In our last post we talked about how to increase conversions from our PPC campaigns, in today’s post we shall talk a little about how to increase the click through rate because without many clicks it’s natural that you cannot get many conversions.

Here are the tips below:

1.      Laser targeted Vs. General keywords

Although a keyword like “web design” can get a great traffic, targeted keywords are definitely the way to go while they can get way more conversions. So in our case, bidding on keywords like “cheap web designers from London” can definitely bring more clicks/conversions than the general “web design”.

2.      How much does it cost?

If you know you are the cheapest service/product provide in your niche you can definitely include it in your ad copy. On the other hand, higher prices will bring less clicks and conversions.

3.      Keywords in title/body

We all know that Google bolds the keywords when appearing in search results so using those very keywords in the ad copy will make them get more clicks.

4.      Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

Seasonal headlines always attract clicks while most of the times they mean discounts/sales. Using titles like “Christmas web design sales” or something alike usually work best. Each and every holiday should be targeted!

5.      Use only relevant keywords!

There are many negative keywords that you can use to remove those unwanted clicks but also you should use only strictly related keywords to the product/service you sell. Again, more emphasis on long tail keywords!

Pay Per Click programmes can bring you lots of new clients but also can empty your wallets with zero conversions . Many folks optimise their ads for getting more clicks, but what about conversion rates?

Here are some tips regarding how to improve conversion rates in your PPC campaign:

1.      Ad copy and headline

How many times have you searched for let’s say “Toyota headlights” and instead of getting relevant results from AdWords campaigns you get ads like “cheap headlights”, “discounted headlights” and so on? Most of the times they are somehow related to your query but not exactly what you were searching for. Ads like that do not generate clicks, or conversions.

2.       Landing pages

Landing pages are vital for conversions. It is not enough to use the perfect ad in your campaign if your landing page does not sell at all your product/service. Along the fact that your landing page should contain title related to the query and the price (recent studies revealed that “visible” prices contribute to higher conversions), your page should be very user friendly and also contain a call to action.

3.      Do not underestimate the power of Google Analytics

Always try to keep a look on the long tail keywords and on the ratio expenses/income. If you have a keyword that brings let’s say 200 visitors but only 2 bought your product than something is wrong and you are only losing money instead of earning. Always be sure to track long tail keywords and add others when you discover ones.

In our next blog post we will talk about different ways in which you can increase your click-through-rate for your PPC campaigns.

We all know how important keyword research is before launching a new website in a certain niche. However one of the most forgotten places to look for goldmine keywords is competition. Finding out what related keywords they are using to dominate search engines and get sales can really be a good start for any business owner.

There are many paid tools out there, however if you are just starting out in the online environment and want to find some free tools to help you here are some ideas below:

1.      Compete.com

Compete is a great tool. Not only that you can get some insights from your competitor’s website but also you can do a “competitor1 vs. competitor2 vs. competitor3” analysis, again, free of charge. You will find out not all keywords that bring them traffic but some of the best one you could use in your strategy.

2.      OpenSiteExplorer.org

One of the best features of this tool is that you can actually see a competitor’s anchor text distribution, and this can only mean one thing: they are trying to rank for that keyword (maybe already ranking) and it is a keyword that can bring traffic and sales as well. Very powerful tool! One word of advice: if you cannot afford to go with a pro membership at least register to that website and you will get access to more interesting metrics.

3.      Keywordspy.com

Another awesome tool that is not revealing  only organic keywords but also  keywords your competitor is bidding on when doing PPC+some variations of their AdWords ads. Great tool!

There are many others available out there like Alexa or even Google AdWords Keyword Tool, the most important thing to consider is to actually use more than one tool and compare the results to get the best out of these free tools.

One of the most important steps when starting an SEO campaign is definitely keyword research – this step is quite complex, lengthy and resource intensive, but if done properly could mean a great advantage over your competition.

Most SEO’s are doing keyword research to obtain high rankings in Google, however this is also a must to obtain conversions for a site, from sales to inquiries and even feeds subscriptions. Of course, the satisfaction of obtaining first position in Google for a tough word is great, especially when you are victorious over competitors with authority and massive numbers of backlinks, but are those keywords really getting you any sales?

