You may have noticed that Google makes it easy to set up an Google AdWords campaign, but not so easy to get a return on your investment in pay-per-click. There are a lot of levers you can pull in your AdWords campaign to influence results. Here are eight ways to optimize your Google AdWords campaign for better ROI.

1. Know Your Target Audience Google AdWords Profile

Knowing your target audience, in the context of Google AdWords, goes beyond maintaining a list of demographic parameters that describe the identity of your customers. You also need to keep in mind one important question – how is my audience using Google? Trying to get a feel for their behavioral patterns and letting that behavior inform your selection and use of keywords will give your Google AdWords campaign an edge over your competition.

2. Speak The Language of Your Audience, Not Your Own

Keep in mind that your target audience may or may not use the same vocabulary that you do to describe what you sell. Your keywords should reflect the way they talk about your offerings, not the way you do.

3. Select Primary and Secondary Google AdWords Keywords

Each keyword in your campaign has a cost that depends on how many others are bidding on it. Your primary keywords are directly related to your product/service. In case of highly competitive products, your primary keywords may prove to be quite expensive. It’s equally important to choose secondary keywords that are not directly related to your product. Secondary keywords widen your reach and can bring down your pay-per-click advertising costs if you choose less competitive segments.

4. Select Smart Site Google AdWords Placements

Apart from bidding on keywords, AdWords also gives you access to a wide range of partner websites where your ad can appear. You can choose categories of websites that your target customers are most likely to visit. For example, if you sell digital cameras, you can advertise on photography sites or sites that target gadget-lovers.

5. Use long-Tail Keywords For High conversions at lower cost

Online users are gradually using longer key phrases rather than keywords. These longer phrases have lower search volume than common keywords. However, long-tail keywords increase your chances of clicks and conversions since they are very specific. For instance, “digital camera” is a generic keyword. A long tail alternative would be “best deal for Canon 1000D.” If you’re struggling to find relevant longer tail keywords, there are a number of free Google Adwords Keyword tools that can help you discover profitable, traffic-driving terms.

6. Monitor Conversions, Not Just Clicks

While you pay for clicks, tracking overall conversions from each keyword can help you derive better value out of your campaign. This, however, requires good integration of Google Analytics and AdWords with your CRM and sales management system.

7. Optimize Your Ad Copy

Just like headlines play an important role in a traditional media campaign, having highly contextual ad copy that’s closely related to the keyword being searched for plays a vital role in conversions. An ad for a broad term like “digital camera” might lead to information that would aid the purchase decision of the buyer. However, if the search term indicates intention to buy, the copy should be persuasive and lead the user to a landing page with an option to purchase.

8. Test Your Landing Page Designs

The key to continually increasing ROI from Internet marketing is testing. Beyond testing multiple versions of your ads, make sure to test variations on your landing pages. Google offers the Google Website Optimizer tool that can help you decide the best layout for your landing page. Decisions like where to place the “Buy Now” button and what color to make it may be aided by this tool.

8 Ways to Optimize Your Google AdWords Campaign

Bill, Stuart, FL asks Matt Cutts

“How can I get Google to index more of my Sitemap URLs”
“-The sitemap.xml file states there are 10 000 urls, but only 1 500 have bess indexed. Aafter numerous crawls it does not appear Google is going to index these additional detail pages. What can I do get Google to index my unique and current detail pages?”

Matt answers that including stuff in a Sitemap file does not guarantee that Google will crawl all of them. Google have never made the guarantee that they will crawl everything in the sitemap file.

If you wanted to have more pages crawled, the best way to do it is to get known as a little more of an authority, to get more reputation, essentially through the process of getting more links – links that are trusted.

Get Full Original Post Here

A lot of people are lured by affiliate marketing because it can be financially rewarding, even if you just stay at home. Affiliate marketing programs are the best alternatives to those who are sick and tired of their arduous daily work just to climb up the venerated corporate ladder.

