How much have you contributed this year to make 
$4 billion money machine ?
From July to September 2007, advertisers spent more than $4 billion on ads targeted to Google searches. And Google just keeps on growing - the $4 billion figure is 60 percent higher than the company's take during the same period last year."
So with all of this money being spent on Google ad words:
- how do you ensure your website is being found amongst the plethora of online advertising,
- how do you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns,
- how much time do you spend each week managing your advertising campaign?
- Are Google ad words the answer or is search engine optimization a better choice for you?
Before we look at the benefits of each, you first need to answer the following questions about your own website:
- What is the primary objective of your website? Online sales, increasing membership, or providing information?
- If ecommerce - What is monthly value of sales made online?
- How many inquiries does your website genereate every month.
- Do you know the monthly traffic on your website ?
- How do you measure performance of your website?
- Do you do any newsletter Marketing?
If the primary objective of your site is for immediate sales, and immediate online presence, a well managed Google ad words campaign works extremely well. This can be used for product specials/sale items, or for special events, e.g. Christmas Offers, Valentine day Special, clearance sales.
Your ad word click thru rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per sale can be measured, providing you with valuable information on how your campaign is progressing, and the ads which work more effectively than others.
If you are looking at a long term strategy, for your advertising and marketing, search engine optimization will provide you with an organic search engine ranking (naturally listed - left hand side of Google search) and will get you free clicks. Not only that, unlike PPC where your ad appears as may times as defined by your budget, with SEO you can secure your spot. Example, we have retained our # 1 spot in Google for "SEO Company"
The perception is that sites returned at the top left hand side of Google are the leaders in their field, and five out of six commercial purchases on line are made from naturally listed websites.
Website analytics will provide details on how long a person spends on your site and on which pages they spend their time; using this information you have the ability to improve your website for your visitors which will increase the time spent on each page, to drive sales, and when combined with a "call to action" will increase your membership.
If you have an ongoing advertising or marketing budget, Google ad words are a viable option without the need to optimize your website; however you need to remember your website's natural visibility will remain the same; so if you end your ad word campaign your website will drop back to it's invisible status.
The ultimate goal of an online presence is to have your website found by search engines, which will increase your traffic, inquiries, membership and sales. A combination of both Google ad words, and SEO will provide outstanding results, and both a short and long term marketing approach for your business.
Featured Sites
http://www.thehipinfant.com.au
An online store for baby clothes. The site was not in the first 200 results for 'baby clothes' in June 2007. Today after 6 months, they rank # 1
http://www.chefspencil.com
This is a site with free resources for recipes.
The revenue model for the site is banner ads where it is a game of eyeballs.
Here is a snapshot of the traffic growth achieved:
click here to enlarge
