Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about writing an effective PPC ad. There are plenty of articles out there that will tell you the proper way to write an ad. But, just like in other areas of search engine marketing, there is no template for success – you must find what works well for your business and what appeals to your unique customers.

As an advertiser, you are given anywhere from 100 to 150 characters to convey your message, and your ad is displayed on a results page with 10 of your competitors. So given your limited space and the clutter, it is essential that your ad attract your customer by using these techniques.

• Use your keywords. Not only will your ads appear more relevant, but also these keywords will often be bolded in your ad.

• Be specific. This will definitely make your click through rate soar, and it will also lead to more conversions.

• Write plenty of ads. Don’t be afraid to write upwards of 20 ads for one campaign. This is just another way to be specific – If your audience feels like they are being catered to, they are more likely to click your ad.

• Avoid Gimmicks. In my opinion, words like those in the headline of this blog, tend to deter searchers rather than attract them. But, create a couple of ads using them, they will attract some customers. Use exclamations sparingly, it gives the impression that you are yelling, plus there are restrictions on using excessive punctuation.

From my experience the ads with the highest click through rate are those that present the facts in a clean and concise manner. You might find yourself using abbreviations to make your message fit into your limited space – but it can lead to ambiguity in your ads. It is best to just try to use smaller words.

If you guide your ad writing by these principles, you can create ads that are successful as well as unique to your business and your consumers.

[Web 3.0: The Simple Life is part four in a series of blogs that will summarize a presentation I delivered at the Northwest Arkansas Marketing Summit on September 20th concerning using technology to grow your business.  Part one can be read here, and part two here, and part three here.]

If Web 1.0 was characterized by the two words “content” and “commerce,” and Web 2.0 by “personalization” and “relevancy,” then Web 3.0 might be “connection” and “automation.”

As great as the Internet is in all its Web 2.0 glory, the reality is that the web is still a broken and inefficient network of unconnected information.  Current estimates assume that there are somewhere between 15 and 30 billion internet pages.  The fact that our best estimates allow for a 15 billion page margin of error says something about how inefficient the Internet is.  Sites like Yahoo and Google scour the web, using logarithms to organize sites based on content and relevancy.  Engineers at these companies and many others we have not yet heard of are working hard to create new and more efficient ways to help computers organize and draw conclusions from all of the online data.  These technologies that are working to create a “smarter web” could be the foundation of what becomes known as Web 3.0 in the next 5 years or so.

How might Web 3.0 work?

Imagine you’ve had some lingering wrist pain from all of your web surfing.  A program can search for specialists in your area and determine their availability.  It will cross reference your insurance database to ensure they are an approved provider, review your calendar, and schedule an appointment.  The address, phone number and time will be synced with your car and your phone.  When you’re in the parking lot you’ll be automatically checked in.  You’re insurance information and medical information was synced up with the office when your appointment was scheduled so there’s no need to fill out paperwork.

Or, maybe I’m reviewing websites regarding an upcoming trip to Vegas.  Anytime I see something online that looks of interest to me I flag it as a yes, no, or maybe.  A program reviews my likes and dislikes and begins to make recommendations.  It also reviews my calendar, open table times at the restaurants I liked, and begins to create optional agendas.  The program also knows my budget and what I have set aside in my bank account for this vacation and only recommends agendas I can afford.  It saves me money on airfare so I can afford a nicer hotel.  With a click, my preferred agenda is approved and the program makes all the reservations.

Privacy is a concern that some people will have when thinking about the potential of Web 3.0.  In reality, we are quite comfortable in sacrificing our privacy for convenience.  Every time we use a credit card to pay for something we are sacrificing our privacy for convenience.  We are becoming more and more comfortable in relying on technology to organize our lives and will continue to experiment with technologies that can “simplify” our lives.

It’s still speculation to know what Web 3.0 might become, but with the exponential growth of the Internet we can be certain that it will continue to play a larger and more significant role in organizing and scheduling our careers, relationships, and entertainment.
 
My final posting in this series will cover four ways that companies should be using Internet technology to grow their brand.

Today is worldwide Blog Action Day – a day set aside for all blogs around the world to discuss a common theme, the environment. And in order to show how small changes can make a difference in the environment, each blog is asked to discuss the subject in relation to their usual topics.

Internet marketing and search engine marketing lend well to this topic since it can be a very green form of marketing, especially when compared to direct mail. About 32 million acres of trees are destroyed each year and the typical American receives approximately 41 pounds of junk mail each year, and almost half of this mail ends up unopened in a landfill. How wasteful!

Instead, why not try Internet marketing?

With search engine marketing and pay per click advertising, you are appealing to an audience who is already interested in what you have to offer. Your Web sites and advertisements appear in search engines to an already captive audience – allowing for a better return on investment, and perhaps a better consumer experience.