You don’t need products to sell, you just have to market them on your own web site and you don’t have to worry about processing the customers payments and the shipment of the products. If you are already into affiliate marketing, you probably were thinking about these benefits, too, before deciding to join an affiliate program. Of course you want to earn a huge commission. Who wouldn’t? Keep in mind, however, that affiliate marketing cannot guarantee you instant success if you don’t work on it.

There are a lot of ways of maximizing your income. The Internet is a huge library of information, use it to learn of other opportunities and ways to increase your income. You can partner with several merchandisers and promote different products on your website; thereby, increasing your chance to earn a commission. The easiest way for you to rev up your revenue potential is by incorporating Google AdSense into your marketing campaigns. What is Google AdSense? What are its advantages? How can it boost my revenues?

These are some of the questions you might want to ask. Let’s try to probe into Google AdSense, so you would know how it could help you in your affiliate marketing program. Merchants place their ads in Google, which is one of the most popular search engines or tools for locating various resources in the World Wide Web. Now the Google AdSense program allows you to display these ads in you website and when your visitors click through them, you earn.

The advertiser, which is the merchant pays Google for every click-through made by the customer and you as a partner of Google, gets a share from that payment. What’s great about the Google AdSense is that the ads are relevant to the content of your web page. Most likely, visitors of your web site are interested on the theme of your site and specifically, on the content of your web page. So, seeing ads related to their interest would definitely drive them to click through the link or the ad.

Using state-of-the-art technology, Google scans your web site and matches the content of your pages to their large database of advertisers; this way, Google is able to find ads that are targeted by the users of your site. In addition, Google changes the ads in your site as you change the content of your pages, so you can always expect the ads to be relevant to your site. Having Google ads in your website is also a way of convincing your users to return to your site. Repeat customers multiply your income without having to exert extra effort to convince them again to click through your links.

And your potential to earn doesn’t depend on them alone. Since you already have their confidence, they can be your endorsers as well. They could refer your site to family and friends who probably share the same interests with them. Advertisers in the Google AdSense program range from large international brands to small-time domestic and local businesses, so the targeted market for the ads can range as well. This adds variety to your site; thereby, attracting different kinds of users.

As you attract more users, you increase your earning potential as well. If you are targeting a specific nationality for your site users, don’t worry because AdSense can be used in different languages. In order to boost your revenues through Google AdSense, you must pay attention to making web pages of high value topics. Make contents related to high-paying ads, so you can earn more. Some ads pay only a few cents while some ads pay you dollars just for a single click.

You would need to do a little research on this so you can come up with a more relevant content. Join affiliate marketing forums and get tips from experienced affiliate marketers. Becoming an AdSense affiliate marketer is easy and fast. You just have to apply online and once your application is approved, you can instantly set up Google ads in your site. All you need to do is copy and paste some codes in your web pages and in no time the ads will appear in your site.

Strike while the iron is hot! Take advantage of the favorable circumstances the Internet is offering you. Make the most of your affiliate marketing opportunities, use Google AdSense!

Just Enough Knowledge to be Dangerous

One of the bigger problems with learning in the field of SEO is that there are a lot of people who have a nugget of information. And they spread it far and wide without the proper context needed to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of any given strategy. So new SEOs end up thinking topic x is the most important, then topic y, then topic z. And then someone debunks one of those. Many false facts are taken as truths when the people with a nugget of information (that they found from some source) spread it as fact.

Accurate Answers Need Context

As the structure of the web changes and search engine relevancy algorithms change then so must the field of SEO. This means that the right answer to questions can change frequently, and information from many years ago may not be correct. Does PageRank matter? When I first got in SEO it was crucially important, but over the years other pieces of the relevancy algorithms (like domain age, domain name, domain trust, domain extension, link anchor text, searcher location, search query chains, word relationships, search personalization, other user data, result re-ranking based on local inter-connectivity, input from 10,000+ remote quality raters, and even a wide array of penalties & filters) have been layered over the top of the core relevancy algorithm.

