Google. They love to make our lives harder by making things easier. With the new Google Search Plus Your World (SPYW), Google+ results from your circles are popping in at the top of the search results. While Facebook and Twitter complain about anti-trust laws for not being included (Google says they didnt want to share data with them), the fact is, most people who use Google don’t care. They’re going to keep plugging in search terms and expecting results. And if someone in one of their circles happened to +1 something related, it’s going to pop up first, no matter what the content.

Search Plus Your World In Video… Google Style

So much for your social media efforts, huh? Well, maybe not.

G+ is here to stay, and if you’re ignoring it still, what’s wrong with you? G+ has become integral to national and local internet marketing campaigns. And now with SPYW, social media is equally if not more important than traditional SEO techniques.

Beyond Keywords

While proper usage of keywords and the like is still critical, content is king baby. Now it’s about getting people to +1 your posts, so when their friends see it, bam! You come up number one. It’s more important than ever to generate unique, quality content that engages users and makes them want to share it, or at least +1 it.

Because now, you could beat out national brands and social media campaigns worth millions of dollars, simply because you got someone’s friend to +1 your post. You did install that Google button on your blog, right?

Shout! Shout! Let It All Out!

Of course, we all write quality content, right? Sure.

But it’s still not going to go anywhere until someone starts spreading it around. That’s why it’s critically important to use ALL of your resources. Especially fellow employees and client employees.

Every single person even remotely connected to the campaign should be spreading the word. If you have 20 employees, and the client has 20 employees, then your goal should be to have 40 +1’s on that post within a day.

There’s no reason this shouldn’t happen, and yet it never does. It’s in your company’s best interests and the clients best interests. It takes 30 seconds to email a link to everyone involved, and 30 seconds to +1 it. Within one minute, your post could be at the top of the G+ food chain.

+1 to Infinity

With 40 +1s on a post, it’s going to get around. Their friends will find it and +1 it, and then their friend’s friends will find it, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. Ok, that’s really a best case scenario, and you shouldn’t put too much expectation into one blog post. However, if you’re pumping out even a single post a week, and you get 40 +1s on each one, then at the end of the year, you’ll have 2,080 +1s to your campaign! That’s going to generate results because SPYW is making damn sure of it. It’s only polite to take advantage of it.

You did create your Google+ business page right?

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I wasn’t born on the Outer Banks. I wasnt even born in the U.S. But I’ve grown fond of the Outer Banks and I’m proud of calling myself a local. That’s why I was shocked to learn that interest for the Outer Banks has fallen 55% since July 2004!

Let me explain – while performing keyword research for an SEO client on the Outer Banks, we ran across worrisome data.

Search Demand For The Outer Banks Is Steadily Falling

The graphic below comes from Google Insights for Search, a tool that compiles Worldwide search data:

I decided to dig a bit deeper, and found out that the OBX had quite the trendy status back in 2004. Beaches were more untamed back then, apparently. It was around that time the famous OBX Real Estate industry was making millionaires left and right and construction jobs were soaring, attracting not just tourists, but investors. A couple of Real Estate crisis later, along with increased gas and rental prices, we may start to understand the scenario.

But one thing that macro economic signals fail to address is the competition exerted by other beach towns and their tourism boards. Specially due to the powerful tools available in Search Engine Marketing, towns were able to gain crucial exposure for vacation-related searches.

Ranking For Non-Branded Keywords

The Outer Banks Visitors Bureau does a lot of things right. Their positioning for branded keywords (those that contain “Outer Banks” within the query) is extremely strong, and they maintain their site well updated. But they’re completely missing the boat on non-branded keywords, which are fundamental when trying to raise awareness.

Of course, ranking for all of the keywords above is no easy feat. But even if we launch a Pay Per Click campaign aimed at those terms, with a 2% CTR, we’re looking at an additional 10,000 visits every month, based on the search volume for the term “family vacation” alone.

Similar Cities Are Pushing Harder

The graph below shows how aggressively Charleston is pushing its SEO campaign, compared to the OBX or Myrtle Beach:

Click for larger Image

I’ve recommended stronger backlinks on both SEO Blueprint for Tent Rentals and Spencer Yatchs. On this case, however, the Tourism Board needs to focus more on their anchor text.

