Everyone says that they are an expert on Google and can get you to the #1 position, but that often leads to nothing more than disappointment, a leaking ad campaign, and being buried by irrelevant paperwork.

What I know: You’re wasting money.
What I do: Plug the leak, and grow profits.
What you do next is up to you.
Contact me to discuss your goals today.

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The amount you bid per keyword is an auction, so you tell Google: “I am willing to pay fifty cents per click when someone searches for ‘wholesale dog food’, sees my ad, and then clicks on it”.

Google would respond and say: “OK, for fifty cents, we will put you in position five in the search results” (generally, the three top positions will be highlighted on the right and positions four through 10 will be located in a list, top to bottom).

Because of this, if you are in position five, people will see your ad, but it won’t be as noticeable as it would if you were in a higher spot. Since people won’t immediately see you, they will be less likely to click on your ad. This causes you to miss out on traffic. If you can move up to $10 (which should be your goal), you should bid accordingly. This will lead to more traffic. That traffic will lead to sales, and your business can become more efficient.

Another thing you must consider about bidding is how much people are actually buying per keyword. For example, when someone searches for “wholesale dog food”, let’s say they buy an average of $300 worth of dog food. Then, when someone searches for “cheap dog food”, let’s say they buy an average of $30 worth of the product. As you can see, these two keywords are not both worth $10 per sale. You can start by balancing your keywords all at $10 as a basic CPA format, but you will need to optimize certain keywords based on sales and ROI (return on investment). I will discuss this in further detail in a later post.

Look for an online marketing company or contact us to find out what’s the best bidding technique for your industry.

When you start your new account, if there are certain keywords that are spending faster than any others, it’s a good idea to lower your bids for those words. Otherwise, you may run through your budget very quickly because of a few keywords. Remember your number one goal: get as much traffic to your website while spending the least possible. When you are able to start tracking your conversions, you can then find which keywords are leading to the most sales and focus your bidding on them. You can also lower bids on keywords that aren’t leading to as many sales.

For example: if your desired CPA is $10, and the keyword “wholesale dog food” has spent $4-$7 at fifty cents per click in the first few hours, but it hasn’t generated a sale, then you should lower the bid. This way, you won’t spend so much money so quickly. Once that keyword spends beyond $10, then it’s too late – the CPA is too expensive and you have lost money. If you lower the bid from fifty cents to thirty cents, then for the next three dollars you spend you will get 10 clicks at thirty cents each instead of 6 clicks at fifty cents each. With 10 clicks, your chances of getting a sale are usually better. (Note: if you bid fifty cents per keyword, you rarely actually pay fifty cents, you will pay less, but I am simplifying things for the example. For more information, read about the Google Bid Algorithm).

In another example, the keyword “cheap dog food” spent five dollars and only generated one sale. In this case, you may choose to increase the bid from fifty cents to sixty-five cents. You may stop and do the math; thinking that if you bid fifty cents and got one sale at five dollars, then you could bid one dollar and get sales at ten dollars. However, since the keyword only generated one sale, you may have just gotten lucky. Don’t jump to any conclusions. Be conservative with money, whether it is yours or your client’s. You can always increase bids if you are spending too little, but if you bid too aggressively, you have lost money you can never get back.

There are a few advanced techniques mentioned here that will be covered in the next blog post.

Feel free to contact an online marketing expert to get a full details about Google adwords bidding technique.

Start by going to the Google Keyword Tool. Type in common keywords for your product or service. Then, you will see Google’s estimated cost per click. For example, if you looked up “dog food”, you may see that in the US, the approximate CPC will be $1.91. In a future post, I will discuss something called “head keywords”, like “dog food” and how they affect your competition compared to “long-tail keywords” like “cheap dog food online”.

The next step will be to strengthen your Google Adwords account. You must take a good look at your products or services and then you have to think of how people may be looking for them online. For example, you will want to create more customized potential keywords and then separate them into different ad groups. Words like “cheap dog food” or “wholesale dog food” will need separate ads. (You can learn more about this by reading my post about setting up Google Adwords or learn the idea from an online marketing consultant).

After you have set up Google Analytics and Google conversion tracking, your next step is to launch your campaign. You need to start with low bids. For example, with the basic keyword, “dog food” you should start a low bid at around fifty cents. In about four to six hours, you should get an idea of how much traffic this bid is getting you.

