Optimize Landing Pages

A landing page is an active web page where potential customers directly land on when they click your PPC (pay-per-click) ad. High quality landing pages help improving your PPC conversion rate, and hence reducing your overall PPC cost. Landing page optimization is one of the major factors in Google Adwords PPC optimization.

Google Adwords Landing Page Quality Score

Besides Google Adwords Quality Score, Google Adwords algorithm assigns a landing page quality score to each of your PPC landing page (destination URL) in your Adwords account.

Google determines landing page quality score by evaluating both the destination URLs of both your ad and your keyword. Each of your keyword’s landing page quality score is visible in your Adwords account. The landing page quality score is based on the average quality of the landing pages in the ad group and of any landing pages in the rest of the account with the same domain.

High Quality Landing Page and Low Quality Landing Page

Google explains what may have caused low quality score to landing pages and offers guidelines to create high quality landing pages.

  • Your landing page quality score will be negatively affected, when your Adwords account grades your landing page “This page isn’t highly relevant”.
  • Your Quality Score will not be affected, or in some cases will be positively affected, if when your Adwords account grades your landing page “No problems found”.

PPC Landing Page Load Time

Google also evaluates PPC landing page load time when determining Adwords landing page quality score and offers tips to improve the load times of your landing pages.

Tips from Other PPC Experts on Landing Page Optimization

PPC Hero believes an optimized Adwords landing page must have:

  • Call-to-action
  • Minimal navigation
  • Important information above-the-fold
  • Easy-to-scan copy
  • Few images to convey professionalism
  • Fast loading time
  • Dynamic headlines, with tips to automatically generate dynamic headlines on your landing pages
  • PPC keywords in your landing page copy
  • Short contact form
  • No clutter

Best practices of PPC landing page optimization from others:

Identify Bad Landing Pages, Improve Conversion Rates

The metrics that can indicate your PPC landing page’s effectiveness are Web analytics bounce rate and Conversion rate. High bounce rate and high abandonment mean your landing page consists of problems and your website’s conversion rate is therefore negatively affected. To identify problems and improve your landing pages,

  • Monitor traffic of your PPC landing pages and your site with Google Analytics. Evaluate the values of your landing pages relative to other web pages of your site against conversions.
  • Run A/B testing and/or multi-variate testing through Google’s Website Optimizer and optimize your landing pages’ content and design.

The ultimate goal of landing page optimization is to improve your web site’s conversion rate.

Posted on February 7, 2010
Category: Landing Page Optimization | 1 Comment

Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Google offers dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), an advanced Adwords feature to help advertisers automate ad text creation. Adwords dynamic keyword insertion allows you to minimize the time you spend manually creating and managing your ad groups, while targeting users with effective and relevant ads.

Adwords advertisers with large number of products can use dynamic keyword insertion to manage:

  • General ad groups with generic ads for closely related products
  • Specific individual ad groups and ads for each of those products

Using Google Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Normally, you want to show your keyword within the first line of your ad text. To use keyword insertion, place the following piece of code into your ad text:

{keyword:default text}

The keyword that triggers the ad will replace the code each time the ad appears. Dynamic keyword insertion works for ads that are triggered by Adwords broad match keywords or phrase match keywords that are different to the actual search queries.

Advanced Use of Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion

The use of Adwords dynamic keyword insertion code is not limited to one convention. For example, the keyword that triggers your ad is “cheap blue widget”. Use different formats of dynamic keyword insertion code to show your ad text in different capitalization:

{keyword:default text} = cheap blue widget
{Keyword:default text} = Cheap blue widget
{KeyWord:default text} = Cheap Blue Widget
{KEYWORD:default text} = CHEAP BLUE WIDGET
{KEYWord:default text} = CHEAP Blue Widget
{KeyWORD:default text} = Cheap Blue WIDGET

When Not to Use Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion

You should not use dynamic keyword insertion in ads that may be triggered by:

  • Keywords that are misspelled or ungrammatical phrases
  • Keywords that have non-standard abbreviations or unusual spacing

Avoid pitfalls and common mistakes when using Adwords dynamic keyword insertion, and apply professional PPC ad copy writing.

How Does Dynamic Keyword Insertion Affect Google Adwords Quality Score?

Using Adwords dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) does not directly improve your Google Adwords Quality Score. However if used properly, dynamic keyword insertion can help to improve your text ads’ click-through-rate (CTR) by making your ads more specific to users’ search queries. When CTR improves, your quality score also improves.

Posted on February 1, 2010
Category: Adwords Tips | 1 Comment

Submit Site to Baidu

Baidu.com is the largest Chinese search engine in China. To ensure your new Chinese website receives organic search traffic from Baidu.com, submit your website to through Baidu’s official URL submission page.