With a more diverse backlink anchor profile, focused on non-branded terms, the OBX can begin to compete for bigger keywords and more exposure.

But The OBX Tourism Board Is Good

Their Google AdWords display campaign is fairly well-structured AND well-designed.

While performing research for this post, I noticed 2 fantastic OBX ads. They were clear, had a giant call to action, and very prominent on the pages. This means that whoever is running their campaign is doing a great job at retargeting and we have a great designer!

But they’re missing the boat by not optimizing their search campaign (the one that shows on the search results) for the keywords I showed above. Unfortunately, I’ve only seen PPC ads on search results pages that involved branded keywords for “Outer Banks”.

Final Thoughts

We’re not employed by the Tourism Board. Even though we’d love to get our hands dirty and outrank Myrtle Beach and other beaches, we have no tie whatsoever in this industry. If you’re the current SEO for the OBX Tourism Board, let us know, and we’d be happy to help.

The comments are all yours!

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However, the SEO blueprint idea got a lot of buzz from the community, and I want to continue posting them. Today, we’ll explore the party rental industry in New Jersey. This choice is completely random, just because I see ConTent Party Rentals’ trucks on my way to work all the time. Shall we dig in?

Brief On-Page Analysis

Their homepage does a good job of simplifying navigation by giving visitors big, easy-to-click buttons that link to their main services – Tent, Chairs, Stage, and Table rentals. Those landing pages are great at answering a major question – PRICE. But they miss several very important aspects necessary to great conversion rates:

• More images per product
• Product dimensions
• Product Reviews

Aside from that, the entire domain lacks a healthy amount of content. Most pages barely have 100 words of content, and most of the time, that content is repeated on every page.

Digging Into Off-Page Analysis

A brief open site explorer report tells a pretty worrisome story:

In the report you see a comparison against a site in the very same industry that we built for a client on the Outer Banks. It’s a site that we havent optimized in almost a year, and it’s not their primary website. I was surprised to see the contrast.

This report shows a great need for – of course – strong link-building. Yeah, link-building is the “magical pill” for SEO, but a deeper glance reviews absolutely no social presence, which can be an important source of domain authority.

Top Keyword Opportunities

As in all successful SEO campaigns, we begin by looking at Google Keyword Tool to determine which keywords have the most search volume. Clearly, search volume only dictates a part of the campaign. But we’ll get there – check out what the biggest keywords are for this industry:

Even though Party Rentals has, by far, the biggest search volume, that keyword is very generic. Somebody looking for party rentals could be looking for tents, tables, chair, chinaware, or even just a popcorn machine for their children’s birthday party. It’s hard to asses relevancy in these cases, and often times, when chasing generic keywords we spend a ton of time and money without a clear idea of Return On Investment. After all, ROI is the only way to keep track of your search optimization team.

So we’re going to look into the keyword Tent Rentals. Not just because it’s the 2nd highest volume keyword, but because it is targeted. And because it’s a large-ticket item with a great profit margin, one that usually triggers additional sales of smaller items, such as chairs and tables.

Taking the Campaign with Local SEO

Okay, so tent rentals is our winning keyword. That’s great, but we dont want to optimize simply for “tent rentals”, since they dont service the entire US. We’ll have much better results tapping into local keywords. Let’s dig into their local market and figure out our plan of action:

“Tent Rentals NJ” and “tent rentals NY” have a very similar search volume. Depending on where Content makes most of their business, we’d pick one or the other. Without that data, based on current rankings, I’d focus on “tent rentals NJ”. After all, it’s better to start with poor rankings than no ranking at all. See the chart below, from SEOMOZ’s rank tracker:

Bring In The Competition!

Mesmerize your eyes with some of the competition:

Lol. I cant believe this site is still ranking after so many Panda iterations. You know what’s worse? They have pretty impressive authority scores:

The Good News & The Attack Plan

Competition is certainly not the strongest. There are tons of opportunities for a well-optimized site to take over. If we were in charge of Content Party’s SEO, we’d focus on:

1. Improved Site Structure – more content, more pictures, maybe even some Youtube Slideshows
2. Relevant link-building – most of their customers are corporations, that might have blogs. If they had a post about their party, they could link back to Content.
3. Social Integration – mobilizing wedding planners, party coordinators, and even staff to Like, Tweet, and +1 their page can do wonders for their domain authority

Final Thoughts

Online, Content Party Rentals good certainly use a hand. The party rental industry is highly competitive, but focusing on niche services they have the opportunity to gain precious market share. And, with tents as their main service, generating a great return-on-investment wont be a problem.

