Gallic and Merwin’s Blog

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is based on the concept you bid on keywords and you pay only when people click on your website using the keyword. This is considered the most cost-effective form of advertising. On the surface this idea makes sense. But does it? Despite the hype, I believe PPC doesn’t work for most people. Here’s why.

Let’s check the numbers. The conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the number of clicks. The average conversion rate for most websites is between .5% and 1%. So let’s take .75% as our conversion rate. This means that you need approximately 133 visitors per sale. Most PPC companies charge a minimum bid of 10 cents per keyword. To be seen more often you must pay a higher amount.

So let’s take 15 cents as our average bid. You also have to take click fraud into account. According, to Click Forensics, an Austin, Texas-based click-fraud auditing firm, found that the click fraud rate for search engine ad networks alone, including Google AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network, is a whopping 28.3 percent. According to this data, nearly one out of every three clicks on a Google or Yahoo ad is fraudulent!

Search engines, like Yahoo! And Google, underestimate click fraud for obvious reasons. People want to avoid anything with high fraud attached to it. Also, admitting fraud means less money comes in from new customers and more money paid to current and past defrauded customers.

Now let’s do the math to determine if PPC is right for you. Let’s say that 1,000 visitors click on your site. Here’s the formula:

Whether the clicks are fraudulent or not, you still have to pay for them. Therefore, if you get 5.4 conversions per $150 in pay per click advertising ($150/5.4 conversions), this means that you have to make approximately $28 profit per sale to justify your PPC spending. This means that if you’re selling something for $20, PPC is not for you. If you’re selling something for $50 but it costs you $35 to make it, PPC is not for you. PPC only works if you can make a high profit per sale.

Based on these calculations, if you want to make PPC worth it, you have to either raise your conversion rate (which will increase the number of conversions) or lower your bid per click. The number of clicks is irrelevant. We are often told that using better, more defined keywords helps. This is debatable because most clickers won’t buy from you right away.

When you read articles, magazines and websites it is almost universally professed that PPC advertising is the most cost-effective form of advertising. It makes perfectly logical sense. But upon further review, they don’t take into account conversion rates and click fraud. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or not, but I do know that you must take these two things into account. Even if your website looks and is great, most clickers won’t buy from you right away, anyway. So, when you consider that on average 28% of your advertising dollars are wasted due to fraud and that over 99% of your remaining 72% of your advertising dollars leads to no sales, this means that whatever sales you make have to count! And if the ones that buy don’t make you a significant profit, then PPC advertising is not cost-effective for you. And for most, this is true.

Anthony Quiñones is the author of BRAND IT … And Make It So!: 30 Keys To Turn Your Idea Into A Powerful Brand. He is currently writing his second book to be published later this year. He will write a third book to be published in early 2009. Anthony has been featured in publications and he has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows and has written monthly columns for various websites. For more information, visit http://www.branditandmakeitso.com

SEO is a huge component most successful webmasters focus on to ensure quality & targeted traffic to their websites, as well as making sure it remains consistent. It is important to realize, although a large amount of traffic to a website can be pleasing, there could be a negative spin attached to that total. Performing the best SEO practices to ensure more targeted visitors to your web pages is essential. Discover 4 informative facts designed to guarantee the desired targeted traffic you are looking for effortlessly.

1. Traffic - search engine optimization was developed to increase traffic generated by a website. Sites are built to be viewed by people surfing the internet and search engines are crucial in helping webmasters achieve this goal, so their power should be taken very seriously. It is a key building block to a successful presence on the internet.

Side note: 90% of all internet users utilize Google, MSN, & Yahoo and other companies to help them in their online activities. Google is the primary company used and they generate 70% of all search-related online activity.

2. Target Audience - performing targeted searches is one of the most effective online marketing strategies. It is not like other internet marketing techniques, which can fall short of targeting the right audience. They divide the market and funnel the right people to a specified product, service, story or any other specific content. People look for topics they have interest in and this is the power demonstrated by connecting markets together making it important to anybody who wants to make a mark online.

3. Behavior - they are no different than people, they prefer sites that contain quality information about the topic specific to what individuals are looking for. The top sites usually appear on the first page because they are popular among the people as well as the search engines. Being first on a page is a greater accomplishment to shoot for.

