• Selection of keywords and phrases that are being used to locate information about your product or service
• Writing ads that will grab the attention of searchers when they are presented
• Developing landing pages that are focused on the key phrases you’ve selected
• Providing what they expected on landing pages, plus what you need for conversion
• Managing and adapting to increase CTR (Click Through Ratio) and relevance to get a higher quality score, better positions, and lower costs per click

It isn’t rocket science, but it is definitely a process that can be done wrong, wasting huge amounts of money with poor results.  Let’s start with the first item, selecting keywords and phrases that actually are being used by searchers to locate information about your product or service.

The Google Keyword Tool is what I use the most, as I’m committed to Google Adwords as the most prevalent key phrase marketing system on the Web.  There is another tool, their search-based keyword tool which is a good one if your product or service isn’t local.  It tends to suggest phrases that would be too broad for say a real estate agent, who must keep their budget tied to those looking for homes in a specific area.

So, using the regular keyword tool, we want to locate keywords, actually mostly phrases, that searchers are using to locate our product, service, and information on them.  Too broad, and we spend too much money, too narrow, and we reduce our results and business.  Here’s a quick introductory video on using the tool for a real estate phrase search (use small rectangle icon bottom right to enlarge to full screen):

[important]There’s more on this topic, plus a video, in the Premium Content below the Related Artciles.[/important]

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As I’m not selling PPC advertising, or even consulting services to set up effective PPC accounts, you can decide if you want to believe what I’m about to say.  “PPC, Pay per click marketing is one of the most effective, focused and measurable advertising venues ever devised!”

While that statement is true in my opinion, there are plenty of dismal failures to go right along with it.  Why?  Well, if a business person can see how sales can be made from their website, then they usually believe that PPC can be the way to get visitors there to buy.  So, they set up a campaign right away.  They buy some keywords and phrases, and they place their ads.

It’s amazing at first, as they begin to get visitors within hours.  The excitement builds, and they see a lot of visitors within the first few days if they worded their ads well and bid high enough for clicks.  As the dollars mount with the clicks, they begin to become concerned, as there aren’t any orders from all of these visits.

Then, after a pretty hefty budget is exhausted the first month, there still aren’t any sales.  They tell themselves that they should have listened to those who told them it is a waste of money to buy clicks, and the account is cancelled forever.  It happens all the time.  So, instead of just telling you that it does happen, let me tell you why.

1. They never should have opened the account and bid for the first click until they had done their research.
2. Their landing pages, the pages where the ads are set to take the visitors, are not set up to be successful and generate business.  Why?
   • The key word or phrase the visitors used to get there isn’t immediately visible on the page, letting them know that they have arrived at the information they wanted.
   • The information they want isn’t on the page.  Unless they entered a phrase like “order a blue widget,” then they probably want some information about blue widgets before they can be convinced to spend some money.  Not having that information quickly available on the landing page will cause them to leave.
   • Worst, you take them to your home page instead of a page created for the ad that brings them to the site.  Using the blue widget example again:  If they did that search, why would you take them to a home page for your company that makes widgets, gadgets, and thig-a-ma-jigs.  Too much of what they don’t want makes it hard for them to locate what they do want.
3. They didn’t research their key phrases, key the ads to each major phrase, and then key the page to the ad and phrase.  It’s a package.  The Internet searcher typing in “blue widgets” may or may not want to purchase today.  The searcher typing in “how blue widgets are made” definitely doesn’t want to buy, but they do want information.  Tie your page content to the search phrase and the ad, and you’ll keep that visitor longer, and perhaps entice them to order.

Notice the title of this post is “Before the First Click.”  This planning needs to be done first, with landing pages created for your major targeted key phrases.  THEN you can bid them and place the ads to get those visitors to the site.  They’ll find what they want, making it far more likely that they’ll convert to a lead or a sale as you desire.

For many years, the average real estate professional has spent huge sums of money for marketing both their business and their listed properties.  This money went toward:

• Newspapers
• Home Magazines
• Mailers of letters and post cards
• Promotional items like refrigerator magnets and ballpoint pens
• Television and radio

There are others, but these are the big money drainers.  Then, along came the Internet, and things have been crazy ever since.  As this is written, newspapers all over the country are failing or looking for revenue sources to replace dwindling advertising revenues.  Real estate and auto dealers are cutting print budgets dramatically.

