Link Week 8 Tips To Make PPC Work With Link Building Efforts

In this crazy digital era where even people like my poor old gospel-singing father look online for almost everything (usually guns and cashews), you really need to understand how to use as many types of advertising as possible in order to improve your efforts and expand your reach. Since link building is all over the SEO news right now, it’s being touted as the “fix” that will open the doors of the site to vast wealth and bring loads and loads of converting traffic.

However, like with any form of marketing, nothing should truly stand alone. If you’re just doing paid ads, you should consider link building. If you think that having lovely titles is enough to rank well, perhaps you should consider getting into social media. The key today is to embrace all sorts of different ideas and market yourself in the ways that matter to your audience, while using everything you have learned from one format to do better in another. Thus, we’ll talk about how to make PPC and link development work together, instead of at cross-purposes, which I’ve seen all too often.

1. Create linkable content on your site

This ups the chance of a PPC conversion turning into a good link. Remember, a PPC user may not just stay on the landing page. Your entire site should have great and enticing content on it.

2. Create “sticky” landing pages

Make sure your landing page for PPC is “sticky” enough to generate inbound links from the people who click on an ad, go to your site, then link to it  for whatever reason (great content, fantastic user experience, amazing product, etc.) This is no different from any other “content is king” idea, but sometimes PPC ads just aren’t written, or maintained, with link building in mind. Maybe the person in charge of the ads has no clue about the fact that your PPC landing page does have the power to garner a link, so always point it out. Any visibility is a chance to get a link, period. Don’t waste it.

3. Make your copy memorable

Create PPC copy that people will remember, even if they don’t click right now. They may be back later, and they may even give you a link. PPC copy is a lot like Twitter tweets in that you need to say a lot in a small amount of space, or no one’s going to care. Now’s the time to get your main keywords out there, tell a user why he or she should click, and make the connection that will stick in someone’s mind.

4. Visualize your anchor text

Think of how you would word your ideal anchor text for the landing page and include those words in your ad. I’m sure that you know what your most important keywords are, but many people don’t actually put those words in the actual ad. If your desired anchor text for a link is “wholesale flowers” then don’t just add it as a keyphrase that will trigger the ad to be shown. Use it in the title and/or the ad description. The more exact connections you make, the higher the chance of getting something good (like a link) out of it later.

5. Build up internal page visibility

The beauty of sending a PPC user to a landing page and not the home page is that you get a chance to generate a link to a subpage. This is an opportunity not to be missed. Depending upon your site, deep links can be very, very difficult to get without a lot of hard work. If there are internal pages that aren’t generating decent links but they’re important to you, create some ads landing on those page, and perhaps you’ll start seeing links show up soon.

6. Don’t be deceptive

Yes, this should go without saying, but too often, I’ve clicked on an ad that wasn’t at all what I was looking for, but due to some clever copy, I thought it would be. Not only does this waste money, it wastes time and it irritates users. The only link you’re getting out of deception is going to be one that trashes your name, most likely. Although that might be part of a natural link profile…just don’t do it.

7. Make use of the capability for quick testing

In general, PPC changes are super fast and paid ads make an excellent arena for testing purposes. Test different PPC content to see what converts, and carry this over into your link building efforts through content changes, new page names, and so forth.

8. Use your PPC analytics

PPC platforms give you analytics, so use them to figure out which phrases convert. Converting phrases make darned good anchor text. Try to alter your content to boost your visibility for those terms organically, as well. Don’t take converting copy lightly – perhaps you can figure out what’s causing the conversions and replicate it on other pages.

At the risk of alienating individuals who rely on PPC for their business, it is sometimes used as a band-aid that covers up all the poor SEO and lack of content on a site. Even if you can’t rank organically, you can still buy advertising space. Successful online marketing is about taking all the available chances to get your name out there. If people know where to find you, they may link to you. It’s very simple. All paid ads send a user to a page on your site that is a chance to not only convert, but to generate a link.

There’s a lot that you can apply to both PPC and link building through use of the other, so if you’re not making use of these arenas in conjunction with one another, perhaps you should consider it.

Website Speed - Google's New Ranking Factor. Check if Your Site is Fast Enough.