4. Cost Effectiveness - it does take more than enough knowledge to really use the full potential it can give anyone looking to expand their internet presence. It is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve and because of this, most people choose outsourcing it to the experts. Hiring a company or consultant can be risky because pricing and quality of service should be carefully determined before agreeing to any deal.

By keeping all this in mind should help you focus on what is important to your internet business survival. You are looking for traffic, but it must be targeted traffic to ensure the people visiting your web pages are interested in your content and what you are offering. Whether you decide to pay outside consultants to service your needs, perform free well-known gradual tactics yourself, or purchase some very effective and low cost software currently on the market, it is a crucial staple to your success online. Review the 4 facts above and start performing the best SEO practices to guarantee the results you have been hoping for.

Discover 4 Good Reasons Why Attracting Organic Search Engine Traffic Makes Increasing Sales As Easy As Shooting Fish In A Barrel! http://bestseopractices.googlepages.com - Get a popular SEO free report while you are there.

Best SEO Practices

(c) Copyright - Jimmy Adames. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

It is very common for the Webmasters to mix up the real differences between Google Page Rank and Search Engine Result Position (SERP). Also known as the Search Engine Result Page, SERP is the main algorithm for web pages ranking. The most common misconception is that the PageRank is directly equivalent to the search rankings. This is not the case. This article discusses the real definition of both terms and clarify some common misconceptions.

A main difference between Page Rank and SERP is the frequency of update. As stated by the Google Engineer, Matt Cutts, Google updates Page Rank approximately once every three months. The updated Page Rank is shown on the Google tool bar. However, Google uses the latest Page Rank value of every page when calculating rankings for search queries. Therefore, Page Rank is only one of the many factors that were included in the SERP algorithm.

Other than Page Rank, SERP also includes other important factors such as content relevancy and freshness when it comes to ranking of a page. Keywords in domain names also contribute to the rankings. Hence, having a high Page Rank does not guarantee a good SERP. In fact, it is very common for a page that bears Page Rank of 4 to receive no search engine traffic.

It is also important to understand how Page Rank is calculated since it affects the SERP. The only factor that determines the Page Rank value is the inbound links. Inbound links are incoming links that point to a page. These links are extremely valuable especially if they contain relevant content. A page will have high Page Rank if it has a good amount of high quality links pointing to it.

Although Page Rank is only part of the main SERP algorithm, it is important to also attract quality inbound links so as to achieve a good SERP. In Google’s perspective, the more the high quality inbound links a page has, the more important is that page. Having a low Page Rank will make achieving a good ranking difficult especially when the competition is strong (ranking for highly competitive keywords).

To conclude, Page Rank is only part of the whole SERP algorithm. Webmasters should always aim for a high Search Engine Result Position (SERP) rather than Page Rank. A good SERP will receive good traffic from search engine as long as the targeted keywords are commonly searched.

KC TAN is a SEO consultant with several years of related experiences. His advice has helped several Webmasters to increase their SERP. KC owns the popular CSS Layout site and the high traffic free SEO Tools. KC also has a make money on the Internet blog.

I came across the term “Search Engine Optimization” about a year ago when I was trying to help a friend of mine manage some of his websites. His website administrator at the time was a sort of genius in the field of SEO, so I started to ask questions and got a quick lesson getting me started in the learning process of building a SEO website. In this intro article I am going to explain SEO, and give you a few starter tips that I think will help you begin to get placement in the search engines.

1. What is SEO, and how does it work - Search engine optimization is the process of adjusting you website to get the attention on the major search engines such as Google, yahoo, and MSN. The search engines crawlers look at the content of every website and sort them for most important to least important.

2. NO NOT BUILD A FULL FLASH WEBSITE! The search engines cannot read flash, so in order to even stand a chance you have to have html in your website. Top three forms for your website in my personal opinion are html, php, and Coldfusion. The search engines can easily see all of these three programming codes. I’m not saying you can’t have any flash, I am just saying make sure that the majority of your site is in html, php, or Coldfusion.

3. Page Title - You page title is one of the most powerful items on your website and usually the most over looked. Most people will put in the title “Welcome to website.com” and that is it. You need to find out the key search terms for your website and fill your website and title with those keywords.

