Thinking about building a commercial web site? Who isn’t? Everybody has dreams of becoming the next Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and rich guy. But the fact is, 6,000 new sites are launched each day. So what are the chances your little “hand-knit sweater emporium” is going to be discovered?
Your web site is an atom in the W3 universe, and unless you advertise, creating signposts pointing visitors to your URL, no on is going to find you. There are plenty of ways to advertise – hosted content, paid advertising, guerrilla marketing, employing social media to drive traffic to your microscopic spec of digital real estate. All used with varying degrees of success.
However, one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your site is pay-per-click advertising, like Google’s AdWords program. You see “Ads by Google” cubes on Google’s SERPs and web pages. You probably see them in your sleep! Why? Because PPC works. AdWords works. But where do you start?
SpyFu: Making the Most of AdWords
Site owners bid for placement using AdWords. The higher the bid, the better the placement on SERPs. Highest bidder appears at the top of the pile. Lower bidders on the same keywords may appear on page two or three of SERPs, therefore seen by fewer search engine users.
So, what are the advantages of PPC click programs like AdWords? There are plenty:
• you only pay when your cube is clicked (pay for play)
• you determine where your ads will appear – on sites that are visited by the very people you’re trying to reach
• you can define where you DON”T want AdWords to appear, like competitor sites
• you determine the cost per click
• you set the budget
• you schedule when your AdWords appear so you don’t keep getting the same eyeballs eyeballing your AdWords. New readers = new visitors
SpyFu: AdWords POW!
You’re going to be spending money every time a web user clicks on one of your PPC ads. So, naturally, you want to place those cubes where they’ll do the most good and be seen by your target market – the sweet spot of your demographic.
Applications, like SpyFu, deliver empirical data based on keywords, ideal for niche sites like that sweater emporium. SpyFu tells you what your competitors are paying for their AdWords, giving you a bidding range that makes budget sense for your e-biz..
Monitoring the effectiveness of certain keywords in terms of cost per acquisition (CPA) helps you refine a keyword list that delivers more highly-qualified buyers rather than browsers who just cost you $1.80 for a five-second glimpse of your home page.
Using AdWords, you set a daily spending limit. Good idea. SpyFu will develop metrics to determine if you should up your PPC budget and by how much. Just look at what successful competitors are doing using SpyFu and emulate their successful strategies. Life gets easier.
Track AdWords performance by keywords, site placement, sales, time spent on site, repeat visitors and other key metrics that identify hot prospects. SpyFu shows you exactly what’s working and what isn’t for your competition. Who you going to follow?
Placement on Google’s SERPs is essential to delivering quality results. The higher up the skyscraper your AdWords appears the better. And, of course, getting placement on page one of SERPs is better than page two or three. SpyFu tells you exactly what it’ll cost for placement on SERPs.
Contextual placement on sites is also critical to improving traffic through your digital doors. If you know which sites are delivering the most traffic, naturally you’ll want to place your AdWords on those sites with greater frequency, right? Conversely, if a site isn’t pulling, then you pull it from your campaign and reconsider the use of that keyword.
Intelligence Collection Intelligently
Sure, you could spend a few months dong multi-variant AdWords testing and in the process lose a lot of money and those few months. Here’s the deal.
Building and managing an on-line business is 100% front-loaded on costs. It’s all outgo with no income as you write a check to the site designer, the copywriter, the SEO pro and AdWords guru. Your window of opportunity shrinks quickly in the on-line realm.
But you can hit the ground running and start seeing income faster, and growing at a faster rate, simply by gathering market intelligence intelligently, and then using that mined data to your advantage.
Web success isn’t rocket science, but it does require precision when it comes to marketing. PPC is one of the most effective tools an established site in a competitive slot has, and for start-ups, PPC offers the biggest bang-buck return.
It starts with good intelligence and astute analysis. Hire your own covert op. That’s what you get with SpyFu.
Posted by webwordslinger 
