This isn’t “Mad Men” that cool TV show depicting ad agency life in the 1960s. So you don’t need to be Don Draper to write effective Google text ads. Instead, you just need to…

Start with the basics:

Every text ad has four elements, and each element has its very own goal (and character limit):

1. Headline: make it interesting and relevant to your prospects (up to 25 characters);
2. Benefit statement: why should prospects use your services? (up to 35 characters);
3. Call to action or key feature: convince them to act now! (up to 35 characters);
4. URL: where do you want to send prospects? Hint: don’t send them to your homepage.

For example, let’s take a look at how Google advertises its own services using text ads… since they should know what they’re doing right?

1. Google Search Advertising
2. Get Qualified Visitors to Your Site
3. Place Your Ad on Google Today!
4. www.Google.com/AdWords

1. Google Marketing
2. Online Marketing Was Never So Easy
3. Market Your Business on Google Now
4. www.Google.com/AdWords

We’ve added numbers to correspond to each text ad element (aren’t we helpful?)

See how Google marketing folks have written each of the ad elements in these text ads? That’s what you want to do. Not impressed? Trust me that each element in these ads has been carefully crafted to maximize you clicking… if you’re a prospect!

Now it’s your turn.

Here’s what to keep in mind when writing each element of your own text ads.

The all important headline

Your headline has a big job. Namely, to break through the search results clutter and grab the attention of prospects before they move on. Did I mention that you only have a split-second to do that? Clear, concise, and engaging headlines work best. And when in doubt use keywords since those reflect what your prospects are actually searching for!

Your benefits statement…  it’s not all about you (sorry!)

Everyone likes to talk about themselves. I sure do. But your customers actually care about themselves more than they do about you. Keep that in mind when writing your benefit statement. For example, why should prospects use your services? Maybe they’ll look beautiful and feel good too. Or make tons more money. How about impress their friends and family? Now those are benefits!

Give them a good reason to act now!

Congrats on getting them to notice your headline and for hitting the “me” button with your benefit statement. Now it’s time to say why you’re unique and drive them to action. How about: “Free Quote and Overnight Delivery” or “100% Organic but Supplies Limited”. You get the idea!

What about your URL?

Did you know that the URL is the second most visible element in your text ads (after your headline)? It’s true! So make sure and capitalize the first letter in each word of your URL so it’s easier to read. And if you’re sending prospect to a landing page (smart!) that has a long URL… then take advantage of the fact that Google lets you display a special shortened URL.

Some other comments and helpful stuff

Remember, you still need to find out what works best given your prospects, products, and competition! Try different headlines, benefits, and calls-to-action. And don’t be stingy in using keywords in your text ads when you can. The bottom line: just keep testing which text ads and ad elements generate the most clicks from your prospects.

Want to learn more? Here are some helpful blog posts to keep you moving down the path from novice to “Mad Man”.

Should you do SEO or paid search?

Don’t make these search engine marketing mistakes

When it comes to paid search, don’t be number one

Four basic emotions to sell anything

And don’t forget we’re here to help. Always feel free to give us a call at 888-330-3236.

Which three letters bring on sweaty palms and sleepless nights for business owners and web masters everywhere? IRS?  FBI? Good guesses, but the culprit is… SEO.

If you do it wrong or put it off, then your website will spend its days lost in the endless pages of search engine results, like a message in a bottle floating in a vast, dark ocean.

But what if you crack the code on the secret language of meta keywords, H1 tags, and inbound links? Will all the riches and glory of Page One Google Ranking await you?

Well, no.  As with most things, good SEO is less about uncovering “the secret”, and more about taking the time to understand and implement best practices… and then to keep applying them religiously over time.  (Sorry!)

This leads to the big question regarding your website’s search engine optimization… do it yourself or hire an SEO expert?

According to a recent Marketing Sherpa report, just over half of businesses manage their SEO in-house, while about 45% use an outside expert or are considering one… So whichever way you decide to go, you’ll have plenty of company!

Here are a few pointers to get your started down the path to SEO success.

If you’re going to do your own SEO…

• Learn the basics first. Invest in a couple good books on SEO.  There are lots, so find one that lays out the material in a format and style that works best for you.  Browse Amazon to see what other readers are recommending, or just head to the business section at your local bookstore and flip through what’s there.

• Subscribe to SEO information sources. Get a daily stream of advice, tips, and tricks from experts.  Check out this list of 15 good SEO blogs, or if Twitter is more your thing, follow TheSEOList, a great curated list of folks that tweet about search engine optimization.

• Don’t approach SEO as a one-off project. Instead, think of it more like going to the gym – consistent effort over time is what will bring results!  If you need more traffic right away, you should read our previous post, Should You Do SEO or Paid Search?