Besides your website’s URL, you will have to enter a randomly generated captcha passcode when submitting through Baidu’s URL submission page. However, Baidu’s URL submission page is simple and it won’t require you to understand any Chinese characters.

Go to Baidu.com and check your website with the “Site:” command after about one month:

site:your-site.com

To speed up your site’s inclusion in Baidu’s index, ensure your site’s content in written in Chinese (Simplified). Alternatively, get a link from a Chinese (Simplified) web site that is already indexed in Baidu to point to your new Chinese website.

Unlike Google, Yahoo or Bing, Baidu currently offers no official search engine webmaster tools and no URL submission through sitemap in XML format.

Posted on January 24, 2010
Category: Baidu SEO | 5 Comments

Adwords Negative Keywords

Google offers negative keywords as a keyword match type to filter out unwanted/irrelevant impressions that may have been triggered by Adwords broad match keywords. When applying the appropriate negative keywords, you reduce your cost-per-click (CPC) and increase your ROI.

Negative keywords can be applied to ad groups and/or campaigns of your Google Adwords account. You can add, edit, and delete negative keywords, and export your entire negative keyword list onto spreadsheets.

3 Types of Negative Keywords

Use negative phrase-matched keywords and negative exact-matched keywords if you want your broad match keywords to be triggered by more search queries. For example:

Negative Keywords: -free trial

Adding this negative keyword to your account would prevent your ads from showing on any search queries containing the terms free and trial. It wouldn’t prevent your ads from showing on variations of these terms, however. It also wouldn’t prevent your ads from showing on search queries that only contain one of the terms. The search queries one-day trial and free test could trigger your ads, while free one-day trial could not.

Negative Phrase-Matched Keywords: -"free trial"

If you were to add this keyword to your account, the system wouldn’t let any search query containing the phrase free trial trigger your ads. The search query free trial lesson would not trigger your ads, for instance. Your ads could possibly show on the search query trial or free one-day trial.

Negative Exact-Matched Keywords: -[free trial]

This negative keyword would only prevent your ads from showing on the search query free trial. Search queries such as free trials, free, and one-day free trial could still trigger your ads.

Negative Keywords for Adwords Content Network

The principle of negative Keywords for Adwords content network campaigns and ad groups work the same way as that of search network campaigns and ad groups. Adwords often broadens negative keywords to include the synonyms or variations for content network.

Create Negative Keywords

To create your negative keyword list, think of search queries that you do not want triggering your ads and specify the irrelevant terms as negative keywords by placing a negative sign (–) before the word. Find negative keywords also through:

    Google Keyword Tool Find Negative Keywords
  • Google’s new keyword tool (requires logging onto Adwords account)
    Google New Keyword Tool Beta

Use SEO Book’s negative keyword wrapper tool to add the negative sign (-) to each of your keywords in your negative keyword list (which will be ready to import into your Google Adwords campaigns and/or ad groups).

Posted on January 19, 2010
Category: Adwords Tips | 4 Comments

Adwords Editor

Adwords Editor is a free, downloadable Google application for managing your Google Adwords account. When you have a large number of Adwords campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords, use Google Adwords Editor to download your account, update your campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords, and then upload your changes to your Adwords account.

Why Adwords Editor?

The major benefits for using Adwords Editor over Google Adwords account interface include:

  • Making changes through Adwords Editor is done offline, you can then upload the changes to your Google Adwords account at any time
  • Large scale changes can be made quicker through Adwords Editor than through Google Adwords account interface
  • Store and navigate multiple Google Adwords accounts, and perform advanced searches and edits
  • Copy or move items between your ad groups, campaigns, and Adwords accounts
  • Export a copy of your Adwords account for archiving or sharing, and/or import an archive or share file of your Adwords account

Many Google Adwords features have been made available through Adwords Editor.

Using Adwords Editor

Adwords Editor is available in almost 40 languages. Google currently offers official help sections for using Adwords Editor. Other Adwords Editor features include:

Keyword opportunities tool allows you to discover new keywords and include:

  • Keyword expansion: Generate keyword ideas based on descriptive words or phrases. For example, enter the term “gourmet coffee” to see other related terms, along with the estimated search volume and competition for each keyword.
  • Search-based keywords: Find new keywords that are relevant to your website. Based on your website URL, this feature generates a list of relevant user queries that have occurred on Google search properties with some frequency over the past year. The keyword suggestions won’t overlap with any of the keywords currently in your campaigns.
  • Keyword multiplier: Combine lists of terms to form a new keyword list. For example, your first list could contain adjectives, such as “cheap” and “discount.” Your second list could contain products or services, such as “hotels” and “motels.” The tool will then show you every possible combination of those terms, so you can select the appropriate ones for your account.