EXAMPLE: “Buy Computer Parts: Computer Parts store, Laptops, Desktop Pc’s” This is a SEO Friendly website with it’s top 4 search terms in the title.

4. Keywords - Finding the most searched keywords is not as hard as you would think. Yahoo has a free keyword tool at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ . This tool allows you to put in a keyword and it will give you a list in order of all the top search terms under that keyword, and how many times they have been searched last month. This is a valuable tool because you can see which keywords are going to bring traffic to your site. It only shows you how many times the search term was looked at in Yahoo, so I multiply it by 3, so that I get a round figure with Google and MSN included, so it the tool say 1500 in the last month I estimate 4500 for all 3 search engines. This a tool you will use often while doing your SEO research for your website.

5. Use both high traffic and broad search terms - when picking you search terms you can pick a few of the high traffic search terms, but also be sure to look and broad 3 and 4 word search terms that the major companies might not be interested in.

EXAMPLE: Computer Store (High Traffic Search Term) vs. Computer Parts Store (Less Traffic Higher Potential Of Getting On The Front Page of the Search Engines Sooner)

I will be adding more SEO articles on my site and ezine in the days to come. If you would like more information please check back in a few days and I will have more post.

By: Chad Wiley

Our website is full of information on computer repair, SEO - search engine optimization, and product reviews.

C&M Computer Solutions

When you are talking to a SEO consultant from a SEO company, does he or she leaves you scratching your head with those jargons, wondering what the consultant is talking about? Do not worry; you are not the only one who does not understand. When it comes to SEO, there are a lot of different terms and jargons that will drive a layman crazy. You will need a certain degree of understand in the optimization industry in order to fully understand all the terms used by them.

Now, let us discuss some of the most common SEO terms used by optimization consultants:

1. Algorithm. This is the formula behind major search engines that used to determine the ranking of a website.

2. Clustering. This is when the search engine lists more than 2 pages for a single search query

3. CPC. Cost per Click.

4. CPM. Cost per 1000 impression. This means the cost to send 1000 visitors to your website through banner.

5. Hit. One single request made to your web server.

6. IBL. Inbound link. An incoming link from the other website, pointing back to your website.

7. Keyword Research. This is a process to research your keywords so as to optimize your website. Usually, a website core set of keywords is determined during this process.

8. Keyword Density. The number of times a particular keyword is being repeated on a page, compared to the number of words on a page.

9. OSEO. Organic search engine optimization. To build a website to rank well on the left hand side of the search engine result page, without spending large amount of money.

10. Outbound link. An outgoing link from your web page to another site.

11. Page views. The number of times the pages of your website are viewed.

12. PPC. Pay per Click. Paying the search engine for every visitor that it sends to your website. One visitor equals to one click.

13. PR. Google Page Rank, how Google rates your web page from 1 to 10. Aim to get 3, 4 or 5 and you are doing well.

14. SE. Search engine.

15. SEM. Search engine marketing. To use search engines to market your product or services. This will include search engine optimization, search engine pay-per-click programs, and banner advertising.

16. SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Creating search engine friendly page content to help your page to achieve a high ranking.

17. SERP. Search Engine Results Page.

18. Stemming. If you search for “painting” in a search engine that uses stemming technology the results will also include results for the words paint, paints and painter.

These are just some of the common terms being used when it comes to SEO. So now at least when you are talking to a consultant, you will understand most of his or her jargons.

Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of HomeBizGears.com, an online marketing and branding agency.

Check out more about Online Marketing and Branding at http://www.homebizgears.com

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Google is the most innovative search engines and this has been proved time and time. Google just announced that it will provide a whole new platform for providing PPC VIDEO ads. It has already starting testing different types of paid ads including images, maps and interactive ads.

Google’s vice president Marissa Mayer mentioned in the latest press conference that text based ads are not a good solution for website having videos and other web content because users will usually ignore the text.

The video ads will play only if they are clicked. However, there are lots of questions going around in the SEO circles on whether this strategy will decrease the importance of organic search which are normally text based.

Ms. Mayer also informed “People who advertise a movie want to show a trailer. Why shouldn’t they have the same format we use for search results and have a little plus box that says watch the trailer?”