So, if you’re spending money on websites and/or blogs, are you also paying someone to help with SEO, Search Engine Optimization?  SEO is another long set of posts.  You should be working on it, but PPC can get your site visited right now by focused visitors who want or need your products or services.  Set up an account, and you can have visitors in minutes that used your chosen productive keywords and phrases to locate you.

I have been doing PPC for real estate and other ventures for more than eight years.  I took their exam and qualified as a Google AdWords Certified Individual.  I’ve let that lapse, as I don’t consult on PPC anymore.  However, I will tell you that I don’t believe there is a more effective and targeted marketing method on the planet than a properly constructed PPC campaign.

My Taos Real Estate site gets around 200 targeted visitors every month on an ad budget of only $150.  Think about that a minute in relation to the traditional media we listed above.  What are you spending in newspaper, magazine and other marketing media?  Can you quantify the response rates?  Can you track them right down to their location on a map when they saw your ad?

PPC does all of this for you.  I couple my Google AdWords account with Google Analytics to tell me not only how many people are visiting my site, but where they are located.  But the best part is that these 200 or so visitors every month came to the site on these few key phrases:

• taos real estate
• taos nm real estate
• real estate in taos
• taos homes for sale
• taos land for sale

That’s it!  I don’t need any more, as these are placed as “phrase matches,” meaning they were typed in as you see them.  What can I expect?  I expect a visitor focused on buying or selling real estate in my market.  If I do a good job of getting them to the information and property searches they want when they click to the site, then I’m on my way to the bank with commission checks.

In my series on PPC, I’ll give you lessons on every aspect of setting up a PPC account, selecting keywords, setting budgets, and more.  I’ll show you how my ad is running right alongside of a competitor’s who told me just this week that they were spending more than THREE TIMES what I’m spending per click!  I’m getting the same exposure, but spending a lot less.  There are specific reasons for this that aren’t tricks, but solid methods for PPC marketing that will make it happen for you as well.

Actually, in the premium content below, I’ll give you a look at the current search for my top key phrase in Google, my ad and the competitor’s.  And I’ll give you the numbers they shared with me, as well as mine.

[important]There’s more on this topic, plus a video, in the Premium Content below the Related Artciles.[/important]

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I’ll just give you all the facts in the video. I’m showing you actual ads and cost numbers for Google Adwords for my real estate site.

What do you do if you want to know BEFORE it’s up on the web?  Actually, I’m not sure why you would want to publish a page to the Internet not knowing the keyword density before you send it up.  There is one tool that makes this very easy; Live Keyword Analysis.

You are likely to be writing your draft web text in a word processor or text editor.  All you have to do is copy the text and paste it into the keyword analysis box.  Then you enter up to three words or phrases, and you get your keyword density percentage right away.

Even better, you can edit it right in the box on the site, checking how text modifications can increase keyword densities.  When you’re finished, just copy it back out into your editor or web page design software.

If you’re into feed readers, then you probably rely on yours to bring you a great deal of the day’s news, whether business or personal.  If you do research on the Internet for any reason, as I do for writing, then your feed reader is likely a very busy place.  I use the Google Reader, but there are a great many great free readers out there.

Also, if you’re really using your news reader, or aggregator, you are always looking for new feed sources, or for new ways to serve them up.  One issue I have is a new interest in something, but all I have is some keywords or a key phrase.  Another is if I want to monitor a page that doesn’t have a feed.  Both of those are free and easy to handle if you know which tools to use.

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Google Alerts – For those cases where I have an interest in a topic, and I want to know when new information comes out on it, I use Google Alerts.  You can have them delivered to your email, but I prefer they come to my reader.  Just enter your keywords or phrases, and Google scours the web for the material.

Page2RSS – When I come across a site that doesn’t have an RSS feed, first I say some less-than-flattering things about it, then I go to Page2RSS.  It’s free, and I enter the URL of the page I want to monitor.  From then on, when that page is changed in some way, I get an alert in my reader.

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The original post was asking about better ways to have more page navigation with limited top space for buttons or clutter of too many links in the sidebar. I recommend the Angsuman Redirect plugin, and dropdown page buttons at the top, as used in my real estate blog.

Basically, I have extensive dropdown navigation that consists of pages and sub-pages, but they are blank and redirected to WordPress category pages.  Well, as of an hour ago, I have a lot more information courtesy of Page SEO.  The pages that are redirected to categories have some of the highest page ranks!   Not the destination category page, but the blank page that was redirected, so it got the credit for the content on the category page.

So, you shouldn’t be too concerned about redirecting content in relation to SEO.  I never really was, and did all of these redirects to give my visitors a thorough navigation structure without clutter.  I’m glad I did.

