Getting The Most From Your PPC Campaigns

22/01/10

By Judith Lewis, Search Director, i-level

As the credit crunch forces more and more marketing budgets to be trimmed, keeping your paid search accounts in tip top shape has become increasingly important.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is not something you can set and forget. If you treat your search accounts with the attention they deserve, you will reap the rewards of more targeted ads which cost less and result in higher conversion rates.

It is important to get the basics right - well optimised landing pages, on-page content that is both targeted and friendly, and a page that converts are essential. I would recommend...

...the use of analytics and testing to find the right combination for you. Avinash Kaushik has a great book called "Web Analytics in an Hour a Day" which is recommended reading for anyone working with websites. Testing through Google, is particularly well covered in Brian Eisenberg's book "Always Be Teasing". Once you're confident the fundamentals are in place, you can take a fresh look at your paid search campaigns.

The next step is keywords; have you chosen the right ones? It's important to refine your list and not simply add everything you can think of. If you are a diet site, don't bid on "maple syrup diet plan" (unless you sell this food), but do bid on specifics such as "diet drinks", if that applies to your business. Avoid keyword insertion in ad groups where trademark terms such as "diet coke" are used.

Next, take your refined keyword list and break it into themes. Each campaign should only contain ad groups which focus on a theme. For example, a site about chocolate should include keywords that focus around the themes within the site, such as, French, Belgian, Swiss, truffle etc. and each group must only contain keywords related to that... continued on page two >

 

 

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