How to Do a Google Adwords Campaign (PPC)

Hello friends..,

In my previous post we discussed about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) under that I have described about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and by this post I'm going to discuss about the second point of SEM, is Pay Per Click (PPC).

I hope you all are aware about what is PPC and here is an example where a PPC ad can see

figure 1

PPC advertisement use many more companies to promote their website by showing their website link  on the top of the search result. The payment will be made if a visitor click on their advertisement so that the advertisements should be  visible to the right set of people in right time at the same time we should make sure the ad is shown to all the target people at the same time. If not it would be wast time and valuable resources.

So it's sounds like not an easy task but Google have provided all the needed tools to analyse and set your advertisement effectively so we should just have a understanding how to use these tools and do a Google Advert Campaign.

As for an example, If I have a online laptop selling website in Sri Lanka so that I want to promote my website through Google and we have to do a Google advert campaign.

In this case I'm going to show you how to do a Google advert campaign step by step,

1st step

Identify the target group,

• People who are in Sri Lanka
• People who are searching to buy Laptops
• People who are searching for information about laptops
• People who are looking nearest place to buy a laptop

2nd step

Identify most popular keywords using those people to search about laptops.

Keywords means the words people usually use to type on the search engine to find something they want. For an example in (figure 1) I've used the search term "hotels in galle" that is a key word that some people use to find hotels in Galle.

We can find those popular keywords using Google AdWords

Go to Google AdWords

• In here type the word or phrase that you want to find of " Laptops in Sri Lanka, buy laptop"
• Select the category as Laptop computers
• Then select the language and country
• In advanced search options, give location as Sri Lanka and language as English
• Search
• Then you will have a list of results and filter it as most local monthly searches because we are targeting on local searchers

• As you can see Google has provided most relevant search terms as we gave and their monthly usage so we can choose most preferred search terms by ticking them  (you can see your selected keywords in left side bottom)
• Then go to tab download, My keywords ideas, save for excel (Your keywords will download as a Excel file)

3rd step

Make the campain

• Go to tab Campaings
• New campaign
• Select the type: Search and Display Network - Stranded
• Give the campaign name, Default bid and budget (how much you are suppose to spend for day, depend on your campaign)
• Continue

• Then you have to name the ad group and create the ad. I've post this video to get a good idea about Account, Campaign, ad group and ad

• After making the ad you have to give the keywords to optimize your advertisement to relevant ordinance. 
• For that you have a box at the bottom of the page so now you can copy and past the words that you downloaded to the excel file

Then,

• Save and continue to bulling.

Your ad will be activated after you confirm the billing method and if your daily budget exceeded the ad will automatically will turn off for the day.

Try Google AdWords 

Good luck....!!!

Search Engine Optimization

Simply we called this as SEO. SEO is belongs to Search Engine Marketing so firstly we should get an idea of all these jargons.

1st What is a Search engine....??

A web search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to assearch engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a specialist in web pages, images, information and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databasesor open directories. Unlike web directories, which are maintained only by human editors, search engines also maintain real-time information by running an algorithm on a web crawler.

(Wikipedia)

                      Ex:

www.google.com

2nd What is Search Engine Marketing..?? (SEM)

SEM involves with the promotion of websites through the search engines by making more visible of your website in search engine results. So it means,

Through optimization and advertising SEM may use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is use to make the website content to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results also use Pay Per Click (PPC) to make your results on the top of your results

So there are two ways of Search Engine Marketing,

1. SEO
2. PPC

So which one is most prefer to use..??

In this search result red circled results are the PPC which the advertiser has pay for show that advertisement relate to that search term and the brown circled results are generate by the google and those top results are due to the result of search engine optimization (SEO).

We can use PPC advertising to make more traffic within a little time to your website and it is short term strategy at the same time SEO is taking 2 or 3 month to fully optimize as you want so the important thing from both of them is, most of people click on the google self generated results which are brown circled results than paid advertisements. so it is most important to optimize your search engine than paying for PPCs 

So

How to do SEO....??

Here are some factors effecting and things you should know when optimization your website for search engine results (SEO)

1.) Website should be accessible/ crawlability

It means your website should be accessible to any visitor and should be minimum restriction for users. You can find about how your website is accessible by typing this on your address bar " site:your website"

2.) Avoid dynamic URLs

Simply don't use long URL address on your website and it would be hard to find your website crawlability will be minimize 

3.) Key word research

You should identify the optimized key words to use in your website which would be more helpful to find your website for many people I'll show you how to find optimum key words which suitable for your website in next blog post

4.) Use image and videos

when using images tag their name with that picture and it would be helpful to some one to find you through picture search also videos are more helpful to optimize your search because search engine try to give you website, picture and video results in same time in a one search result

5.) Content building and formatting

Types of content you can add to your website

• Product categories/ descriptions
• Blogs
• Educational articals
• Press rooms
• Customer reviews
• Integrated youtube channels
• Survey/ research findings

By using those kind of content you can connect your website to more links if you connect through more links it would be more easy to find your website for a search engine.

