To push the point home, I recently ran a series of advertisements for Forge and conducted several tests to demonstrate just how powerful ad copy is. I began by collecting a very targeted list of keywords relating to pay-per-click management services, which I planned on directing to the Pay Per Click Management page here on Forge’s site. Keep in mind, ad copy isn’t just about attracting clicks but also helping to establish a good quality score. I ran each of the below advertisements one at a time and collected around 50 clicks for each to get fairly accurate statistics.

The first ad I created was rather generic:

Note that this ad does include some best practices such as utilizing a call-to-action (Start Now!), but overall I expected it to get a fairly low quality score as the keywords do not particularly match up with those of Forge’s Pay Per Click Management page. Using a uniform keyword scheme in ads and to the landing page is a common mistake, but intentional in this case for demonstrative purposes.

After setting an appropriate Max Bid value and letting the ad run for a few days, it resulted in a dismal 0.22% Click Through Rate (CTR) on the search engine results page alone (this doesn’t include the Content Network, which in most cases drastically reduces the CTR.) Additionally, the quality score was a horrific “4″, meaning I was not only ranking poorly, but paying more than it needed to.

Alright, a small improvement:

Trying a slightly different direction, I added “management” which is only part of my keyword scheme, in addition to some very exciting ad copy to attempt to draw attention. A few days later the ad was looking at a 0.39% CTR and a quality score of “5″–a minor improvement, but an improvement none the less.

Getting the hang of it:

This is where I really began to kick in the usage of best practices, along with adding some verbal credibility to the advertisement. You can see the the keyword scheme is in line with my landing page, as well as noting I was a “Certified Pay Per Click Manager,” which is sure to draw more attention and interest than any Joe Schmoe that dabbles in per-per-click advertising. The entire ad copy is one large call-to-action and I added a dynamic URL structure in the display URL to allow for the ad to match up with more queries. Lo-and-behold, the ad received a generous 1.19% CTR and a quality score of “7″.

One Final Adjustment:

Now having lined up not only titles, but the ad copy with the keyword scheme, maintaining a call-to-action, and allowing for dynamic titles and display URLs, this advertisement took the cake with a CTR of 1.64% and maintaining the quality score of “7″. In addition, the cost-per-click of this ad was $0.34 less expensive than the advertisement we started with.

I hope this demonstrates how critical it is to vary your advertisement text, whether it is you or the professional you hired doing such. Good luck!

As has been the case for some time, Pay Per Click campaigns are the definitive and proven way to quickly drive relevant traffic to an array of pages on your website. In addition, I personally find Pay Per Click Management the most enjoyable role to play for my clients as there are often times ridiculous amounts of ROI involved. There are few things that get people more excited than seeing a monthly report with large, green numbers scattered about. After all, more sales or signups means raises for employees, vacations for families, and less worry in a troubled economy.

Unfortunately, in my years of experience I have seen pay per click campaigns placed into the hands of unskilled practitioners and spiral out of control with little to no return. Thus, I cannot caution enough that when you are seeking to employ someone to handle your campaign, be sure to question on them on their experience, credentials, and a measurement of actual ROI that he/she/they have provided to clients in the past. At a glance, Adwords, adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing seem like campaign tools that can be easily tackled and handled. However, one must realize that these are programs that offer certifications for a reason–they are as dangerous as they are wildly effective.

The unlimited potential of Pay Per Click is what really fuels my passion for providing the service to my clients. With the right budget, the right research, and a skilled hand, you can create a campaign that not just drives results, but demands more of a business.

If you have any success or horror stories about Pay Per Click, I would love to hear them! And of course, if you would like a no-obligation campaign audit, you can always feel free to contact me.

Find Rising Trends

When searching for terms relevant to your website, blog, company, industry, etc., Insights for Search will not only show you the relative popularity of your search terms, but it will unveil the most popular and fastest rising searches related to what you entered. Knowing the rising search trends in your industry puts a plethora of untapped search phrase markets at your fingertips. You can continue to drill down into the rising searches to find additional niches that you can target for large traffic increases of relevant visitors.

Target Your Findings

The most immediate way to target and benefit from these newly popular search phrases is through PPC marketing. Within hours of doing your research you can have several, targeted PPC advertisements live on the big search engines. In addition, you will be able to benefit from low cost-per-click values since there is very little bid competition in these markets. The result of targeting the trending terms is a low cost advertising campaign that will direct highly relevant traffic to your website.

In addition to the PPC marketing, you can implement on-page SEO that will establish your website as an authority for these low-competition searches. As the searches gain popularity, so will your website’s traffic. A caveat to on-page SEO is that you do NOT want to start changing your primary SEO keywords every time you want to target a trend. If you change your primary content too much, you can unintentionally damage your current search engine rankings. Instead, write blog posts, continue to link build, and perhaps even add additional pages where appropriate with these new search phrases in mind.

An Example

Below is a quick video that will demonstrate the various features of the tool and a practical example of how you can find and target rising search terms.

Google Insights for Search is a highly valuable research tool when you want to find trends over a few years or a few days. What are some of the interesting trends you’ve noticed in your industry?