• You open an account and provide a credit card or other method of payment.
• Unless you set up differently, you will never pay unless a searcher sees your ad in the search results and clicks on it, going to your site landing page.
• How much you pay and where your ad is displayed in results  is determined by proprietary calculations that consider your maximum bid per click (what you’re willing to pay), your ad “quality score” and other factors.
• An ad gets a quality score based primarily on CTR, or Click Through Ratio; the number of times it is clicked divided by the number of times it is presented (impressions).
• In other words, ads that are worded better and draw a higher percentage of clicks can get positions higher than those of a competitor that has bid more for position.
• Other factors are considered, with some opinion that the quality of the landing page is also considered.

Those are the very basic explanations of what goes on in PPC marketing.  There is a lot to learn if you want to make the most of it.  However, with the proper knowledge, well-constructed ads, and excellent landing pages, this can be the most targeted lead-producing marketing you’ll ever do.

Example:  My real estate site received 180 visitors last month on my most competitive key phrase in this market.  My cost was the amount I budgeted of $150.  Of course, 180 visitors that leave right away because they don’t find relevant information they value would make that wasted money.  However, if they do like what they find, what other type of marketing can you do that will bring you such a targeted consumer, allowing you to track their visit and your Return on Investment?

[important]There’s a video intro to PPC on Google in the Premium Content below the Related Artciles.[/important]

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This video is a quick introduction to Google Adwords, and I explain some of the terms as I show them to you in an actual real estate account.

These videos are high resolution, so use the box as shown here to enlarge to full screen.

Example: A company that sells “blue widgets” will set up a PPC account with Google, Yahoo, or another service. They’ll write an online ad promoting their product or site, and wait for it to be found. Based on a number of ranking criteria, their ad will show up in a certain position in the paid search results on the search engine results page (SERP). If the searcher clicks on the ad and goes to the site, the advertiser is charged for the click.

How much they are charged will vary based on a number of proprietary factors for some search engines, and for others, it’s the highest bid in first position, and on down the line. So, this is also a competitive marketing tool. Your bid will influence where your ad is placed, however, with Google and Yahoo, the two largest, there are other factors that are considered for ad ranking.

A quality score, as Google calls it, for an ad is constantly being computed. It is a proprietary algorithm, but generally is based on the CTR (Click Through Ratio) for the ad and sometimes the quality of the landing page. Let’s define:

1. Click Through Ratio (CTR) – The number of times visitors click on the ad through to the site divided by the number of times the ad is presented, or “Impressions.”  It’s expressed as a percentage.  Many advertisers are quite happy with CTRs of 5%, while some can only manage tiny percentages for their CTR.
2. Landing Page – The page where the visitor is taken from the ad, where they landed.  It should be highly relevant to their original search, as well as the wording of the ad.  In other words, a page all about “red widgets” would get a lower score if the ad was worded around “blue widgets.”  The search engine wants the visitor to find what they expected.

Here’s a very brief look at how the PPC ads are displayed on Google search results pages, and a couple of comments about the way PPC works:

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is used in most blogs.  Every time a post is published, an RSS feed announcement goes out to the Web.  For those who have subscribed to a particular site’s RSS feed, they will get that post, or an excerpt of it, delivered automatically to their “feed reader.”  So, by subscribing to the sites that publish content you want to read, you get all of those figurative “newspapers” delivered to your doorstep as they are published.

Some of the very best feed readers are absolutely free, and I use the Google Reader, which is free as well.  Here is a link to a Google search on free readers so you can check them out.

[important]There’s a video on RSS feed subscription in the Premium Content below the Related Artciles.[/important]

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If you blog, and you haven’t been using the Trackback feature, you’re missing a huge opportunity to actually build your own links back to your site from other blogs. WordPress, for one, has a box in the post writing screen where you can enter the URL of a site or blog post about which you’re writing.

Say you read a great blog post somewhere that mentions your area, and you’re a real estate blogger. You like the post, and write one of your own commenting on it, with a link to it in your post. However, you should do one more thing. Enter the URL of their post into the Trackback field in your post screen.

Many blogs will receive that trackback, and without any action on the part of the other blog writer, enter a small excerpt from your post into their comment field with a link back to your post. If they are moderating their comments, they will have to approve it, but they usually do soon.

Trackbacks are a way to interact with other bloggers with material related to yours, or even if it’s just of interest. First, you get a great idea for a post on your blog, then you get the value of an incoming link as well.