There's been a lot of news heading our way from Google recently. First they unveil the test version of a new search architecture called Google Caffeine. Then Caffeine goes live on one data center to be fully rolled out right after the coming holidays. And now we get to know that Google is about to inject a new ranking factor into the algorithm – site speed. This is huge news for anyone with a website so let's take a closer look.

The news came from Matt Cutts, head of Google's anti-spam team. In an interview to WebProNews Matt said:

“If you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much”

What this means is that Google will be pushing faster sites higher in the search results, whereas slower sites will find it harder to rank.

When does speed factor go into play?

There's no official statement from Google yet as to when site speed will be introduced as a ranking factor. It seems reasonable for Google to roll out the new factor together with Google Caffeine which goes live in early 2010. The whole Caffeine update is mostly about speed: indexing speed, speed of generating search results and the overall experience of fast search. So it makes sense for Google to introduce the speed ranking factor in Caffeine.

In fact it doesn't really matter when exactly Google starts using the speed factor. What matters is whether you'll be ready for the game changer. Since we've got the early news, there's enough time for you to check your site's load time and make the necessary changes before the shift in the algo takes place. And here's how you can do it.

Is your website fast enough?

Obviously, website speed can't be treated as an absolute metric. The average site load time will largely depend on the niche. For example photo stocks and video sites will generally take more time to load then, say, news blogs and text-oriented websites. So, site speed is a relative metric that can only be applied to competing sites in one niche. You shouldn't really bother to become the fastest site on the planet. What you really should care about is whether your site's loading speed catches up with the competition.

Check Your Site's Speed

It's only been a couple of days since we heard the news about the whole speed factor thing and there's already a special tool out there that lets you check your site's loading time and compare it against the 10 top ranked websites for your keywords. It's WebSite Auditor, an onpage optimization tool by Link-Assistant.Com

This SEO tool is designed for onpage optimization and top 10 analysis. It allows you to analyze top 10 ranked websites for your niche so that you can get a better idea why these guys rank on top and what onpage optimization tactics you can borrow from them to make your content work better. The new version of the tool also lets you run a quick speed test to see how your website stacks up to the competition (this feature is available in the free version of the tool).

I ran a sample check for site-reference.com using the keyword "search engine optimization articles" and here're the results.

As you can clearly see the loading time of site-reference.com is almost 40% faster than the competition's average. It does lose a bit to a couple of websites on the list but the overall site's performance is excellent. It means that the coming change should give site-reference.com a push in the rankings.

And what about your site?

Test your site speed and check whether you're ready for the new ranking algorithm. Download this free on-page optimization tool and find out whether it's time to speed up your website.

Google Says Spamming Other Sites Can Lower Site Ranking

The Google Webmaster Blog has this short post explaining how abusing sites’ comment fields by putting up comment containing links to the poster’s site can actually hurt both sites’ ranking. That is of course if the comments posted are actually not related to the post or gibberish. In short, non legit comments whose objective is to raise the poster’s site ranking. If you have done this before to boost your site’s ranking, and your site was penalized by Google. Here’s what you need to do.

If you used this approach in the past and you want to solve this issue, you should have a look at your incoming links in Webmaster Tools. To do so, go to the Your site on the web section and click on Links to your site. If you see suspicious links coming from blogs or other platforms allowing comments, you should check these URLs. If you see a spammy link you created, try to delete it, else contact the webmaster to ask to remove the link. Once you’ve cleared the spammy inbound links you made, you can file a reconsideration request.

To avoid comment spam from hitting your sites, here are what you need to do:

• Disallow anonymous posting.
• Use CAPTCHAs and other methods to prevent automated comment spamming.
• Turn on comment moderation.
• Use the “nofollow” attribute for links in the comment field.
• Disallow hyperlinks in comments.
• Block comment pages using robots.txt or meta tags.

If you currently own a site with tons of comment spams hitting you daily, you can also follow those steps.

And here’s a reminder from Google that we all should have known by now – original content and some search engine-friendly optimization is still the best way to get a better site ranking on Google search, since the web community will only link to your site through your great content.

Why Twitter? 10 Great Uses for Twitter

"What is Twitter?" is the most popular question I get about Twitter, and "Why Twitter?" is definitely the most popular follow-up question. Even once you understand that Twitter has grown beyond a micro-blogging service to become a social messaging platform, it can still leave you wondering why you might want to use it.