Now, I must say – we’re not working for Content Party Rentals or any other company in their industry. I picked their company randomly, and I can do the same for yours, if you want. Just leave me a comment and we’ll get our team on it!

Finally – if you decide to use some of the ideas we shared here, at least link back to us and tell us how you did it in the comments.

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Friend of mine launched her business not too long ago, and is doing quite well during her inaugural month. Love seeing her gloat on Facebook about all the new business. We’re not close friends, but she’s worked for us in the past, so I reached out to congratulate her.

“Congratulations on the big success, Jane! Your marketing seems to be doing fantastic” I said, secretly hoping she’d thank me for teaching her one or two things about online marketing. Yeah, Mr. Honesty here. “Well, thank you Leo, but I’m not doing any marketing at all!” That was worrisome. What do you mean, no marketing? No ads, no billboards, no AdWords, no nothing? I was desperate to understand. Eventually, she told me, “Two of our local articles wrote very positive pieces about our grand opening, and my family has been telling everybody to stop by”.

Okay, that was not so bad. Press coverage, specially positive, is very healthy. Then I asked- “So, how’s traffic to your site? Are you building a client list for email marketing?” I barely lost my jaw when she replied “We never finished our site, the guy disappeared and we didnt feel like chasing him”. Ugh. And to think she had worked for me!

I was very disappointed. Before I logged out, I wanted to extend a hand – “Well Jane, dont you think you should have your site up during the opening, generating leads for you?” and then she said something that hurt just like a punch in the face – “Oh, I dont need it right now. Got more leads than I can handle”.

Ok, Bye, Jane!

Why Market When Things Are Going Well?

Because you want things to continue to be going well. I thought this was obvious, but looking back at some of our most delicate clients, I recognize a large majority of them approached us during a downturn on their businesses. They demanded results yesterday, expecting us to use the magic Google wand and send tons of business their way. Whether we can do that is besides the point – we’ve seen successful Google AdWords campaigns resuscitate businesses within a few weeks.

But having your back against the wall is bad in any situation. And that’s what marketing I call “remedy marketing” – campaigns aimed at fixing something that broke a while back (business doesnt just suddenly disappear). Remedy marketing has it’s place, after all, we get sick sometimes. But if after you finish your round of cough syrup you decide to take a walk in the snow wearing your speedos, dont expect to stay healthy for too long.

Doctor Visits Vs Vitamins

A visit to your doctor will run at least $80, if you dont need any exams. A bottle of vitamins wont cost you more than $30. The same applies for online marketing.

When you want extreme dedication to your project in order to generate results ASAP, expect to pay extra for those extra hours. It’s something we recommend clients avoid at all costs, since it doesnt always generate better results.

Sharpen Your Marketing During Good Times

If things are going well, use your marketing budget to venture into new keywords, new markets. Strengthen your SEO for eCommerce Use it to increase your social presence, by running like-fueled Facebook ads campaigns, or by allocating resources to your new Google+ Business Page.

The idea is to prevent bad times from happening. But even when they do, with a solid web presence, you’re able to quickly identify your biggest money makers using Analytics, reach your customers via email marketing, and engage your current fans/followers in a contest to drum up new business. Things become more flexible when you understand your traffic, you have a strong voice in social media, and a responsive email list.

And really – is there anything else one can do to prevent bad times? Focusing on things you can control – SEO, PPC, Social Media – you can better shield yourself from almost anything Wall Street, Washing, FBI, IMF, or the GOP throw your way. Dont you think?

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Fairy Tale Made In China

The outdated, narrow minded, holding-on-for-dear-life folks of Hollywood have lobbied their way into Congress with the Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that wants to put you in jail for posting that horrible karaoke video on Youtube last night.