If you’re going to hire an SEO consultant…

• Educate yourself on what you’ll be paying for. This article from Search Engine Journal, What’s My SEO Charging Me For?, is a great place to start.

• Ask (smart) colleagues for referrals. Part of an SEO consultant’s job is to understand your business and customers, so finding someone who has worked with businesses like yours before can really help get things moving quickly.

• Remember there are no SEO guarantees. Be wary of any consultants making claims that guarantee you a specific ranking or position. Search engines are complex, the algorithms are nuanced, and results take time. Reputable SEO practitioners will happily agree to goals and measurable milestones, and factor these into your billing and payment terms.

And in either case…

Don’t worry about every possible tweak you could make – just start with the basics and you’ll be well on your way. So wipe off those palms, get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll see you on Google’s Page One!

(P.S.  We’re here to help… so feel free to give us a call at 888-330-3236)

What? I’m being charged $6.65 per click! I don’t understand what happened (I really didn’t) with my search marketing program. I only knew that my credit card showed I’d been charged $665 for a marketing program that I thought would cost me $150. Yikes!

So what happened here? First some background…

When advertising on search engines (yes, there are more choices than Google) you’ll be buying advertising space on a “pay-for-performance” basis. This means you only pay if someone clicks on your ad when it shows up in search results you care about. Pay per click. Sounds pretty good right?

Totally is… but buyers beware! You need to know what you’re doing AND keep a close eye on your advertising campaign as things can move really fast. Why? Because you’re competing against many other advertisers that also want their ads to show up in those same search results.

So what you pay for those clicks can be pretty volatile (translation: get expensive fast!) And the best way to manage your ad campaign pricing is to first decide on the key elements of your bidding strategy:

• Maximum bid price: What’s the most you’re willing to pay (or bid) to have your ad show up when someone types in your target keyword phrase? The higher your maximum bid the more often your ad will show up in relevant search results. But the more you’ll pay per click!

• Average bid range: What are others (your competitors) bidding? Most search engines will show you the average range that other advertisers are willing to pay. This gives you a sense of how expensive those clicks are going to be.

• Daily cap: This is the most you want (or are able) to spend on a daily basis for advertising. If you set your daily cap at, say, $50, then your ad will keep showing until you’ve generated $50 of clicks for that day. No more.

Now back to our story…

I’d set my maximum bid price at $6.65 even though the average bid range was $0.73 to $1.54. I figured this assured me the top positions for my target keywords (resulting in lots of clicks) and would only be hit if pricing was really bid up. But I wasn’t too worried about that since the average bid range was much lower.

To protect my pocketbook, I set my daily cap at $25 so there was no way I could accidentally pay for more than $25 worth of clicks on any given day.

And then I got really busy… with clients, life, cool and fun stuff. You name it and I was busy doing it. Plus I was happy seeing lots of quality clicks coming from my search marketing campaign. Two weeks later I decided to check my credit card and… well you already know the rest of the story. = (

What mistakes did I make with my search engine marketing program?

• Setting the maximum bid (way) too high. You should set your maximum bid at the most you’d truly be okay paying. In this case, I should have set my max bid at $1.50 given the number and quality of clicks I was looking for.

• Assuming the average click range reflected the highest bids. Remember that the average bid range is just that… average! There will be lots of advertisers that are willing to pay (much) more than the average to get their ads seen the most.

• Not keeping a close eye on the search campaign. You need to check back often (daily or multiple times a day for new campaigns) to see how your ad campaign is doing and make adjustments accordingly. You can always increase your maximum bid if you need more clicks or if the quality of the clicks is better than expected.

• Having a daily cap that was too high. You should set a low daily cap to begin with and then increase it over time as you get a sense of the trade-off between the number of clicks and the price per click (PPC). But always use a daily (or weekly) cap as things can change quickly… and trust me, my surprise would have been much worse if I didn’t have a $25 daily cap in place!

• Not first testing and learning what works best. Sometimes it’s best to start with a low maximum bid and then move up as you better understand the quality and volume of clicks you’re getting. In other cases, it may make sense to start with a high maximum bid to get in front of lots of prospects to see if your ad performs well. You can then lower your max bid over time. The important lesson? Test, test, and test!

Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes… so that my “out of pocket” investment ends up being your marketing gain.

Stay tuned as I’m sure I’ll be making plenty more mistakes that you can learn from… = )

I must confess… I didn’t (gasp!) do keyword research before writing the copy for our website. And the truth is I should have. But better late than never. So let’s pretend we’re writing our website content today (maybe you are)… and then take it from there!

First of all, why is keyword research so important?

Search engines (i.e., Google) are the number one way that people find your website. Your job is to make it easy for them. There’s much you need to do to make this happen… but it begins with figuring out what words and phrases (keywords) your prospects use when searching the Internet for what you sell. Then you need to make sure your website content includes those keywords. Do it right… and your website shows up in your prospects search results!