We have cell phones and text messaging and social networking and blogging. So why Twitter?

There are many great business uses for Twitter, like sending out news briefs or advertising the latest job opening, but believe it or not, there are even more personal uses for Twitter.

Here are a few popular ways to use Twitter:

1. Microblogging

This one is obvious, but in the rush to put Twitter to other uses, many people forget its first use as a micro-blogging platform. And it is still one of the best uses. It's easy to make a quick tweet telling the world what you are doing, how good your morning coffee tastes or how bad your lunch went.

And it is a great way for friends and family -- even those halfway across the world -- to keep connected to your daily life.

2. Quick answers

The idea of crowdsourcing has never been so quick! You can ask all sorts of questions to the Twitter universe, from what is the capital of Alaska to what people think of a particular brand of baby food. And the more friends you have, the more detailed answers you will receive.

There are even web services set up to take advantage of this feature, so if you don't have many followers, don't worry. Mahalo will help get your question answered quickly. Simply send your question to @answers.

3. Finding a job

Whether you just got laid off or you are sick of your current job, Twitter can help you get a new job. Not only can you announce to the world that you are looking for employment, but many companies post their job openings on Twitter.

Here is a guide to help you get started finding a job on Twitter.

4. Keeping up with the news

From newspapers to magazines to TV stations and cable news, it seems everyone is adopting Twitter as the coolest thing since sliced bread. The coolest part is that it makes Twitter a great way to keep track of news.

Want to keep up with the news, but don't wan to clutter up Twitter? You can use a Twitter client like TweetDeck. And the neat thing about TweetDeck is that it is available for the iPhone too.

5. Arrange a lunch with friends

Twitter can be very useful for arranging a time and place to get together. It's like a conference call with text messaging. So, if you have a regular lunch date with a group of people, or just want to arrange a get together, Twitter can be a great way to nail down a time and place that works for everyone.

Like following the news, it can be handy to have your friends in their own group if you have a lot of followers.

6. Helpful outbursts, or in other words, screaming your rage

We've all had one of those days, whether it was someone pulling in front of us in traffic, or getting served the wrong type of coffee, it is sometimes these little things that can put us in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

The sagely advice is to let it out, but to who? It's not like most places of employment have a handy punching bag, and it's probably not smart to vent to your boss. That's where Twitter can be really helpful because it lets you rage to millions of people. And you might just get some sympathy tweets out of it too.

Just remember to watch the language.

7. Keep up with your favorite team

Twitter's search feature can be a great way to track trends or keep up with a particular subject. And if you are a fan of sports, it can be a great way to really connect with the team. Not only are many sports players on Twitter, but you have the media and millions of fans to keep you updated on the latest and greatest.

Can't get to a TV when your favorite team is on? Just follow the tweets on Twitter. Not only will you get regular score updates, but you'll get some fun color commentary to go along with it.

8. Find out what people really think about the latest movie

Similar to keeping up with your favorite team, you can also use the search feature to check out what the buzz is on the latest release at the theaters. Sure, you could check what the critics have to say, but their opinion isn't always in line with what people actually think of the film.

Twitter can be a great way to find out if the movie is a bomb or a bust, so you don't have to waste your money on a real dud.

9. Becoming involved with politics

Barack Obama laid down the blueprint, and politicians are increasingly turning to social media sites like Twitter. Not only is this providing a great way for politicians to get the word out, but it is allowing them to stay connected to their constituents. What better way to tell your senator what you think about a key vote than to send him or her a tweet?

But politics on Twitter goes far beyond just following politicians. The Iran election crisisshowed what a political force Twitter could be as it not only allowed Iranian citizens to break through the walls Iran hoped to keep up around the events, but also let people from around the world show their support by turning their profile pictures green.

10. Fun and Games

One of the most recent activities that is becoming popular on Twitter is the use of third-party games to interact with Twitter accounts. For example, Spymaster allows you to create your own spy ring using your followers as spies. You generate money for your spy ring by completing tasks either solo or in real-time with other spymasters.