China runs the most complex online censorship program on the planet, and the US is now considering a law that would mirror the blood-stopping powers of the Great Firewall. Consider the implications:

- You post a video of your latest set to a large online community of DJs. A copyright holder complains about one of the songs in the hour-long set and complains to a censorship official. You can go to jail. The online community can be forcefully taken down.

- After finding a very funny LOLCat image of a feline imitating Rihanna’s dance pose, you post it to your Facebook along with a picture of Rihanna that you found on Google. That picture had a copyright and the holders see it. You can go to jail. Facebook can forcefully taken down.

That’s Stupid. Why Do Such Things?

The intent, like usual, is valid – stop “shady” sites like PirateBay that allow illegal torrents to be downloaded. The good folks at the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America have spoken in support of bill, of course. They claim illegal downloads lead to loss of jobs.

But again, as the savvy internet users that they are, Congresswomen and men went too far and did too little. They turned sites such as Youtube and Facebook liable for all users’ content. It’s not enough they’re already able to place ads on videos and even remove the videos completely.

What YOU Can Do To Help

1. Stop SOPA – sign up and send a physical letter to Congress demanding this bill never passes.
2. Call Your Representatives – let them know how silly this is and how that’d hurt not just our leisure time, but innovative startups that fuel this economy.
3. Educate your friends and those around you. Information is power.

Let us know what you’re doing to help and if you have any questions in the comments below.

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Back when Google+ launched in invitation-only Beta mode, tons of business, bands, and blogs rushed to create business accounts. We tried too. To everybody’s surprise, Google shut everybody down. With the exception of Ford, which was allowed to have its page as a test. Since then, over 40 million people have joined Plus and an exciting community now exists.

Watch Google VP Bradley Horowitz’ Announcement

Is It Time For Google+ Now?

We debated on Social Media Guerilla if Should Your Small Business Invest In Google+? and suggested creating a personal account that could act as a partial business news conduit. That just seemed too complicated.

Now, it’s time to get fully engaged in Google+ and dedicate as much as possible of your social media budget towards it. Why?

As you watch Bradley talk about how Google sees Plus as a way for them to learn more about their users and how to improve their experience using Google Products, which product specifically comes to mind? SEARCH. Early studies have attributed surprising results to the power of the +1 button for Search Engine Optimization.

And, if by “improved experience” you understood “tailoring your search results based on what your friends shared/recommended/reviewed”, then you should really be part of our staff – because you’re absolutely right.

Enters Google Direct Connect

Direct Connect takes advantage of HTML5 “rel” markup to establish a relationship between your Google+ Page and your company’s website. By determining that relationship, they’re able to show your company as the top result when searching with the “+” indicator. See below:

Of course, Google offers a very simple way for you to connect your site using the rel=”publisher” markup, using their Badge generator tool. You can see what is looks like at the bottom of our page.

But Direct Connect is just the beginning. The integration possibilities with Google Maps or Google Apps are endless, and when you add Google Analytics to track your efforts it just keeps getting better.

Want Assistance?

Our team has been knee-deep in Google+ since its release and we’re all very excited to help your business enjoy its benefits. As exciting as Google+ is, however, it is simply another tool in your inventory – and another to-do on your always-growing list. We’d be honored to help craft a solution that fits your goals, schedule, and budget. Leave us a comment, or use the contact form on this page to get in touch with us.

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See also – How To Design a Highly Converting Website

Companies like Volusion and Shopify (affiliate links) have completely disrupted an industry in which the barrier of entry began at $3500. Now, you can get your store started for as little as $29/month.

Optimize Early, Eliminate Frustration Later

Turning a profit, however, is a much more exciting challenge, as it should be. A lower barrier of entry means more competition, which means only truly unique stores will thrive. That’s when a successful search engine marketing (SEM) team comes into place. If the money you saved on a custom ecommerce webdesign can be applied to SEM, it will spare you of some frustrating experiences as your store grows. Luckily, this post will offer 4 simple steps to improve your ecommerce SEO.

1. Treat Every Product As Its Own Website

One of the most daunting tasks of setting your store is uploading your products. It’s not that bad if you have 10 products, but it can be a monumental effort if you have 150, 500, or 1000. Each product is a page by itself, and needs descriptive, original content, as well unique Title and Description tags, along with proper internal and external linking and social sharing buttons. For every product page, you’re basically optimizing a little website.