Here’s how to get started:

1.  It’s all about your target customers. You really need to understand who they are, what they’re looking for, and why they’d buy from you in particular.

2.  Think about what keywords they’ll use when searching on Google for your products and services. (If you already have customers… ask them!)

3.  Then make a big list of all the keywords you come up with.

4.  Add qualifying terms to your keywords that help better define your market… such as your product features and business location.

5.  Boil your list down to the keyword phrases you’re going to use with your website content. These phrases should best reflect your product offering and be search terms your prospects will use often.

6.  Now write (or update!) your website copy with these keyword phrases in mind.

Simple enough?

For example, let’s say you have an Italian restaurant located in Long Island, NY. You want keywords that target customers will use to find your restaurant. The keyword “restaurants” isn’t specific enough. Maybe: “Italian restaurants”? Better for sure. But we need some qualifying terms to make it even more specific. How about “Italian pizza restaurants” or “Italian restaurants on long island”? Now we’re talking! Just include these keyword phrases as often as you can in your website content.

You should target 5 to 10 keyword phrases depending on how many products or services you sell, and the different types of customers you serve. Have lots of products and services? Then you’ll need more keyword phrases.

The good news is there are free tools to help:

• Google’s keyword tool makes it easy to come up with hundreds of keyword phrases to consider. Plus it’ll show you the number of monthly searches for each phrase.

• Wordtracker is another good keyword tool for generating ideas. And it will also show you the popularity of each keyword suggestion.

• Google Analytics is free web analytics software that gives in-depth data on your website traffic… including which keywords send visitors to your site!

Now it’s time for a few cautionary comments (sorry!)

Spicing up your content with good keyword phrases will make it easier for prospects to find you… and also make generic website copy more specific and interesting. But don’t go overboard. Remember, it’s all about making your website helpful and informative for your target customers… not about stuffing your pages with keywords for the search engines. (see our related post)

And the process of keyword research never stops. You need to keep an eye on what keywords are driving the most traffic to your website… since your prospects are changing how they search all the time!

Don’t forget to keep your keyword phrases handy. You’ll not only reference them for your website copy but also for your online advertising campaigns, social media efforts… and even your offline advertising (which also influences what people type into a search box).

Let’s get started with your keyword research!

Btw, did you notice the keyword phrases I’m using for this blog post? Let us know which keywords you used to get here. Thanks!

I’ve got a riddle for you. What type of online advertising is free, will establish you as an expert, and can improve your website’s popularity with search engines… all while making it easy for others to drive traffic to your website. The answer: article marketing. So why aren’t you doing it? You should be!

What exactly is article marketing? It’s simple. You write an article and then submit it to article directories, websites, and blogs that are looking for quality content. They post your article, including your bio and a link to your website… and then good things start to happen!

How to get started?

• Write about what you know. Make writing easy. Write about topics that you’re interested in and have plenty to say about. Just make sure your articles are related to your business or industry. That way when readers check out your website they’ll know they’ve come to the right place. And no selling please! Your articles are for educating and informing with your reader’s interests in mind. So when writing articles, think coach and teacher… not salesman.

• Keep it keyword rich. You want to make it easy for the search engines to find your article. No surprise right? Make sure your article title includes keywords you care about. It’s also a good idea to sprinkle keywords into the article text… but always remember it’s about engaging your readers not over-stuffing keywords.

• Have a compelling article title. The headline of your article is the only thing that most people read. So make it compelling. That way they’ll have no choice but to read on. How do you do that? Make your article title provocative. Try writing it in the form of a question that draws readers in. Or phrase it as if you’re going to let them in on a little known secret. You get the idea!

• Write articles often. Get in the habit of writing lots of articles. Volume counts… as one or two won’t do. That’s why it’s so important to write about what you know and like. Look for ideas in your favorite magazines and blogs. And from conversations with your prospects and customers. The good news is that your articles don’t need to be long. Figure 300 to 600 words. But you do need to write at least two articles a month (or more!)

• Don’t forget your bio. Besides your article title, your bio is the most important part of your article. Why? Because it’s where you get to brand yourself and include your website’s URL. This is where the selling happens so definitely add a few sentences about you and your company. The goal here is to get prospects to read about you and visit your website.

When you’re ready… start with publishing to the article directories. It’s easy and free. Go ahead and submit to all the top article directories such as: EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, Buzzle.com, SearchWarp, GoArticles, and IdeaMarketers.  Just search “article directories” to find more.

And keep a look out for blogs and websites in your industry that want guest authors (you can be one!) Having your article show up in a popular blog can mean thousands of dollars of exposure for your business.

Happy article writing!