Things to be aware of when starting your keyword research:

- General keywords (those really difficult to be conquered) have many searches but may not translate into  sales (compare “web design” with “affordable website design firm” for example)

- General keywords have tough competition

- General keywords have only 30% searches in search engines while the other 70% go to…you’ve guessed, long tail keywords

So number one rule is to concentrate on identifying those keywords that combine traffic potential, low-medium competition and conversions. Here is how you should choose your keywords based on those keywords:

-          Check potential traffic with one of the most reliable tools available (and free) – Google Adwords Keyword Tool

-          Group keywords into sets to generate long tail keywords (general keywords+keywords modifiers)

-          See their conversion potential by looking on how many ads are generated on a Google query

-          Check competition based on top 10 results, PR, backlinks etc

-          Check competitions’ level of optimisation with queries like allinanchor:, allintitle: etc

Once you have done all the steps above you should find some really gold keywords, keywords that are not only to rank high in Google but they have also a great conversion potential.

Many website owners are trying to add to their portfolio new keywords that they think might improve online presence/sales/etc, but what about the keywords they are already ranking for and that can also be improved for greater visibility?

This data can be easily extracted by using two free website analytics programs: Awstats and Google Webmaster Tools. How can you use this data? It is quite simple: check the keywords you already rank for, use Keyword Tool to see search volumes, pick the ones that could bring you more traffic and start promoting them.

For Awstats, you should go to the bottom of the page, you will see a “Search Keyphrases – Top 10”, but that is not enough, we want to see more keywords already bringing in traffic, so click on “Full List” and there you go, you will probably end up seeing thousands of keywords already helping your website gain traffic.

On the other hand, Google Webmaster Tools come with some better analytics regarding this issue, while it also reveals your top landing pages. Just head to Google Webmaster Tools (if you have not installed it yet, do it), click on “Your site on the web” – “Search Queries” – “Top Pages”. This will reveal the top landing pages from your website along with impressions, CTR, average position in search engines and changes in SERPs. However, by clicking on each page’s “+” Google will reveal which keywords are top performers for each of your top landing pages, and that is like finding a goldmine.

Use this data carefully and try to benefit the most out of your top pages and top performing keywords.

A large number of webmasters/companies have a major goal: to rank their blog’s homepage on the first page for the desired keywords. However, blog posts have a lot of potential of bringing a lot of traffic if they rank high in the SERPs and this is not a hard task, not at all.

First and foremost, before creating a new blog post it is necessary to do a proper keyword research, see what people are searching for related to your niche and try to acquire with each post you make a small piece of the users searching for that exact term. Also, when doing the keyword research keep in mind that competition should be also checked for those very terms.

But how to properly do this? We all love examples, so let’s pick a niche at random, for example, rugs. So you have a company selling rugs, from Persian to traditional ones, with a blog that gets updates constantly. But how to create a new post that can attract some really targeted traffic? Let’s choose the keyword “traditional rugs”, it will be 100% impossible by just creating a super optimised blog post to rank for that term. Do a search for “traditional rugs”. Again, there are almost 400,000 pages competing for that term. This is where Google’s “related searches” comes into the spotlight.

Expand the “more search tools” tab and then click on “related searches”. You will notice different terms like “contemporary rugs”, “floral rugs” , “red traditional rugs” and so on. We will concentrate a little on “red traditional rugs” while it includes our major keyword. Click on it and then on “more like this”. Voila! Google reveals what other phrases users are searching online and the “red traditional rugs 67cm x” seems quite interesting. Only ~1,400 results!
The next steps are easy. Create a blog post with the keyword in the title, description and content and ranking for it should be guaranteed. What you want to do more of is to build a couple of links to that page, the easiest way of doing it is by article marketing, targeting that exact long tail keyword.

This will not bring you an instant flood of traffic, not at all, but if you keep writing the blog post that target different long-tail keywords like this, with low competition, in time you should see some visible difference in traffic and in sales, while most traffic will be targeted to the products you sell.

This method works. Whether you promote rugs, sewing machines or website design services, all it matters is the content you put up on your blog, how optimised it is and what competition the keywords you are after have to face.