If we were to only provide SEO services to these clients, the limited data available would make optimizing for SEO a long drawn out process with website traffic gradually increasing over time as organic search rankings improved.

What most of these clients, and many companies that only provide SEO don’t know, is that running Pay-Per-Click is the secret to getting a head start in SEO.

There are too many elements from PPC that we include in our SEO strategies to mention so I’ll just go over the big picture:

1. We Use PPC to Do What SEO Can’t

With PPC we are able to instantly increase traffic to a website. Right away we are able to show client’s ads high in search engine results and bring in new customers.  Website traffic and conversions pour in along with that high-quality, actionable keyword data for SEO that we’ve been looking for.

2. Great SEO Starts With Great Keyword Research

PPC accounts are an SEO keyword gold mine! We get access to data that tells us exactly what users are typing into search engines that result in purchases from the client’s website!  With PPC we are able to optimize our SEO for traffic and conversions based on statistically significant data.

For some great info on how to leverage PPC data for SEO, check out this post by Tom Demers.

Having trouble keeping up?

Google’s Ad platform, Adwords, is quite similar in that it’s always changing.  If you don’t live and breathe PPC then it’s just not possible to keep up with the number of changes and improvements that are made to Adwords on a daily basis.

A common site, seen multiple times per day on Google Adwords:

If you don’t keep up to date with the changes in Google’s search engine then the next time you go to make a search you could get a little confused, irritated, or just be delightfully surprised when you take note of a convenient new feature.  However, If you are an advertiser with a Google Adwords account and you don’t keep up to date with the changes to Adwords the consequences are much, much worse. Remember, Google is out there to make money too, so don’t think they have your best interests in mind when they make “improvements”.

Although many of these changes come as a blessing to professional PPC managers, they hardly ever have positive outcomes for amateurs with neglected accounts. At the very least, with a neglected Adwords account you are missing out on new opportunities that your competitors are taking advantage of and you’re account performance is declining because of the improved competition.  While many small changes and missed opportunities mostly result in a steady decline in account performance, big changes that occur more frequently than you’d think cause neglected accounts to go completely haywire and waste thousands and thousands of dollars in no time at all.

Creating a single successful PPC campaign can be done by anyone, but delivering results time and time again is something else. Being able to consistently produce campaigns that achieve results in an ever-changing industry is the difference between amateur and professional Pay-Per-Click management.

We had our fun this past weekend dressing up like monsters, rock-stars, and yes even vacation Santa, but now it’s time to head back to the office for another year of being Pay Per Click rock-stars!

For the past couple years you could have all the sitelinks going to the same landing page, which defeats the purpose of the sitelinks from a users point of view. From an advertisers point of view, it was a best practice to send people to the same landing page so that you could control the conversion rate.

The change:

“Recently, we’ve noticed an increase in the number of sitelinks created with the same landing pages or the same content. So in the coming month, we will begin more proactive enforcement of our existing policy. Initially, we’ll focus on new and recently changed sitelinks. As your ads are being served, our systems will verify that your sitelinks meet the policy standards.  Sitelinks that don’t meet the standards will be restricted from appearing.”

- From Google

If you would like help updating your sitelinks please let us know.

It is official, Microsoft Adcenter is now Bing Ads. The new name is a bit misleading because if you advertise with Bing your ads will show on Bing and Yahoo search networks. Yahoo and Bing joined forces a few years ago to try to take market share away from Google. This merger did not really add up for some of the clients that I was working with at the time. One client was getting 15% of his conversions from Yahoo and another 5% from Bing. When they merged together, only 12% came from both Yahoo and Bing. It was disappointing to say the least and I still don’t know where the missing 8% went.

Anyways Bing Ads provides a really good return on investment compared to Google. There is just less competition on Bing, so you pay less per click. If you are US advertising I would highly recommend running Bing ads as the traffic is pretty good. In Canada, Bing is hardly worth running because it doesn’t get enough traffic. That being said it is really easy to import your campaigns over from Google Adwords. So give Bing Ads a try.

Google just finished up with their Google Engage Certification Program Cram Sessions at the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver.  The event, taught by Niko Downie from Google, consisted of four sessions that took place on August 28th and 29th.

Unlike the recent Google Engage event we attended in Seattle which focused on advanced PPC strategies and client relations, the goal of the Google Engage Cram Sessions was to help agencies prepare for the Google certification exams.

Since the Vancouver PPC team was already up to date with its certifications we didn’t have to attend the event, but whenever we hear the words Google and event in the same sentence you’ve got our attention.  And since this Google event was right in our own back yard at the Fairmont Waterfront, we just couldn’t say no.

Google seems to be clawing back more and more web data every day. Have you noticed that the number of undefined keywords (eg, not set or not provided) in your Google Analytics account is growing each day? Well this is all part of trend toward restricting data on the internet…

For better or worse it will be harder to tracking online marketing in the future. This should be a call to action to build your data now, while you still have access to it.

What do funnels have to do with PPC?

Well the way we manage online advertising at Vancouver PPC is through optimizing for a target cost per acquisitions (AKA CPA). A target CPA is the amount you as a business owner are willing to pay for a lead or sale. Once you have your target CPA, we can then create an online advertising campaign that is designed to hit that target CPA. Now the cool thing about funnels is that they allow you to up-sell, cross sell and down-sell to people who have already purchased from you.

Math example:

Lets say your current target CPA is $5. Then we implement some funnel tactics and get people to purchase an additional $2.5 product. This means that each acquisition is now worth $7.50 and thus your target CPA raises to $7.50. Which means you can bid your online advertising more aggressively and get you way more sales.

The bottom line is that funnels can increase the average life time value of a customer, which in turn multiplies your online advertising results.

Check out what will be offered:

Our team is already certified but we will be going anyways to see if we can gleam any nuggets of gold from it.

Note: I just took the Advanced Reporting and Analysis exam and it is extremely outdated.

Facts:

• The top 3 spots get 41.1% of clicks.
• Organic results only account for 14.8%  of pixels above the fold (the fold is the screen real-estate that you don’t have to scroll to see).
• PPC Ads take up 85.2% of pixels above the fold on highly commercial intent keywords.

Check out this great infograph by WordStream:

© WordStream, provider of a Google Keyword Tool for Search Marketing.