Keyword grouper enables you to break up your keyword list into groups of related terms.

Google Adwords Quality Scores for each of your keywords is displayed in Adwords Editor. Adwords Quality Score is represented in numerical scale from 1 to 10:

  • Great (8, 9, 10): Your keyword is very relevant and your Quality Score needs no improvement.
  • OK (5, 6, 7): Your keyword is relevant, but you can still benefit from a higher Quality Score.
  • Poor (1, 2, 3, 4): This keyword isn’t very relevant to users, and your Quality Score needs improvement.

Get Adwords Editor

Download and install the latest version of Adwords Editor.

Adwords Editor’s Release Notes

Google has always been making improvements to Adwords Editor. Keep your Adwords Editor version up-to-date by regularly reviewing Google’s official release notes, so that you always have the latest features available.

Posted on January 10, 2010
Category: Adwords Tools | 1 Comment

Web Analytics Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a web analytics metric that measures visitors’ quality to a site. Web (landing) pages’ high bounce rates often cause websites to have low conversion rates.

Definition of Bounce Rate

Wikipedia’s definition and formula of bounce rate:

Bounce Rate represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

The formula used to calculate bounce rate is:

Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing One Page / Total Number of Visits

Google defines search engine traffic’s bounce rate as:

A high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run.

Note that bounce rate is different to exit rate.

Analyze Bounce Rate, Reduce Bounce Rate

Avinash Kaushik and Jakob Nielson recommend measuring and analyzing your website’s bounce rate by segmentation.

Avinash Kaushik reckons you should:

  • Measure bounce rate of your website
  • Measure bounce rate of your different traffic sources
  • Measure bounce rate of your search keywords
  • Measure bounce rate of your PPC traffic (i.e. Google AdWords, Microsoft Bing AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns)
  • Measure bounce rate of your top trafficked pages

Jakob Nielson believes you must analyze bounce rates separately for four sources of visitors:

  • Low-value referrers
  • Direct links from other websites
  • Search engine traffic
  • Loyal users

Dosh Dosh’s Maki believes you must measure bounce rate against your overall web site goals, improve your site’s bounce rate, and get more page views. To increase the ratio of page viewed per visit, include additional links:

  • Links to feature articles with in-depth analysis
  • Links to other news articles on the same topic
  • Links to a dedicated reference page dealing with only the specific topic
  • Links to a comment section/forum to invite participation by readers
  • Links to a Back story or general background information
  • Links to a multi-media presentation (audio/video)

Bounce Rate as a Search Engine Ranking Factor

If search engine traffic is important to your website, Stone Temple’s Eric Enge believes bounce rate is one of the factors in Google’s search algorithm. SEO Black Hat also has had this fact confirmed.

Bounce Rate Reports on Free Web Analytics

Measure and analyze bounce rate through one of the free web analytics:

Posted on January 4, 2010
Category: Web Analytics | 2 Comments

Google Analytics PPC Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics allows you to track and report all PPC traffic (visits) and conversions coming from Google Adwords, Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft Bing Adcenter and other 2nd tier PPC search engines.

Set up Google Analytics to track and report either PPC campaign data or PPC keyword data by using Google Analytics campaign variables.

PPC Campaign Level Tracking

To create PPC campaign level conversion tracking for your Yahoo Search Marketing account, append the 3 compulsory campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword URL:

  • Source (utm_source): e.g. yahoo
  • Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
  • Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign

Example URL with campaign level tracking:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=yahoo
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign

PPC Keyword Level Tracking

To create PPC keyword level conversion tracking for your Microsoft Bing Adcenter account, append all 5 campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword URL:

  • Source (utm_source): e.g. bing
  • Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
  • Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign
  • Term (utm_term): e.g. google analytics tips
  • Content (utm_content): e.g. version1

Example URL with keyword level tracking:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=bing
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign
&utm_term=google%20analytics%20tips&utm_content=version1

Google Analytics URL Builder

Google offers the URL Builder Tool to help you generate your tracking URLs.

    Google Analytics URL Builder Tool

Google Adwords Auto-tagging

Google Adwords has an advantage over other PPC search engines when tracking conversions through Google Analytics. Turn Auto-tagging on in your Adwords account and Google Analytics will track and report your Adwords account’s conversions down to the keyword level, without having to append any of the utm parameters to your URLs.

Auto-tagging automatically associates a parameter with the click on your ad which then allows Analytics to report the details of the click, including which AdWords keywords brought a visitor to your site, which campaign that keyword was from, and how much that click cost.