See also - How To Maximize Your SEO Using Smart Anchor Text

Important notes:

• Answer as many questions as you possibly can about the product so shoppers dont have to leave the page
• Technical specs are very important
• Make sure the product title, manufacturer, and SKU are text-based and never image-based

2. Take advantage of category and brand pages

Until buyers complete their research and begin looking for a specific product, they’ll search for a category or brand. For example, before I knew I wanted a “GE Profile 30 in. Smooth Surface Downdraft Electric Cooktop“, I probably searched for “electric cooktops on sale” or “GE electric cooktops“.

Optimizing these “umbrella” pages include:

• Making sure each product is listed with all of the basic info: Title, short description, sku, serial number, color, etc…
• Adding a descriptive category title and description – both on page and META
• Including a paragraph of descriptive content about that category or brand – this can go at the bottom of the page and it helps users understand exactly what is being displayed on the page.

3. Create unique categories to group products for “sale” keywords

Let’s say you have an entire category of winter jackets going on sale in the beginning of March and you want those to rank for the keyword “winter jackets on sale” or “discount winter jackets”. Most ecommerce stores will simply return the very sale “winter jackets” category page and showcase the items that are on sale with a red icon or something similar. Instead, create a new category page and group all of your sale products there.

This way, if you have a whole category of products on sale, they’re grouped in one page rather than scattered through multiple ones. And it allows you to create unique titles, descriptions, and gather inbound links that refer specifically to “sale” keywords.

4. HEAVILY Incentivize User Reviews

Just like blogs rely on comments to build a community and instigate return visits, ecommerce sites rely on peer reviews to solidify their purchase. The most obvious benefit to peer reviews is to increase your conversion rates; users see honest reviews and feel more confident about buying from you.

But, we’re not only talking about conversions – peer reviews, even if just 50-100 words long, are great content pieces because they often use the name of the product in very specific manners (with serial numbers, edition, etc..). Quick side note: If you have access to a programmer, it’s best if you can add the reviews to very same page so users can read them without navigating away.

Take Small, Steady Steps

If these basic tips seem like a ton of work, you’re right. But it’s certainly not impossible. An hour or so a day can accomplish wonders in SEO, and you’ll get more proactive over time. It might be a good idea to outsource the initial setup (creating titles/descriptions, category pages, etc..), specially if they have a team of professional writers. You can take over the day-to-day operations afterwards.

However you decide to tackle your ecommerce SEO, we hope these steps help you in your journey. As always, the comments are YOURS to ask any questions or give any feedback.

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So, How Does Your ‘Big Pimpin’ Analogy Applies To SEO?

Well, it just so happens that the Outer Banks (where our offices were founded) is home to some of the most acclaimed fishing yacht builders in the world. They’re all installed around the little town of Wanchese, North Carolina, and today we’re going to help one of these builders with their SEO.

The reason I picked Spencer Yachts for our INAUGURAL “free SEO tips Weekly” is because I’m used to seeing cars around the OBX with their stickers. Marketing’s first battle is perception – and because I see those stickers pretty much everywhere, my perception was that Spencer Yachts had a strong brand, therefore they made great boats. My analysis proved my perception was right, but it’s funny how that works.

Anyway – today I’ll give Spencer Yachts a pretty complete SEO Blueprint. We’re going to cover their site, their links, and which keywords they should focus on.

Excellent Tools, Little Content

Their homepage showcases every boat model with its own virtual tour. It also has a 3 different slideshows on the header (all flash-based, of course!), and a testimonial from their founder.

Taste aside, the homepage is confusing, lacks a clear call to action, and has extremely shallow content.

The virtual tours, for example, are expensive, attractive assets – very easy to spend a few minutes on each one, navigating in and out of the boats. But its potential is being severely undermined.

Website Structure Improvements

1. Keep only 1 slideshow in the header
Make it fill 100% of the wrapper width, but maintain a single set of images there.

2. Replace the virtual tours with a bit more copy
The goal here is two-fold – we need to unclutter the page AND we need more relevant content. That leads us to the 3 step:

3. Showcase the virtual tours in a portfolio
By installing a portfolio structure, each boat model would then have its own page. Each page with boat description, specs, etc.. AND a link to that beautiful virtual tour.

