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Surprising Changes on Google Search Results Pages (SERP)

August 7, 2009 By 2 Comments

I noticed a major change on Google.com search results page (SERP) today. Google.com moved the sponsored listings closer to the organic search results reducing the font size, while it’s country specific domains like Google.ca still show results in the old format with sponsored listing at far right corner.

Moving the paid search closer to the organic can have great effect of the clickthrough rates. While the click through rates of the pay per click paid campaigns will increase dramaticly, clickthrough rates of natural search results will see significant decline. If Google sticks with this layout, and extends it to its contry specific domains, it will have significant effect on the way you are getting your traffic and people click on the results.

If you are just relying on organic search results, expect to see your traffic and sales go down. On the other hand, if you are also running ppc campaigns, you should expect significant increase in your traffic. You will find your daily budget limits on your Google Adwords quickly getting exhausted, and should consider increasing that if you would like to see your campaigns running till the end of the day.

This also means that Google will now be earning much more money from AdWords.

What will happen to organic searches and all those who have been optimizing their websites over the years is to be seen. As we know it is much easier to gain, manage and manipulate traffic with ppc campaigns, does it mean that Google is forcing businesses to buy more ppc ads. In its quest to earn more revenues, is it trying to push and promote websites / pages having little depth and content and more sales pitch?

Does it have anything to do with the recent MSN – Yahoo deal? There are several questions popping up in my mind right now. Let’s see, probably the answers would be apparent in the next few months. But this will certainly effect the way businesses would be allocating money for their online marketing by reallocating more towards AdWords.

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Pay Per Click Campaigns and the Landing Page Optimization

March 22, 2009 By 1 Comment

The success of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising depends upon how your Landing Pages are oriented towards the campaign message. Landing pages must perfectly be in sync with the pay per click (PPC) campaigns in order to obtain best returns.

Putting the message your campaigns are trying to communicate to your audience in your landing pages is crucial. If you are targeting the keywords “Office Cleaning Toronto”, same should be highlighted prominently in your campaign as well as your landing page. The words will appear as bold in search queries attracting visitors’ attention. You will get much more traffic with higher click through rates. The content and graphics on the landing page should be oriented towards the same theme. You must therefore meet visitors’ expectations when they arrive on the page from your paid advertisements.

Next step would be to move visitors’ forward in their information hunt and to motivate them to act. Placing a direct call to action prominently on the landing page at this stage is very important. For instance, by putting strong action words like “Call Now and Get 50% Off on Your First Cleaning Order”, you are giving visitors enough motivation to act and place their first order with you.

By observing the following points, you will get higher returns from your advertising investment:

  • Include the keywords you are bidding on your campaign, preferably on the campaign title
  • Optimize you landing page towards the theme of the keywords and highlight the anchor words prominently on the landing page
  • Speak users language, address their issues, and solve their problems instead of merely promoting your products and their features
  • Put strong action words to motivate visitors to act

Case Study:

Let’s analyze the following PPC campaign:

A Google search for Office Cleaning Toronto produced following sponsored listing.

office-cleaning1

As the title of the campaign contains the keywords, it motivates people to click the link and reach the following page:

toronto-maid

www.toronto-maid.ca

A closer look at the landing page will show you that the landing page is highly optimized for the home cleaning audience. Our visitor came looking for an office solution, which is not addressed anywhere in the page. He will leave without doing what the advertiser expected him to do. By bidding on the wrong keywords the search advertiser is wasting his money as well as the visitors’ time.

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Keyword Targeting and the Long-Tail Keywords

March 9, 2009 By 2 Comments

Keyword or key phrase targeting is one of the most important aspect of any search initiative, be it paid (SEM) or organic (SEO). As single keywords return too many irrelevant results, people are using longer key phrases to find what they want on the Web.

Two and three word key phrases are the most common search queries on the Web. You must, therefore, target 2 and 3 word key phrases in your Search Optimization strategy. The longer the key phrases, the more powerful is visitors intent on doing something on your Web site. Therefore getting ranked higher for relevant long-tail key phrases will produce significantly higher returns per search visitor.

So how would you go about finding the right keywords for your business? Let’s say, you are a dentist in Toronto. It is not worth targeting dentist as part of your SEO strategy for two simple reasons:

  1. the competition would be too fierce for that key phrase, and
  2. you will draw far too many irrelevant prospects who can’t visit your clinic because they are living 1000 miles away.

What you would like to rank for, instead, is

  • Toronto dentist
  • Toronto dentists
  • dentist in Toronto

Depending upon your business it would be wise if you focus on your niche areas as well, say, cosmetic dentist in Toronto, and so on as in above example.
50 Kick-Ass Keyword Strategies

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Using Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns to Identify Right Keywords

March 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Search Engine Optimization is a long drawn battle with tremendous rewards. However it may take several months, maybe years, before you are able to get the benefits, and should you find that you are not getting higher rankings on chosen keywords or you were targeting wrong keyword phrases, you have to start all over again – a long painful battle once again.

What are your options then?

Google AdWords PPC is an effective acquision tool besides being important for keyword research.

Google AdWords PPC is an effective acquision tool besides being important for keyword research.

Pay Per Click or PPC as it is commonly known, is an ideal weapon you can employ to identify the right keywords for your business at absolutely nominal costs. Google AdWords and most search advertisers provide highly effective keyword research tools for free to help find the keywords that work for your business. You can immediately find which ones work and which don’t by setting up PPC campaigns and tracking their performance on your website.

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