Category Archives: 4 SEO and SEM

How to optimize a paid search campaign without using Google Adwords

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Is there a way to optimize a SEM campaign without using Google Analytics or Adword tools?

Google Adwords, Yahoo and MSN provide some cool tools that show you how to optimize your SEM campaign. You can set up your search ads to show during certain days of the week, time of day and regions. If you have the time to play with all these tools, that is great. However, if you are looking for an easy and effective way to optimize a search campaign without wasting hours diving into these tools, you should perform a volume/efficiency keyword analysis.

Performing a Volume/Efficiency Matrix can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in your paid search campaign. A volume/efficiency analysis will tell you whether certain keywords are performing poorly in efficiency and volume in relation to other keywords.

So how do we perform this analysis?

All that is required is a basic keyword report from your search engine that shows name of keyword, clicks and spend. By following along with the free tutorial that can be downloaded here, I will show you step-by-step how to set up a volume/efficiency keyword analysis.

The best part about performing a Volume / Efficiency Matrix is the findings. This analysis will give you a rough estimate on how much money you would save if you were to remove a certain group of keywords and show you how much click activity would be lost. It is a fantastic way to optimize a search campaign on an ad hoc, quarterly, semi-annual, or yearly basis. More importantly, your clients will be pleased that you are monitoring their search campaign wisely.

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Here is an Effective Way to Remove Bad Performing Keywords

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In your paid search campaign, do you know what percentage of search spend is being allocated to bad performing keywords?

paid search keyword classification

Wouldn’t it be nice to quickly find out how to increase paid search ROI? Well you can once you begin using the search volume efficiency analysis!

Paid Search Tutorial

This analysis can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in your paid search campaign. We want to know whether certain keywords are performing bad in efficiency and volume in relation to other keywords. A Volume/Efficiency analysis can help identify 4 key areas (Classification) that allow for campaign optimization. Download the free tutorial now!

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Focus on PPC or SEO?

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Should a company focus their search marketing efforts on Paid Search (PPC) or Organic Search (SEO)?

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This question was posted on LinkedIn a few days ago and it sparked some good responses. In my experience working on different client accounts, I’ve noticed that visitor referrals arriving from organic search tend to stay on a site longer and view more pages than referrals coming in from paid search. In essence, organic visitors are more qualified traffic.

PPC vs SEO

PPC vs SEO

Jon Baer writes: PPC will give you “quick hits”. You can set up a PPC quickly and start seeing results in 48 hours. PPC is a good way to test keywords that you want to be organically optimized for.

SEO is better in the long term. It is cheaper and if you continuously update your site, you will reap the benefits for a long time.

Mary Jo Caruso writes: PPC is instant gratification (depending on your budget) you will appear on the first page of search engines immediately.

SEO is a long term strategy. It will take time to increase your rankings and there are no guarantees of search engine placement. Most people do not want to hear that they have to spend time and money on something that is not guaranteed, however, if you look at SEO over time, it usually yields a better ROI than PPC.

Bobby Duebelbeis writes: By using paid placement within search engine results, you are only starting with a 11 – 15% impression rate. Take your average 4% click-thru-rate from that, and then weed out another 4-5%  of people who actually convert from that number. Congratulations! You’ve whittled down your audience to 5 people after spending $10,000/month on PPC (This is an exaggeration but I am sure you get the point).

These are some great comments from very knowledgable people in the industry. Now if your site already ranks high in organic listings, should you still do PPC? Or, lets say you had the budget, should you pay to keep search terms in the top position versus lower positions? Feel free to read more of my blog posts for these answers.

Sukirti also gives a clear description of the difference between the SEO and PPC at Applelounge blog.

Have any thoughts or opinions? Please share. Thanks.

Eric Melchor

www.smartdigitalspending.com

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