These 3 simple steps quickly reduce the noise on the page and give the site 6 new pages to collect inbound links (internally and externally).

Most Likely Targets For Fishing Yachts Optimization

Using Google’s free AdWords Keyword Tool, we identify 2 of their biggest keywords – “fishing yachts” and “carolina yachts”. A quick expansion of those keywords gives us terms such as sport “fishing yachts” and “fishing yacht builder”, amongst other variations.

Here’s how they currently fare:

They’re doing quite well for the term “fishing yachts”. It’s a great accomplishment, but it’s also a very generic term. You can see that for more targeted searches, they’re fairly close (17 is not that bad), but still far from a 1st page ranking.

Specially given their competition in the industry:

Increasing Domain Authority

With a never-ending series of Google Panda updates, brands should more than ever focus on improving their domain authority by nurturing relevant inbound links and allowing users to engage with the website using social sharing buttons.

OpenSiteExplorer currently gives Spencer Yachts homepage an authority of 36 and its domain authority of 26 (out of 100). Their best-ranking competitors have an average of 49-53 domain authority. SY would only need a few relevant inbound links to start jumping up on the SERPs.

Parting Thoughts

In a moderately competitive industry, Spencer’s content, history, and reputation puts them in a fantastic position to begin a solid SEO campaign. I’m no expert in the buying cycle of million-dollar yachts, but with the campaign generating 1 new boat deal per year, I can estimate a large ROI. Plus, there are many other areas to focus on, such as “yachts for sale” and “used yachts for sale”, as well as “yacht repair”, amongst others.

Who Will Be Next?

Do you own a company? Want us to feature it next week? Leave us a comment and we may give you a totally free SEO blueprint. No strings attached

Disclaimer

While I’m fascinated by yachts, Market & Convert currently does not work for Spencer Yachts or any other boat-builder, for that matter. Opinions expressed here are based on my research alone and no Spencer Yachts employee was involved in writing this article.

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The truth is, a pretty site alone wont increase your conversion rate or bring you more sales. However, a well-designed website, that integrates stylish elements to optimize a certain action (readability, sign ups, sales), brings a much better Return-On-Investment.

Below we’ll talk about basic elements that are often not associated with design, but are part of every successful website design:

Start With The Call To Action

Clearly, there’s a reason why you’re investing a new website design. Here are some of the most basic reasons:

• sell more stuff
• generate more leads
• get more people to subscribe to your blog
• or simply increase how much time visitors spend your site

When you approach your designer, that is the more important piece of information he/she will need. With your call to action in mind, you’ll build the site so that it’s impossible to miss it.

Make Your Pitch Within 5 Seconds

If you landed on the site below, would you be able to tell exactly what action they expect you to take?

Show Why Should They Take Action?

There are several reasons why people do business with each other. As a business owner, you know what your unique selling points are, those that distinguish you from your competition. Some of those elements are:

• Credibility – Awards, Seals, Better Business Bureau, and others help you build trust with your visitor
• Reputation – Customer testimonials and endorsements let prospects know you’ve been around and made other customers happy
• Product – Apple doesnt need to show logos or testimonials. It simply shows beautiful pictures of their products. If you have a product that is highly popular, or unique craftsmanship, make sure that is showcased prominently on the page

There are, of course, many others. And then there are combinations – including Media combinations.

Turn Everything Into A Video

Have a picture of your company working with a celebrity? And he/she wrote a nice letter? Turn that picture and quote into a quick video. Videos sell, even if people dont watch them.

An excellent service to use is MAGISTO. They’ll let you load random clips from your flip camera, pictures, and they’ll edit it all for you. And it’s free!

Solidify The Trust – Show Your Expertise

You’ve got the awards, your customers love you, and all industry-relevant entities have the highest ratings for your company. Now it’s time to show them WHY.

It’s true that a very small percentage of site visitors will read everything you write on your website. But this small percentage are the highly targeted customers that you fought so hard following the first 2 steps.

It’s worth hiring an experienced copywriter, if you have the budget. You may want to give him/her an outline to expand upon, with the most important topics. Ultimately, the way you communicate on the page is how you’re presenting your business to potential customers.