If that sounds like a lot, it is because it is!

Yes, PageRank is important to driving indexing, but for rankings it is nowhere near as important as it once was. SEO has become a much more refined art. In an October 2009 interview, Google’s Amit Singal stated:

No one should feel, if I dismantle the current search system, someone will get upset. That’s the wrong environment. When I came, I dismantled [Google cofounders] Larry and Sergey’s whole ranking system. That was the whole idea. I just said, That’s how I think it should be done, and Sergey said, Great!

Great SEO Service is Interactive

Search keeps innovating – as it must. Each layer of innovation creates new challenges and new opportunities.

Not only does SEO strategy change over time, but it also varies from site to site. A large corporate site has a different set of strengths and weaknesses than a small local business website. The best SEO advice must incorporate all of the following

• where you are
• where you want to be
• the resources you have to bridge the gap between the above 2 (domain names, brand, social relations, public relations, capital, etc.)
• what the competition is doing
• your strengths and weaknesses relative to your market

That is why having an interactive SEO Community is so important. It allows us to look for competitive strengths and weaknesses, and offer useful tips that fit your market, your website, and your business.

Even Search Engineers Don’t Know All the Search Algorithms

The algorithms are so complex that sometimes even leading search engineers working for Google are uncertain of what is going on. Search engineers can’t know every bit of code because Google has made over 450 algorithm changes in a single year.

Some SEO Software is Crap

There is a lot of money in selling software, which means there are a lot of ad dollars flowing into spreading the idea that you need some secret tool to compete in search.

As explained throughout this series, SEO has moved beyond being a mechanical process to being something that is far more social and subjective. While many SEO tools focus on misinforming the user into thinking that there is a secret keyword density ratio to target (or some other such bunk), the truth is you need to build organic links to help make your site compete. No amount of raw analysis and number crunching is going to make good links automatically appear.

Where SEO Tools Have Value

Tools do have some value, mainly in helping you save time while researching things like…

• how strong competing sites (and pages) are based on their link profile and site age
• how much search traffic each site gets (based on value and volume)
• where a page ranks in the search results
• what the on page optimization for a page looks like
• the relative values of different keywords

A recent SEO tool sales letters exclaimed “Long gone are the days of clunky, standalone, research tools.” And in writing that, they are correct. Rather than paying to download some clunky desktop software, we thought that you should be able to have access to some of the best SEO tools at your fingertips – free of charge.

The Best FREE SEO Tool Suite

With that goal in mind, we created the SEO Toolbar. A free Firefox extension that saves you time and money every day by giving you access to a dozen keyword research tools, and dozens of other useful features. You can download it, along with our rank checker here.

If you do not have any SEO tools yet, then you are best off downloading the SEO Toolbar – which has been described as the Swiss Army Knife of SEO. You can download our full SEO Toolbar free of charge. Simply go to the download page and install it in your Firefox browser. We promise you will love it – especially when you see how much time it saves you!

Download it at http://training.seobook.com/download-your-free-seo-tools/

Here are some tips on creating webpages that other website will want to link to—to save you from having to do loads of legwork requesting links.

Buying Links is Getting Expensive

The Google AdSense program (which pays publishers for placing contextual links on their websites) and automated spammy “can I buy a link on your site” emails have made virtually every important online publisher aware of the value of links.

In mid 2007 Google began editing toolbar PageRank scores and rankings for many sites that were selling links. It is getting harder and more expensive to buy your way to the top through link rentals.

At the same time, more and more people are writing online. Setting up a blog only takes a few minutes. There are hundreds or thousands of people talking about every topic imaginable, so if you create something remarkable and capture the attention of a few thought leaders who like it, you are going to get links. But how do you create content that people will like?

Passion = Market Knowledge = Links

One of the easiest (and most effective) ways to predict a future and to predict what people like is to immerse yourself in your topic. If you are passionate about a topic, know more about it than anyone else, and openly share information, then eventually people will notice and link to you. If you know what people are interested in, rather than asking them to link to what you have, create something that they would be interested in linking at. Express your world view and your bias in a way that matches their world view.