The entire focus of Google is still to maintain the original relevancy concept and the new ads platform will just be an added benefit of using paid advertising.

Right now, to advertise on PPC video, the advertisers will pay the same amount of money they are paying for text based ads. To advertise your first video ad you must create a regular AdWords accounts and follow the instructions to create video ad campaign.

Google is going to start the test site from today and the target market will be companies who want to advertise their brand instead of a product or service.

Sameer khan is a marketing consultant who really understands how a lethal combination of offline and marketing can put you way ahead of the competition in the attention deficit society. After managing the marketing department of two successful multi-million dollar companies Sameer started his own consulting firm and he helps business owners to get fast traffic and business growth using proprietary online and offline marketing techniques. For more information on Sameer latest work and to find out what really works, you can join his face book group at

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23394458992

I will lay down some facts on Google supplemental index which is based on days of research and actual experiments.Those of you who are worried about the repercussions if your website has supplemental index need not despair,This has nothing to do with any sort of penalty by Google

What exactly is the Google supplemental index?

Google indexes around 3.3 billion web pages and thatâ??s a something huge. The search engine giant has set some parameters on the basis of which pages are crawled and indexed. Now Google has 2 web indexes, one is the main index and the other is the supplemental index. When for some reason Google feels that a particular page cannot be included in the main index, it puts it in the Supplementary Pages.

So are the pages in the supplemental index penalized by Google?

A big NO! Supplemental index is not an index of penalized pages, nor is a trash bin. As the search engine has to index billions of pages, they have set some quality parameters on the basis of which they include pages in the main or in the supplemental index. Many new pages go supplemental just for the reason that they donâ??t qualify enough to be in the main index.

What are the reasons for supplementary pages?

There are quite a few reasons for pages going supplemental. Those are:

Duplicate Content: This is one of the main reasons for supplemental pages. If pages share the same content, then one of those pages will surely make it to the supplemental index. The page which will be in the main index depends on some factors like page rank, backward links etc.

Same page Title and Description: If there are pages that have the same title and description, then many of those pages have a high chance of going supplemental. So it is always advised to keep page titles and description unique.

Canonical Issues: If there are 2 versions of the same page, one with WWW and another without WWW then one of those pages will go supplemental. Itâ??s better to solve any such canonical issues with a 301 redirect to avoid pages going supplemental.

Lack of content: Give the spiders something to chew on. If a page has only images and lacks content, then most likely it will go supplemental. So you need to have a good combination of text and images on your pages to avoid the supplemental index.

Lack of Page Rank: This is also one of the factors that lead a page to the supplemental index.

Orphan Pages: If there are pages that are lying orphan, which means that the pages are not linked with the rest of your site, then the pages will so supplemental. So you should have a clear navigation in your site and make sure than none of your pages lie abandoned.

Dynamic URLs: If there are too many parameters in an URL then the page has a high chance of going supplemental. Dynamic pages are never preferred by the search engines, even though Google can index those pages. Itâ??s best to rewrite those dynamic URLs into static ones. They are far more search engine friendly than dynamic ones.

Even after all these, pages can still go supplemental for some reasons that are known only to Google. But these reasons are the most common ones for supplemental pages.

You donâ??t need to be afraid of your supplemental pages. Use solid white-hat techniques for optimizing your site and build your site for your visitors, not for the search engines. Voluntarily link out to some related authority sites on your topic, this will help to increase your siteâ??s trust rank and overall quality score. Sites having higher Trust Rank and quality score seem to avoid the supplemental index much easily.

At the end, Iâ??d like to mention that even the personal site of Matt Cutts, head of Google web-spam team has some of its pages in the supplemental index and so are pages of Yahoo and MSN. So thereâ??s not much to worry, Google will pull out your pages of the supplemental index once it finds those pages worthy enough to be in the main index. So have great content and build links from quality and related sites.

Michael Ringwood is an avid internet marketer and an expert on a variety of online marketing Techniques , search engine optimization, social media and web2.0 marketing. He has worked for several start up internet Companies and several top digital media online properties including 123greetings.com.

He also writes on Holidays and Events round the World

We’ll be posting more stuff as we get time. Lots of articles on google and marketing and whatnot for sure. In the meantime, thanks for checking us out and we hope you’re doing well!

Thanks a lot and take care!