Keep It Updated!

Most webmasters, even those that are not search engine optimization consultants, will add a new slider to your homepage, or add a new blog post with the proper content. Take advantage of that and make meaningful updates to your site – new product, new awards, new hours, etc…

Most importantly – understanding your site is one of your most valuable assets turns the time you dedicate to it into an investment. It should not be the last thing on your mind, as it’s the first thing a prospect will see about your company.

Do you believe your site converts well? What did you do to improve your conversions? Let us know in the comments.

EDIT FROM GOOGLE+

Web Virtuoso Michael Lee Johnson posted a quick, but very true rant that fits this post extremely well – consider it a parting thought:

Effective marketing is the process of delivering and communicating your message in such a way that its remembered and communicated for you across multiple mediums online and offline. – Everything you create should be conceptualized with the mindset of ‘How will this spread from one person to another’… and if it hasn’t been, it’s seriously flawed.

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Of course, you can always hire a Pay Per Click management company to keep your campaigns converting (and your sanity), but in case you want to adventure yourself in PPC waters, here are 3 tips to help you stay focused and waste less time:

1 – Small Steps, Consistently

Most nutritionists recommend multiple small meals instead of a few giant ones. The same concept applies to your PPC campaigns.

It’s really easy to find reasons to spend 3 or 4 hours optimizing your adgroups, finding new keywords, split-testing ads, etc… Specially when you’re getting the hang of how campaigns are structured, simply understanding the difference between an AdGroup and a campaign can take a few hours.

When we do consulting for clients that just want somebody looking over their shoulder, I always recommend 1 adgroup a day.

One AdGroup A Day Goes A Long Way

Once you set your first campaign, focus on getting ONE adgroup right. You’ll need:

• 1 Main Ad – you’ll want to add an almost exact copy of this ad, with ONE small change, as a 2nd ad for split testing.
• 1 Keyword, + 2 variations – for example, if you pick pizza delivery in long beach , you’ll end up having “pizza delivery in long beach” and [pizza delivery in long beach]

There you have it. Once you accomplish this, you’re done for the day. Keep this up for a couple of weeks, and you’ll have an extensive campaign in no time.

2 – Let Google Do Keyword Research For You

Once your adgroups begin getting impressions, you’ll notice that even though you have very similar keywords in each, some of those receive more impressions than others. We’ll talk about keyword match types in another post, but basically, Google will take the liberty of showing your ads on searches that are very close to your keywords.

For example, we picked “pizza delivery in long beach” – Google might show your ad when somebody searches for “long beach pizza delivery”. Those are keyword variations and AdWords allows you to see exactly which variations are triggered more often.

An easy way to boost your adgroups is to add RELEVANT variations at least once a week. To do so, go to:

• Keywords > See Search Terms > All

The report will look like this:

From there, you can Add Keyword or Add As A Negative Keyword (if the term is irrelevant to your adgroup)

3 – Let Google Do The Bidding For You

Amongst several time consuming tasks, managing keyword bids is one of the most exhaustive ones. With the average campaign having anywhere from 900-3400 keywords, it can easily take 8-12 hours a week to manage bids for a large campaign.

Luckily, you can let Google control the bidding for you. I dont always recommend this, not because Google is not good at it, but it’s difficult to let a software play with my money (or my client’s money). But if you’re willing to give it a try, here’s how you set it up:

• Click on campaign > Settings
• Scroll to Bidding and Budget
• Click on “Automatic bidding to try to maximize clicks for your target budget”
• Set your CPC bid limit

Once that’s in place, you simply set your Daily Budget limit and AdWords will try to get you as many clicks within your max CPC per day.

PPC Management Is NOT Easy

But it only requires practice. Even though it can be extremely technical at times, you dont need to learn any special coding language. With 30-45 minutes a day, you’ll be able to run your own campaigns and experience the power of AdWords for yourself.

I hope this helps you and your business. I LOVE AdWords, and I recommend it to anybody that wants to grow their business. And, if you’re ever in the weeds, pause your campaigns and give us a call. We’ll be happy to come to your rescue. You may leave us a comment too – here or on Facebook.

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