CU soon.....

Website Usability Checklist

Website usability

Hello friends..,

What is meant by website usability..? Simply it is describe about how convenient a visitor can collect information or make transaction through your website and how he satisfy with all over the interface of your website and it's performance.

Here I show you website usability check list which have 25 points

Download PDF here

This each point has it's own meaning and I will going to describe you each of every one using an example so I'm going to use ebay website as my example,

Screenshot of ebay

ebay is a commercial website facilitating buyers and sellers who are from all over the world to meet in one place (a virtual market). There are various products in that market and they have been categorized in 35 fields also there are used and brand new item auctions available.

Accessibility

1.) Site load‐time is reasonable

It's take little time to load the full page because they use lot of pictures flash slide shows in their main page and also page load time depend on your connection speed. so I can rate this as in fair level

2.) Adequate text‐to‐back ground contrast

In ebay they use gray font in white back ground and it gives a soft view to the visitor. but with a person who is in week of his vision, might have to put more effort to read














3.) . Font size/spacing is easy to read

Headings are in slightly big font also some important text are highlighted and have use big fonts also some colors used to make easy to read

4.) Flash & add‐ons are used sparingly

Flash is not used in inside pages also add-ons are not used because all the products in that site is their own buyers and sellers mostly photos have been used to preview their products and services.

5.) Images have appropriate ALT tags
Every picture they used not tagged but every picture has a link to particular item in the website and it appear when we take the mouse point on that picture

6.) Site has custom not‐found/404 page
Yes of-course

Identity

7.) Company logo is prominently placed


Yes they use a colorful logo and it placed left upper corner of each page and it is very clearly shown to any one

8.) Tagline makes company’s purpose clear
Well, ebay has not used a good tagline but they say "shop by category" with their logo and it would help any one to get an idea what really happence here

9.) Home‐page is digestible in 5 seconds
Yes of-course

10.) Clear path to company information
Actually there no company information provided in this website buy you can find all the information by logging to ebay inc.

11.) Clear path to contact information
Yes they have provide customer support tab in upper left corner and a resolution center under that and any one can any time contact them

Navigation

12.) Main navigation is easily identifiable

As you can see the red circulars are the main navigation in ebay. there are categories which you might want to search of and also a search box is provided and your personal account handlings are provided in right upper tab set.

13.) Navigation labels are clear & concise
Yes all navigation labels are clear and in proper order

14.) Number of buttons/links is reasonable
Yes, in every tab there is sub categories and all are links to each deal and also the pictures shown by every seller is a link to their products.

15.)  Company logo is linked to home‐page
Yes in any page if you click on the logo, it will direct you directly to the home page

16.) Links are consistent & easy to identify
Yes, all the links are properly categorized so that it is easier to find any link and most of picture links are giving you details about that link when your mouse point gets near to that

17.) Site search is easy to access
Yes, at the very first begining of the home page there is a big search box which you can search any good or service in the site

Content

18.) Major headings are clear & descriptive

Yes, ebay team has consider much about giving all the details clear and confidently so they use side to side tabs to provide specific details of products. In here Description and Shipping and payments are examples






19.) Critical content is above the “fold”
We can be subscribers of special products that we love so when we logged, the daily deals of the products we love will be appear first. also special offers are shown in the home page wall paper

20.)  Styles & colors are consistent
Yes, in every page is used the same them which used in the home page and logo button is in the same place in every page

21.) Emphasis (bold, etc.) is used sparingly
well it's not much used they only bold titles and prices which is necessary and used different color fonts to emphasis product model details in first view

22.) Ads & pop‐ups are unobtrusive
No they have not used ads and pop-ups

23.) Main copy is consise & explanatory
Of course, when you have a glimpse of the home page, you could see that this page is all about best deals in available

24.) URLs are meaningful & user‐friendly

Yes the URL is also the same name of the website www.ebay.com

25.) HTML page titles are explanatory

Page title should be descriptive, unique and appropriative number of keywords for the visitors to search. In this case if you right click on the page and click on page sourse you could see the title tags as the name of Key Words "ebay, electronics, cars, clothing, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods, digital cameras, antiques, tickets, jewelry, online shopping, auction, online auction" so it is much more descriptive to track any search engine

So as my opinion Ebay is an exemplary website to observe when developing an effective website which is worlds' leading website in traffic sources and daily income level.