Google Adwords Top Hints, Tricks and Mistakes

Control spending with the daily budget

We see this time and time and time again with people hitting their daily budget every single day. They often mistake this to mean that their campaign is going well, and they must have done a good job and things are ticking along nicely. What this generally means is that their ads are hitting the daily budget quickly, and then stop showing. They are leaving free traffic on the table. We generally in this occasion will edge the daily budget higher, and the keywords CPC lower, until we are still now spending the same amount per day on average, but are getting much cheaper clicks, and overall a lot more traffic for the same daily spend.

Too many keywords in one Adgroup

If you wish to have the highest possible CTR and quality score, you need to be either getting your keywords into the ad copy, or having ads that are super relevant for the particular keywords in the campaign.

When you have a category, or group of keywords in an Adgroup hat aren't performing as well, pull them out and put them in their own ad group with their own specific ads that you can test. You will improve the quality score and CTR at the same time.

Not split testing multiple ads

The 3 online rules to online marketing are:

1. Test
2. Test
3. Test

Always make sure you are playing king of the hill with your ads. You can do this by setting up 2 ads in each ad group. Then in your campaign settings you can either allow Google to optimize delivery, or evenly distribute traffic.

SNEAKY TIP #1
Personally the way I do this is with 3 ads and then evenly split traffic. 2 ads are the control, and the 3rd ad is the new ad trying to beat the existing one. This means 66% of the traffic goes to the original control, or winner... and 33% goes to the new ad I have just written. Another benefit of this method is that after some traffic has passed through, you can tell if your data is statistically relevant when you see the CTRs on the 2 control ads are the same, or very close. You can then tell if your new 3rd ad is a winner or not.

Not utilizing image ads

Google is expanding their business, and you are expanding yours. Take advantage of all their advertising networks. This includes image ads. Not as many people are doing it as the normal text ads, so the competition is less, and they can greatly help with companies that are trying to brand. You are getting your brand before eyes, and not necessarily having to pay for it. You can also generally have calls to action on your image ads, that Google will not allow in their text ads.

SNEAKY TIP #2
Set your ads up on a CPC basis and on the large banner images drive traffic to a phone number. You will not have to pay anything to Google for a customer that saw your image ad and immediately phoned the number.

Allowing auto bids for the content network

Take control of your advertising. If you allow Google to charge you top dollar they generally will. Set separate bids for you content traffic, as generally traffic from this source isn't actually looking for your service... they just stumbled upon your ad. So normally conversions for this type of traffic will be lower.

Not cutting the fat

Initially you should be building a large keyword list and then driving your first clicks to that. All along you should be tracking, and conversion tracking where possible needs to be implemented. Once you have collected your initial data, you can make the decision of which keywords are working and which ones aren't. Just cutting those keywords that don't convert can make a previously non-profitable campaign super profitable.

Making changes too early

So you think you have found a winner with your new ad? Well not necessarily. If you put our money lucky #13 on a roulette table, and lets say in the first 4 rolls it came up 3 times (lucky you). Does that now mean in the future that 13 is going to come up 75% of the time?

You can only make decisions about these types of things once you have collected enough data. So let things run there course before you make any further changes.

My sneaky technique #1 makes this easier, but there are also tools online to check whether you have enough data to be statistically relevant. Don't make changes until you know 100%.


Not recording what they have changed

It's all fine and dandy to continually be beating your control ad in the beginning, but if you consistently want to make improvements down the track recording what you have done already is critical. The consequence of this is wasting time and money to test things that you have already done in the past, but you wouldn't remember because you don't have it saved anymore. Even I was guilty of this in the early days. I would write a new ad by editing an old one. What you should do is delete the old one and create a new one. Google is nice enough to save the ones you have deleted so you can always go back and look at them and their data. They can even offer inspiration as you may see an idea but perhaps it wasn't executed properly. So always make sure you leave a trail of what you have done, and keep moving forward.

Not using website optimizer

Split testing your ads is only half of the puzzle. If you really want to make the most of your pay-per-click, you need to improve your site and advertising together. Improving the page visitors come to will improve your quality score, your conversion ratio, and your cost per conversion all at the same time. Converting traffic at a higher rate also means you can pay more per click and continue to takeover and dominate your market. So make sure you are testing and improving your site and your ads.

Getting a good conversion rate, also lets you battle it out with Adwords newer features, like their conversion optimizer which allows you to set a cost-per-action bid, and is smart enough to track when your conversion is best, so you are only displaying ads during that time of the day.