Today, we examine one last misconception related to the use of your ad space and a final mistaken belief for the whole existence of pay-per-click.
 
Misconception#4: A company should include their name in the ad so people know who they are.

A pay-per-click ad allows for 25 characters in the headline and two lines consisting of 35 characters each. That’s not a lot of room to get your message across to qualified prospects while using your budget wisely. People often waste their characters repeating information.

For example, an ad will read “Great discounts at shoes.com” and the last line is the URL www.shoes.com

What I’ve learned: Every word counts in the pay-per-click ad space. Don’t waste your characters.

Google allows you to insert your website at the bottom of each ad, yet people still find it necessary to include it in the body.  With such limited space, the body of a ppc ad must be used as efficiently as possible. Convey your message well and interest in your website will follow.
 
That’s right. I said convey your message to generate interest in your website. This brings us to my final misconception.

Misconception #5: Pay-per-click ads should be designed to sell the product.

People often fall into the belief that they need to sell their product with their ppc ads similar to the way they would with traditional advertising.
 
What I’ve learned: Sell your website and the product sales will follow.

Pay-per-click ads offer such limited space to convey a message which makes it very difficult to truly sell your product or service. Use your ad to create interest in your website and then set your website up to convert the people who come in via your ppc ads.
 
Overall, generating success with ppc advertising campaigns is a process that is built one component at a time. A successful campaign must be built on a deep understanding of your customer, well-researched keywords, a well-managed budget and thoughtful messaging. I hope that you walk away having learned something new about this subject. After all, I got to learn these lessons the hard way. Here’s hoping you don’t have to stumble through these same mistakes.
 
My next series will tackle usability practices and the common misconceptions about how people use websites. You’ll be surprised how common assumptions result in big losses of consumer traffic.

Today’s post focuses on setting the budget for Google AdWords and what I like to call budget blunders.
 
Misconception#3: The wonderful thing about pay-per-click advertising is that it is for all budgets, large and small. Anyone can tailor a pay-per-click campaign to suit their budget and get results.

Setting a pay-per-click budget can be tricky and this misconception is the larger umbrella under which a number of mistakes occur. To begin with, when a person creates a pay-per-clilck campaign and attempts to stay within a modest budget, they often forget that there is a correlation between their keywords and their budget.

For example, if a person chooses to include keywords with a large search volume and they don’t have a large budget, they run the risk of blowing their budget almost immediately, so their ads will only run for a matter of minutes, or hours. Imagine a keyword like “real estate” which is searched for 101,000,000 per day. If your ad is tied to the phrase “real estate”, your weekly or monthlyad budget can be exhausted within one day because of the number of times people search for this term.

Another common budget blunder is when people choose obscure keywords in order to stay within budget. Contrary to choosing popular keywords that break the bank within a day, these people choose their keywords based on “maximizing” their budget on keywords that are rarely searched for. But if no one (or very, very few people) is searching for these terms, their ads will never be seen! It’s kind of like opening a restaurant in a back alley rather than a busy street because the rent is cheaper. It may cost less, but no one will find you.

What I’ve learned: An ad is only as effective as its weakest link. If the foundation is not strong, poor results will be reflected.

So, when it comes to budget, most people follow two extremes. To avoid the common pitfalls associated with setting your budget, you must consider all angles of your approach. Your customers affect your keyword choices, your keyword choices affect your budget. Are you starting to see how the entire process must be built on a firm foundation of understanding? Pay-per-click may require expertise after all.

In our last blog for this series, we look at how people use their limited space in creating an ad in a pay-per-click environment like AdWords. Did you know that placing your company’s name in the ad is a waste of characters? I’ll tell you why in my next post.

Today’s misconception builds on my last post and shows just how quickly one mistaken belief can snowball into poor results. Once someone assumes that anyone can navigate a system like AdWords, they naturally assume that all the components associated with ppc ads, like choosing keywords, is just as simple.

Misconception#2: Keyword selection is based on general terms related to your business.

As we discussed in my last post, there are lots of tools within services, like Google AdWords, that provide the illusion that it only takes a few simple steps to successfully implement your own campaign. The common misconception is that your keyword list takes minimal effort to compile. Just pick words and phrases that relate to your business, so the system serves your ads when someone searches for those phrases, and move on.
 
What I’ve learned: Keywords should be chosen based on how people search and what they are really looking for when they type a query into the search bar.
 