PPC Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

In your Google Analytics account, PPC traffic will be reported as “Source/Medium” under the “All Traffic Sources” report:

  • Google / cpc
  • Baidu / cpc
  • Yahoo / cpc
  • Bing / cpc

Alternatively, use “Advanced Segments” and select “Paid Search Traffic”.

    Advanced Segments - Paid Search Traffic

Google Adwords Conversion Tracking

If Adwords Conversion Tracking code snippet has previously been installed onto the confirmation/thank you pages of your website, you can also run Google Analytics PPC Conversion Tracking which will not conflict with Adwords Conversion Tracking.

Posted on January 1, 2010
Category: Google Analytics | 2 Comments

Tencent Soso PPC

Tencent’s Chinese search engine Soso.com launched a pay-per-click (PPC) ad auction system, Tencent Search Marketing.

    Tencent's Search Engine Soso.com

Soso PPC’s Account Structure

Tencent Search Marketing has simple account structure and do not have campaign or ad group levels. Keywords and ads are the two major layers in Soso PPC’s account structure.

A keyword consists of:

  • Keyword match type (broad, phrase or exact)
  • Keyword cost-per-click (CPC)

An ad consists of:

  • Ad title
  • Ad description
  • Display URL
  • Destination URL
    Tencent Soso Search Marketing Account Structure

How Soso.com Displays Pay-per-click Ads

Soso.com currently shows Tencent Search Marketing PPC ads above and on the right hand side of organic search results.

    Soso.com's Top PPC ads

At the bottom of Soso.com’s search results pages, Google Adwords ads are shown.

    Soso.com's Bottom PPC Ads (Google Adwords Ads)

Create a Tencent Soso PPC Account

Soso.com does not allow new advertisers to directly create Tencent Search Marketing account. However, you can go through one of the ad agencies which have been approved by Tencent.

Soso PPC Reports

Soso PPC offer two basic reports:

  • Ad report
  • Keyword report

Other Issues and Features about Soso PPC

  • Soso PPC’s auction system takes click through rate (CTR) and keyword maximum cost-per-click (CPC) into account to determine ad ranking, but the effectiveness of this new ad ranking algorithm is yet to be verified.
  • Soso PPC’s account interface and many features are not as thorough and complicated as Google Adwords search ad auction system or Baidu’s PPC auction system (Phoenix Nest). So optimization may tend to be mainly based on bidding.
  • The default minimum bid for keywords is RMB 0.30, but many high search volume keywords’ minimum bids are over that rate.
  • Only basic reports are offered for you to monitor the performance of your keywords and ads.
  • No ability to set and control your account’s / ads’ daily budget.
  • Ad rotation or A/B ad testing are not possible.
  • Exporting and/or importing of your account (ads, keywords, CPC, match types, ad titles, ad descriptions, destination URLs) are possible through spreadsheets.
  • No payment feature is available to advertisers to pay directly through Soso PPC’s system.
  • Tencent’s Soso search engine has much lower Chinese search volume than Baidu and Google.

Posted on December 29, 2009
Category: China PPC | 2 Comments

Nasdaq: BIDU Baidu Share Prices

Chinese search engine Baidu’s business model is similar to that of Google’s. Baidu major revenue depends on how much advertising budget that are spent through Baidu’s paid search auction system. On 1 Dec 2009, Baidu retires the old PPC system (Classic Edition) and switches over to the new system (Phoenix Nest).

    Baidu Share Prices Trend

Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU)’s share prices has been steadily growing over the last one year, but how will this system switch affect Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU)’s share prices?

  1. Baidu’s stock price will go up
  2. Baidu’s stock price will go down
  3. Baidu’s stock price will have no change
  4. I don’t know what will happen

SHARE your opinion on this Linkedin Poll.

    Baidu (BIDU) Stock Prices LinkedIn Poll

Check out Baidu, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU)’s company profile.

Posted on December 14, 2009
Category: Baidu | 1 Comment

Optimize Website Page Load Time

Google recently made Site Performance available in Google Webmaster Tools. Site Performance provides detailed reports of your website’s speed and suggestions for you to improve web pages’ load times.

Google Search Algorithm to Include Website Page Load Time

Matt Cutts confirmed that Google’s SEO ranking factors now includes a website’s page load time and you should:

  • Regularly check your site’s page load speed
  • Continuously improve your site’s page load speed

How to Test Your Web Pages’ Load Speed?

Test your website’s page load times through one of the tools:

Web Page Load Time Optimization

Tips to improve / optimize your web pages’ load speed:

Posted on December 12, 2009
Category: Google SEO | Leave a Comment

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