Become a Platform

Each of us is the most relevant thing in our own lives. It sounds selfish but it is true. If you promote other people they will be more likely to promote you. Popular bloggers search to see what people are saying about them. If you want someone’s attention linking at them from a blog post on your site is an easy way to get them to notice you. This article about Paris Hilton explains how the concept works in the real world.

Though she hired a publicist to get her on Page 6 She never really talked about herself. She talked about other people. She would mention the designers of her clothes, the club she was going to, who made the sweater for her dog, all without any guarantee of any return. She just threw out links.

It didn’t take long for designers and club owners to realize that Paris Hilton was a walking billboard. So they embraced her. She paid attention to them, so they paid attention to her.

The most valuable commodity today is attention.

The Web is a Social Network

Social interaction of any type leads to links.

• Speak at a conference? Someone will likely blog about it.
• Want to get thought leaders to promote your site? Create a community project or contest and ask them to participate. Or give out awards.
• Lack the budget needed to go to conferences? Moderate forums, comment on related blogs, and build social relationships online.
• Track hot news in your space and try to get out in front of important trends.
  • As an example, when Google did a big update that promoted some big brand websites we were one of the first websites to analyze it.
  • Our blog post about that topic earned over 1,000 inbound links and brought in thousands of dollars in subscriber revenues.

Be Credible

But for people to take you credibly you need to make sure your website adheres to good web credibility standards.

• Is your domain name memorable?
• Does your design complement your copy?
• Is your content interesting and conceptually unique?
• Does your site have an editorial component and voice, or is it a boring low-value thin product database?
• Is your about page memorable?
• Is your site easy to use and understand?
• Do you have a brand people care about?

You do not need to “have it all” to get started, but the more credible you look the faster you will gain momentum.

Build on Your Success

Work to improve your site every day. Over the course of the year fixing or creating one thing a day will lead to a large advantage. Building up a leading market position can take years, but once you get at the top those years are the barrier to entry which prevent others from being able to replicate what you built up.

Markets Are Conversations

The Cluetrain Manifesto stated that markets are conversations. Blogs are the leading medium upon which those conversations happen online. If you are a blogger, read the Blogger’s Guide to SEO to get the most out of your blog.

Even if you are not a blogger, the Blogger’s Guide to SEO can help you understand the mind set of bloggers and why blogs quickly became a foundational part of the web. If you know a lot about blogs then getting links is a piece of cake.

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Link Building is a Pain in the Butt

Questions, “What is the biggest thing stopping you from improving your website rankings and traffic?”

The most common answer to that question was “link building”. If links are so important how do you build them? Here are some great techniques for providing content that people will actually WANT to link to:

Quality Links You Can Build Today

One of the easiest was to start building links is to submit your site to leading general web directories and directories in your niche.

Don’t just think of directories as being places that accept websites. Some of the best directories represent business partnerships and exist on sites like manufacturers you sell for, local government sites, or your local chamber of commerce. For example, Google lists some of the most popular Google Checkout business partners
http://www.google.com/checkout/m.html

• Would some of your business partners be willing to link to your site?
• Are there any trade organizations or local business organizations you can join?
• If there are no relevant organizations, could/should you create one?

Web Directories

This video covers directory submission.

Here is a list of some of the most well trusted online web directories

• Business.com – $299 per year for commercial listings.
• Yahoo! Directory – $299 per year for commercial listings. Free for non-commercial listings.
• BOTW – one time $299 fee (SEO Book subscribers get a 35% discount coupon)
• JoeAnt – one time $40 fee
• DMOZ – also referred to as the Open Directory Project or ODP. Free submission, but it may take a long time to get listed as it is ran by volunteers.

Here is a link to a $50 off promotional code for Business.com

SEO Book subscribers also have access to a list of a dozen more top web directories.