The empty search bar that appears when Google is opened is known as the query bar. Each time a user enters a search term into that bar, they are essentially asking Google a question. Google’s job is to provide the most relevant answer.

In order to work favorably with Google’s system (and yes, we want to make nice with Google), your keyword list should support how users search for your business. That means choosing words that are actively searched for and words that drive genuinely interested consumers (qualified traffic) to your site. A general rule of thumb is that they should not be too broad or too narrow.
 
For example, if you own a boutique hotel in Sarasota, Florida that accommodates honeymooners you might want to avoid using the term “Florida vacations”(unless you have a giant budget). This term is an example of something that is way too broad for your business and will attract unqualified traffic to your site and could blow your budget in a matter of hours. “Florida vacations” can refer to family vacations, Disney vacations and other getaways that are not relevant to a romantic vacation for two in Florida.
 
Conversely, avoid keywords that are too narrow. Using the phrase “Siesta Key Honeymoon Retreat” may accurately describe your business but is way too narrow to attract a substantial amount of eyeballs to your website.
 
Ads should qualify users, using keywords that are not overly searched for, and ones that speak your customer’s language. A fitting term for this hotel might be “Sarasota Honeymoon” or if that is still narrow, expand to “Gulf Coast honeymoon hotels.” Google’s Keyword Tool is an invaluable resource when beginning to compile your list. It lists search volume (which shows you how many people search for this term on the internet) and keyword ideas. But remember, it is only a tool and you are ultimately the best judge of which terms are perfect for your business.

As we proceed through this series, it is important to note that each component in pay-per-click advertising matters equally. When one component is overlooked or done poorly, it affects the results of the entire campaign.

Next up is our post all about budget blunders. Did you know that a mistake you make in the keyword selection phase could be the downfall of your budget? Stay tuned.

This blog discusses search engine marketing and the most common misconceptions associated with creating paid search ads (pay-per-click ads).

When I first became acquainted with search marketing, I naturally assumed that anything that was “free and open to the public,” like Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing was easy and could be done by practically anyone. And, so my first misconception about SEM was born.

Misconception #1: SEM is something anyone can do, previous skills and search marketing expertise not required.
 
It seems so simple. Pay-per-click advertising has so many tools that are free, and the giant of them all, Google AdWords offers plenty of “how-to” guidance on the site. If you need more help, there are books for that, right?

The illusion of these tools is their simplicity. The instructions for Google AdWords basically tell you to just create an account, pick keywords, write an ad and go!

What I’ve learned: Creating effective pay-per-click ads that affect your bottom line is a discipline and must be managed with an experienced and diligent eye, just like search engine optimization.

In my last blog series,  I made the same mistake with SEO, assuming it was easy to learn. Though services like Google AdWords are free and come with basic instructions, it takes time, dedication and experience to effectively execute pay-per-click ads.

My own experience with AdWords was, dare I say, a failed attempt (and I’m not picking on Google, it’s just the first place most people start). In addition to my own missteps, I often see businesses become frustrated with search marketing because they think it doesn’t work.

The truth of the matter is, a large portion of the people who use Google AdWords operate under this exact misconception, that search marketing is something everyone can do. They are not experienced enough to amass successful results from AdWords and, unfortunately don’t understand that SEM is a professional discipline.

So, if people misinterpret the actual complexity of Google AdWords, is it possible that there may be a few other misconceptions associated with SEM? I’m thinking of a word. A keyword, that is.

For the many people trying out the search engine marketing arena, a keyword may be a simple choice of words related to their business. My next blog will tell you why that just won’t do.

This blog series is all about Search Engine Marketing

The purpose of this series on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to reveal the truths behind the misconceptions and to clear up some of the confusion regarding digital marketing and its practices.
 
So let’s define search engine marketing…

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, search engine optimization and paid inclusion.

It is important to know that SEM is the larger umbrella under which many elements of digital marketing are placed, but is also the term most commonly used when referring to the pay-per-click ads found at the top and right hand side of SERPs.

For the sake of this blog series, SEM will refer to pay-per-click ads or paid search listings.

Users can access pay-per-click services, such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing Search to create, manage and distribute paid search campaigns. Armed with the overall definition of SEM and free tools, can’t we simply move on and begin creating paid search ads? Stay tuned for the answer in my next blog.