for a lot of the keywords.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

My thinking is this, we rank #1 for "custom site design" if someone comes up takes a look at the site says ok and closes their browser. Then they go to the right side of the page and click on the first banner and it's my site again.

I feel my chances have increased because they see us at the top of both the paid and non-paid results.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Thanks a lot. I'm also thinking we should spread the money out some. I will have to study up on affliate marketing as I know nothing about it either.

How much do you thik is a good amount to put into Google AdWords?

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

The problem I'm having is that the low hanging fruit does not seem to be sending me any traffic. )-:

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

I agree with what your saying but then what is specific?

Is "website design" specific? It would be just as speific as "custom site design". How would I get more specific than that?

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Hi Steve,

Having the Spanish and English to work with is a big advantage and one we are looking at taking advantage of.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Did you listen to the audios from John Alexander, an expert in the field. Here http://www.searchengineworkshops.com...udiomagic.html is his website where you may find additional information.

Do you know what Section targeting is?

https://www.google.com/support/adsen...y?answer=23168

Then it should not have high usage. It is not easy, and you should use different KW generating tools like:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/

http://acronymfinder.com/

http://www.wordtracker.com/keyword-research-guide.html

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/

http://50.lycos.com/

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

http://www.b-found.com

http://www.smart-keywords.com/

The meaning was not to confuse you with too many links. Hope you find some of them useful.

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Learn object oriented programming where it started

Thanks a lot kgun, guess it's time to get to work on this.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Some trial and error in PPC can shed some great light on conversion data before devoting great efforts on the organic side of things!

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KBK Marketing | Search Marketing Blog | Cheap Web Hosting

The one thing I haven't really seen mentioned here, is what type of service are we talking about?

I think that it is very important to recognize if your sales are going to come from impulse buys, or from buyers who are going to do a lot of research.

If the buyers are going to do a lot of research and you have the best product at the best cost you will obviously see a higher return, even though it will be harder to track your ppc performance. Many of our customers may come from ppc but we receive their orders at later dates and it is hard to determine where they really came from.

We have found many keywords that we can obtain top placement for as little as 10 cents a click and we receive a majority of our visitors from these keywords.

On some of our more highly competetive keywords we see a higher number of conversions, this is because the person is searching for a particular thing and is more likely to be ready to make a purchase.

But the less competetive keywords are driving us visitors who see what we have to offer and may bookmark us to return later.

So don't be too quick to only look at immediate conversions to determine the value of your ppc advertising. Not to mention the headaches of trying to sort out our roi due to the large number of phone orders we receive. We attempt to get a little info from each call without being too intrusive, but it is often not that helpful.

www.hawaiidiscountactivities.com
www.mauihawaiiluau.com
www.maui-vacation.net

I agree incrediblehelp but from what everyone is saying including frogmanandy is that it is very hard to determine.

(The type of business is web design Frog Man)

But it sounds like I need to just put money in it and hope for the best.

I guess I should start with only one ppc at a time so I can tell rather it's working or not.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Hard to determine because conversions cant be monitored well if get called, emailed, stop in the shop or snail mailed?

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KBK Marketing | Search Marketing Blog | Cheap Web Hosting

kgun, when using tools to define your targeted keywords does it matter which one to use for organic search? I use wordtracker and I find the numbers are low compared to using the Google Adwords tool. As stated in WordTracker a data collection from DogPile and MetaCrawler determines the competitiveness of the words. Now using the Google Adwords tool that number is detemined by other advertisers/performance right?

Any information you can provide would be great.

Thanks

sq

My advice:

1. Listen to the audios of John Alexander. Links in my first post. Relisten after a time. Then relisten again.

2. Study his site. He know much more about WordTracker than me and I am not in the SEO business, even if I read a lot.

May be Web CEO 6 that can be downloaded free can help you. I have not tried it myself.

It has the following headings:

1. Find your Niche.
- Find KW.
- Optimize page.
- Edit pages.

2. Promote your site.
..........

3. Analyze your site.
.........

4. Maintain your site.
..........

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Yes, Incredible. When people stop in the shop they rarely will mention that they found us on the web.

With call ins we can ask for extensions which tell us if they came from a website or if they came from a print ad, but it is hard to ask which search engine they used, search terms etc.

We try to use overall totals to get an idea, and we can say without a doubt that we are making more money since begining our ppc campaigns, but it would be nice to have a brain scanning machine to give us more info ;)

Janeth, I think with web design $3,000 a month might be a drop in the bucket if you target a large number of keywords. It appears that big players such as i-power and networksolutions are dumping big money into top positions under the most competetive keywords and phrases.

On the other hand, a well written ad specifying that you are doing a professional, personal design for each customer may work well with lower placement where you will not have to pay as much per click. I think good ad copy will be key.

I noticed immediately that going from web design to professional web design cuts competition from 2,290,000,000 to 478,000,000. Wow, there are a lot of people building websites these days!

Janeth,

Finding the right adwords keywords is different for each niche- you can target by geography if you like to reduce spending

The main thing is to be merciless about ROI- it's too easy to try too many keywords and lose money...

It seems the 80-20 rule works here too- 20% of your keywords bring in 80% of profit... that kind of thing.

And it's not SEO or PPC- do both- in fact, what multiple companies' find is that being visible on the first page for a keyword via SEO AND PPC works synergistically- yes, you pay for some visitors, but you seen more, perhaps exponentially so because of the double mention.

And as for the many windows thing- it's true, that's how it works with SEO, but you have a choice with PPC- if you have a very specific MRW (most wanted response), you can limit your visitors' options and pages... Or doing both SEO and PPC you could funnel people from multiple windows to 1 MWR

You've seen one-page sales letters? The direct marking, copywriting perspective would favor the MWR...

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Brian Carter San Diego CA 92111
Free E-Course: AdSense Profit Secrets Revealed
Qualified AdWords Professional
http://adwordsconsultant.blogspot.com