2014 June 10 Archive - EXEIdeas – Let's Your Mind Rock

When it comes to paid online marketing strategies, pay per click (PPC) contains great potential. But, like any marketing strategy, simply establishing a presence is not enough to drive sales and grow your business. You have to do it right. While campaigns are often tweaked along the way to increase effectiveness, arming yourself with knowledge about the most common mistakes may help shorten the learning curve, and get things moving sooner than later.Here are just a few things to be aware of:1.) Focusing Only On Broad Keywords:No matter what you are trying to sell, there are likely a number of broad search terms that are very popular for your industry. Sure, they are widely searched, and you would love to rank highly for them. But, many companies make the mistake of just focusing on these broader terms.Don’t be lazy with your PPC campaign and go for just the obvious. Do your research and get together a list of longtail phrases that people are using to find your products and services. You will get more traffic, and these keywords cost less per click to boot.Let’s say you have 100 keywords now…you can easily double that by incorporating long-tail phrases. The more less popular terms you incorporate, the greater your reach, and the less you will be spending on your campaign overall.2.) Lack Of Relevance Between The Ad And Destination:With ever-shortening attention spans, and peoples’ growing desire to have everything the second they want it, you want to make sure your ads are bringing visitors right to whatever it is you are showcasing in your ad. If you are boasting some amazing sale or special deal, make sure this is front and center of whatever page you are bringing them to.If you have an e-commerce store with a variety of products for sale, link up the ad to the specific subpage of the product being mentioned. If you are talking about jewelry, bring them to the page showcasing your jewelry, not the home page where they then have to figure out where to go.3.) Not Getting Rid Of Garbage Traffic Referrals:Any PPC management company will tell you the importance of traffic quality over quantity. Sure, you want lots of people to see your ad and visit your site, but a large number of visitors means very little if they are not the type of person likely to engage with your page and buy your product or service.Search engines have networks through which they distribute your ads, but unfortunately, not all of them are good. You should be tracking stats to see which domains might be ‘garbage.’ One strong indicator is a high bounce rate—which is usually considered 90 percent. You can get these domains excluded, and stop paying for essentially useless traffic.With Google, you can do this yourself by placing the domains in a folder for excluded sites. Other search engines usually require you to call them directly.4.) Not Writing Good Copy:When it comes to PPC, you can’t rely on enticing graphics to lure in visitors like you may be able to with other forms of internet marketing. All you have is your words so you need to make the most of them. While looking at what other businesses are doing can be helpful in guiding your copy, don’t fall into the trap of creating ads just like everyone else. You need to write enticing ads that catches the eye, and makes you stand out from the crowd. What is unique about your business compared to your competitors? When crafting your unique PPC ads, don’t forget about relevance, and focusing on what your ideal customers want and care about.Also keep in mind the idea of ‘overselling.’ You don’t want to do this because you will be wasting clicks on people who are not going to take the actions you want them to take once they reach your site. If you are trying to boost subscriptions to your newsletter, for example, but happen to charge a fee for it, make sure you mention that in the ad—you don’t want traffic from the people who are looking for a free newsletter.While these are not all the mistakes, they are some of the most common, and avoiding them can take you really far in your PPC campaign success.