How to Influence Link Anchor Text

Link quality is one important factor, but another important factor is link anchor text. In this interview Google’s Adam Lasnik highlighted the importance of using descriptive anchor text:

Useful descriptive Anchor text can be great, not only for the user who gets a better idea what he or she is going to be clicking through to, but helpful for Google to better understand what that page is likely about.

You can’t always control how other people will link at you, but you can guide them. Most people refer to things by their official name. If your domain name is ChicagoDentists.com, and you are aggressive at marketing your site, then many people who mention your site are going to link at your site with Chicago Dentists as the anchor text.

Beyond your domain name you can also guide anchor text with the names you give articles, tools, and other content published on your site. If you want people to reference something on your site using a specific set of words then make sure those words are in the page title, file name, and in the product name. Creating a product logo helps influence anchor text even more.

Tons of Link Building Ideas

Beyond directories, there are many blogs and other websites that discuss your topic. Are there ways you can appeal to their editorial interests?

We made a list of 101 different link building ideas. Rather than publish them again here, we figured it would be best to give you a link to the list. As you can see from the list, many of the ideas are creative, others are weird, and some are downright profitable!

Tomorrow, we discuss easy ways to create content that others will spontaneously link to — to save you from having to do loads of legwork requesting links from other websites.

Automated Content Creation Scares Google

Yesterday we covered on page optimization, and mentioned how some people are too aggressive with keyword density. Of course copy that is dense with keywords likely sounds dense, and will not convert site visitors into buyers. But some automated content generation programs create content that is better than some page copy that people write.

Some major corporations, like Thomson Financial, publicly admit that they generate news reports using robots to write the content.

Thomson Financial has been using automatic computer programs to generate news stories for almost six months. The machines can spit out wire-ready copy based on financial reports a mere 0.3 seconds after receiving the data. Thomson management likes its reporter robots so much that it has decided to expand the fleet.

The cost of creating content for the sake of it has dropped to ~ $0. In a market dominated by outsourcing and automated content generation, a search engine has to look beyond what we say about ourselves if they want to stay relevant.

Links as Votes

Part of what allowed Google to grow so influential so fast is that they use elegant link analysis in their relevancy algorithms.

Not all votes are counted equally. The more quality websites that link at a given website, the more that website is trusted when it links out to other websites. Google’s PageRank algorithm is designed such that links from the homepage of a leading university are trusted more than a link from a low quality website that links to other low quality websites.

In the image to the right, you can see that the top page passes 50 units of link weight, whereas the bottom page only passes 3 units of link weight. Both links are still worth getting, but the top one counts much more.

Link Anchor Text as a Relevancy Aid

If another site links to you saying that your site is about Chicago dentists then that link is interpreted as a vote of trust for your site in general, and it counts much more for the words in the link anchor text. Such a link would help you rank better for Chicago dentists and closely related topics.

Search Engines Follow People

Search engines only trust us if others trust us too. Search engines follow people.

Tomorrow we will cover an easy way to get great links.

Cheers,
Aaron Wall

101 Flavors of Search Spam

P. S. To appreciate all the different ways people try to spam Google, read this PDF created by Google’s Amit Singhal in 2004, paying particular attention to slides 15 through 26
http://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/Workshops/searchandcollaboration2004/papers/haifa.pdf
All these varieties of spam are precisely why search engines must place more weight on what others say about us than on what we say about ourselves.

Great Search Algorithm Research Papers

If you are the type of person who likes to read research papers you may want to read the following papers. Or if you don’t like algorithms, you can get the best parts of such research papers by joining our site and reading our reviews, and asking us any questions you have about these papers.

• The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
• The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web
• Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment [PDF]
• Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents
• Topic-Sensitive PageRank [PDF]
• LocalRank: Ranking search results by reranking the results based on local inter-connectivity
• Combating Web Spam with TrustRank [PDF]
• Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation [PDF]
• BrowseRank [PDF]