Author: James Crowe

PPC Basics Part 2

SEO Liverpool understand that Using Pay Per Click without knowing the fundamentals of advertising and writing copy is absolutely pointless. You’ll be taken to the cleaners and beaten at every turn by people who have learnt the game and understand the equilibriums

There are excellent resources available for quickly and painlessly learning the fundamentals. Obviously experience, is key but practising the fundamentals will improve your results the minute you start. You can run small campaigns at relatively little cost that will help you gain the understanding needed.

Book-wise if you’re a novice their is no shame in the Adwords for Dummies by Howie Jacobson. Excellent read and still a good resource for anybody involved in running a campaign. The only drawback is Google adds features periodically to it’s Adwords dashboard and you need to keep update with the latest tools.

Also check out this PPC video… it will help you understand how the process of the bid auction works

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Pay Per Click (PPC) The Fundamentals

Here at SEO Liverpool we are always trying to implement successful PPC advertising campaigns. How successful can we be you ask? We regularly hit Click Through Ratio’s of 5 and 11 percent obviously dependant on keyword competition. Double-digit rates are common, even for most competitive of PPC campaigns. Return on investment of is our major selling point and primary aim. Depending on client average customer values it can easily hit 100% more often than not.

Always check out Google advice and Youtube videos for the free help and advice…. never refuse Google help when it’s offered and just keep A/B testing.

Most of the techniques I’m going to share are based on the science of PPC. Simplistic best practices for constructing campaigns, Understanding the data, and interpretations to improve results. The rest is creative! Writing and designing you adverts and landing pages. Best practices and guidelines have already been studied and reported for years, and various resource as mentioned above are available for free.

The basics are based around exceptional keyword research, account/campaign structure, ad writing and design, bidding strategy, landing page design, and conversion optimisation. Always try and pick up a few new tips from blogs and guidelines that are constantly evolving. I guarantee you will always discover activities you can improve on and ways of taking your campaign over the top.
To succeed with PPC advertising depends on the ability to make potential clients take action, based completly on a few well researched and timed keywords or phrases. You don’t have to understanding how a search algorithm works or use all the features of Google AdWords. (although all if not most are useful and they add more periodically).

The ability to write persuasive ad copy using just 130 characters is a big challenge. Especially if you’re up against significant competition. Your words must not only persuade; they must stand out from a page full of words all shouting for your customer’s attention. And after your words have convinced the searcher to click through to your site, it’s persuasive words (augmented by graphics) that convince the visitor to become a customer. The best of the best online marketers have been testing, and refining ad writing techniques for a years now so there are some excellent resources out there. Learn the science then work on your creativity.
If you need any help please contact Summit Online Marketing 07968 848 228 for more help and advice or wait for the next exciting instalment!

The SEO Way of Working

SEO Liverpool is currently between offices. Therefore I’m trying a new way of working!

Not may people know this but I love discussing with other search engine marketing consultants office situations and working patterns. I suppose I’m nosey but it can also be a very lonely business and it always helps to know your not the only one in a particular situation. Recently I’ve been working from home and decided I just couldn’t take the boredom any more.

From the posts I’ve read over the last couple of years and the conversations I’ve had, lot’s of creative types have been working a strange nomadic existence where you travel between wifi coffee shops. My favourite in Liverpool FACT (the name of the venue) where I’ve been working over the past couple of days. It’s a fantastic place, cinema / coffee shop / bar, with the added art installations that I must say are phenomenal.

SEO Liverpool seems to work really well within this environment as it has some bustle about it… I’m not one for working in total silence.

Unfortunately, I’ve come across two major problems with this system of working

1) Cost; although its much cheaper than office space what’s the etiquette for buying coffee/tea per hour so I don’t seem like some sort of hobo.

2) Toilet breaks; without wishing to be crude the copious amounts of tea, coffee and hot chocolate do take a toll. Shooting off to the loo my result in the table with the socket being taken by a fellow enthusiast.

With the latter in mind should I pack up my laptop and carry with me for the interlude? Should I strike up a conversation with the closest person and ask them to ‘keep an eye’ on the valuable tool I have? Should I only take it if I go for… a longer break.

Help!

An added dimension is I’ve already met some great creative types and even some SEO consultants, in fact (no pun intended) this place is a networking hotspot.

What is a man to do?

Your thoughts

dofollow Blog Google Search Engine

It was once a legitimate SEO tactic. Everybody does it! SEO Liverpool would find a contextually relevant post and comment leaving a link to your site. Some time ago WordPress and other blog platforms add nofollow to any links in your comments — including (and especially) your name?

Try this Do follow Blog custom search engine. It takes more time and energy but it can be worth it.

It’s not as easy to find the right post… don’t just say ‘great post’ make sure you can pass the spam and naff comment filter. You can generate some love from these blogs, Summit Online Marketing have had some real luck and floated some interesting ideas. It’s a great community and growing at quite an impressive rate. Keep it up

Blogs can be a godsend for links. A previous client of SEO Liverpool would direct each member of his staff to write a post relevant to his business each day as part of the team doing their bit. After 18 months they had generated a huge amount of backlinks and search engine traffic to the site. In conjunction with a robust content strategy and strong direction they achieved the search goals have excellent search engine ranking under the selected keywords.

I’m off for a few pints in Liverpool tonight as it’s been a frustrating day… as always

Just thought i’d share.

The fastest way to gain a high search engine ranking

I’ve dug out some information for an SEO Client of Summit Online Marketing Liverpool.

This is an incredibly common question and not very easy to answer in it’s current form. I’ve read a variety of posts on the subject over the past couple of years and here’s the general consensus.

Question: What’s the fastest way gain a high search engine ranking?

Lets break it down, all seasoned SEO Consultants understand the mantra ‘Content is King’ therefore the more relevant the content the better. A natural reaction to informative relevant and contextual content are links and these certainly help the cause.

So how do you generate content;-

Answer: From your Blog/News, any website that doesn’t generate content has a massive disadvantage unless awareness of the brand is already high.

I’d like to add that you can generate links from someone else’s blog, anarticle submission, a press release, or a directory like Yahoo. It doesn’t really matter where the links come from. But it’s the quality of the link that
has the most impact. The more PR (PageRank) and link popularity that a page has, the more of its “juice” that it will pass on to you. For example, the “real” purpose of most blogs, are to get deep incoming links to my main site. I post just a portion of an article on my blog, and then I deep link to the full story on my site. That way, all stories on my main site, have at least one incoming link.

In addition to the PR of the page hosting the link, what you say in the link is very important. Use your keywords in your links. They will build a Reputation for the pages that you link to. And that’s important for good SEO.