If transitioning into the realm of Internet marketing seems a little overwhelming, visit www.blogactionday.com to learn what else you can do to help the environment, or contact Rockfish Interactive so we can help you get started.

Feel free to post any tips you may have to promote a more environmentally friendly workplace or lifestyle.

Perhaps the most essential part of any SEM campaign is the list of keywords the advertiser bids on. These keywords are the fist step in getting qualified and interested buyers to your site. Sure you can just go to any online keyword generator, but that’s what everyone is doing. Don’t you want your keywords to be unique to your Web site?

Of course you do! So strap on your hard hat with the little light on the end and pack a lunch – we’re going mining for keywords!

The best way to approach selecting keywords is to grab a pen and paper and start brainstorming. Be sure to think like a consumer who is searching for your product. Ask yourself, “What sets my product apart?” and “How am I different from the competition?” You want to pick unique keywords because not only will these keywords attract those who are more likely to purchase your product, but they will also be less expensive.

After you have a base of keywords, then you can start looking to the Web to expand on those. Check your site first. Read reviews and descriptions because they will often yield keywords you may have never thought of. You can also tailor your keywords geographically, by adding your city, state or zip code to the keyword, or use generators to expand on your already unique keywords. Now it’s time to get sneaky. After you have done all this, you should check out what keywords your competitors are bidding on by looking at their sites as well as conducting searches using these keywords (but don’t click on their ads…that’s a little too sneaky).

So you probably have a ton of keywords right now. Is it overwhelming? It is about to get a lot easier. If you are a SEM novice, a wide array of keywords is a lot to keep track of; however, you need plenty of keywords so that you can build traffic to your site, so what should you do?

Divide them up. Get organized. Pay-per-click sites allow you to have many ad groups for each account, so divide up keywords by geographic location, product, service, theme or seasonality. Start small – you can always ad more as you become more comfortable with PPC.

Once you start to evaluate your campaign, you can search through the keywords you mined and you can start separating the fools gold from the real stuff by eliminating those words that are draining your budget.

[Web 2.0: It's All About Me is part three in a series of blogs that will summarize a presentation I delivered at the Northwest Arkansas Marketing Summit on September 20th concerning using technology to grow your business.  Part one can be read here, and part two here.]

If Web 1.0 was characterized by the two words “content” and “commerce,” then Web 2.0 could be similarly defined by “personalization” and “relevancy.”

A couple of examples:

Google launches in an already crowded search engine market led by the well financed and rapidly growing Yahoo.  A look at the two search engines home pages quickly demonstrates that content is not what has propelled Google’s growth.  Rather than crowd ads all over their website and charge based upon impressions, Google delivers ads that are relevant and only charges when I click on them.  Companies that want to capture click-throughs for a particular searched term bid on what they will pay for that click and the ranking they want on the page.  Instead of watching their advertising revenue decrease as the value of an impression diminishes, Google saw their advertising revenue increase dramatically as companies were willing to pay more and more for a personal and relevant ad delivered at the right time to the right customer.  An added benefit, by delivering accurate and relevant results people began to talk about Google – a lot!  The search engine grew like a virus without the need of a large advertising budget.  Today, Google has created the ultimate brand, transitioning their name into a verb.  How often do you tell someone to “Google it”?

The second example is an ecommerce site that made it through the .com bust in spite of the dire predictions of their impending doom at the turn of the century:  Amazon.com.  Despite the fact that I have a growing list of online retailers from which I frequent, I continue to find myself purchasing online at Amazon.com – especially their staple, books.  Why?  First, because they know me and offer me books that I want and need to read even before I knew that I wanted them.  Second, because they trust their community to sell on their behalf.  I’ve often skipped books with low ratings that I thought I wanted and purchased books with high ratings that I didn’t even know I wanted.  Third, they use their data better than any other online retailer from which I shop.  Their recommendations are spot-on, their related items are also appropriate, and when I check out they make it quick and easy, without the need to type in information I’ve already given them before.

If you take a minute and think about some of the more popular sites on the Internet today, you’ll quickly see why personalization and relevancy are key components of Web 2.0 (MySpace, Blogs, Flickr, LinkedIn, You Tube, etc.).
 
The Internet continues to grow at a rapid pace with more than 1 billion users spending an average of 14 hours per week online (the same as television).  In spite of all that Web 2.0 has done to improve the relevancy and usefulness of the Internet, the web is still badly broken.  Behind closed doors companies are working on new technologies to revolutionize how the web integrates into our everyday life.  Might these new enhancements become known as Web 3.0?  I’ll discuss that in a posting soon.