If you are not getting any traffic, then increase the bid to seventy-five cents or one dollar (depending how patient you are willing to be) then repeat the previous step and continue to increase the bids until you are getting enough traffic (should be on pace with your budget – see more a future post called “Setting Your Budget”).

Your goal through Google Adwords is to get as much traffic with the lowest possible cost per click (CPC). This will help you determine which keywords make the most sense for your site. Once you have more clicks and data in your adwords account, then you can move on to my post on Advanced Google Adwords Bidding Techniques.

Consult an Adwords Expert and learn the techniques of an effective Google Adwords bidding.

Many tools and software options focus on the math, predictive statistical analysis, to decide how much you should pay per click today to reach your goals. Those goals are usually conversions. Many people focus on the wrong things, like guessing or instincts in an attempt to reach the top position under the belief that if they are the first noticed, then they will get the sales.

Actually, it takes a combination of mathematics and guesswork. Math does play a role in predicting how much you should pay per keyword, but there are times when you need to act on gut reactions and an understanding of your business.

For example, bidding tools may tell you that your ad should be in position five in order to get a cost per sale (CPA) of $10. However, people who click on an ad in position five may be doing research to determine what they want. By the time they click on your ad, they may be so picky that, no matter what you offer, you will not be able to sell to them.

With a simple test of pushing your ad to first or second position, you will see that these spots will get more impulsive buyers. This can bring in more sales. Once you have moved your way to the top position, then you can switch back to the software, which will adjust your bid to keep you in that spot. If you hadn’t gone with your instincts, then you would still be stuck in the fifth position and your sales could still be low.

Contact Adwords Consultant and see exactly how I can help you.

The same holds true for online marketing services: with so many companies saying the “right things” it is very difficult to separate the sweet-talkers from the professionals, and ultimately to hire a search marketing agency or consultant.

In the last three years that market has been getting very competitive and it is becoming more clear that if you don’t advertise online you are losing customers, and so you are losing money. This is why so many new online marketing companies and agencies are starting up every week, cold calling, hiring like crazy and just shooting on all cannons.

When I speak with clients it is clear that they “heard it all”, and those who had already tried say they “wasted their money” with online marketing and lost trust in the professionals in the industry. I began to wonder how I can help rebuild that trust and help clients succeed marketing their business online while not taking all the risk.

When I ask a client to invest $1,000 in Google, its because I genuinely believe that they will get a benefit much greater than $1,000 by doing so – its in their best interest. My new year’s resolution is to take that big step and take part of the risk off a client’s shoulders. We are offering to work on your Google Adwords account for one month with no money down, and only if you are satisfied with the results you can choose to pay for that month and continue working with us, it’s that simple.

Many would call us crazy for taking such a risk with “working for free”, but we are confident with our work and the results we can get clients with online marketing. And if we were wrong, and the client is not happy and doesn’t pay – I will actually be glad we didn’t take a dollar from an unsatisfied customer.

This new idea is not to work with companies who are looking to get a free month of work, but it is for clients to know that we are a partner who is invested in their best interest (our company’s mission). This is the best way I found to do this so far: “take us for a test drive, and if your happy let’s build your business online together”.

So, for all of you who are wondering if you should try marketing your website online, this is your chance. I don’t know how long I will be able to hold this promotion up (limited by our work capacity) but contact us now to learn more and get started.

If your client came with a product/service from your competition you could easily tell if it was good or not. However, when you move outside your realm of expertise it’s much harder to differentiate between qualities because you are not as “in” that market.

Often I find prospective clients that are “happy” with results and are reluctant to try our “Free SEM strategy session”, they believe “all is peachy in the online marketing department!” However, those who gave it a try quickly found out that their results could be a lot better and they are actually losing a lot of money advertising on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Some of the things we discovered in client SEM strategy sessions are:
• Up to 5% of the budget wasted on keywords completely unrelated to their offering
• Overpaying 2-3X due to poor keyword quality scores
• Affiliates stealing their lunch (cheap converting traffic)

A free strategy session is just that “free” and there is no commitment. I honestly believe that any company can benefit from it even if they decide that our services are not for them (we offer free expert SEM tips when we uncover opportunities).

In the old days it was said that “I know 50% of my marketing dollars are being spent correctly, I just don’t know which half” – with Search Engine Marketing you have control of knowing which half and the ability to act on it immediately.

Spend your online marketing budget wisely in 2012 and make more sales online, profitably.