You wake up one morning and all your bids have been jacked up to the max. You've been Google slapped!

If you use Google Adwords then you probably have heard of Google slap. Before I get into the whole Google slap mess let me help those who are unfamiliar a basic idea of what Adwords is all about. Adwords is about traffic. That's the short of it but there's more.

When your search results come up on Google you can see two sections at the top and on the right that look different from the rest. These are the sponsored links sections. When someone clicks a link here they are taken to the sponsor’s website. Hopefully to find the information or products and services they were looking for. The sponsors pay for each click anywhere from .5 cents to $20.00 depending on the value of his keywords. The beauty of this is that you don't have to wait for your SEO(search engine optimization) to kick to drive traffic to your website.

Google slap. This where you wake up one morning to find all of your best lowest costing keywords have gone up in price. Way up. Ouch! Most of this mess started with Google's strict rules on relevancy and quality. Basically Google wants the searcher to find content relevant to what they were searching for. This content needs to come from a high quality website. What constitutes quality? Well it should have more than one page for beginners. You see Google's main goal in all of this is to punish lazy businesses and affiliates that set up low quality sites with little to no content. The problem is that people with quality sites can sometime get snared as well.

I know because it happened to me. My site had good content and my landing pages had my ad headlines as well as keywords all through them. Guess what? I still got slapped. I ended up calling Google Adwords (Back then you call) and they agreed that they were in error and fixed the problem immediately.

So how does this help us? Well first of all start off working on SEO from the very beginning. Make sure each page has a title as well as keyword and description Meta tags. Work your keywords into your pages in a natural way writing first for people and then for search engines. Divide your keywords into small compact groups of very similar meanings. That means all of your brown widget keywords should be grouped together. If you have small brown widgets and large brown widgets then split them up and have a group for each. Use the same headline that's in your ad on your landing page. One important thing to remember is to have your company information on your site. Even better make sure you have an about us page as well as policy and contact us pages.

The best thing you can do is work out your SEO BEFORE you invest in Adwords. I recently went through this on a site my partner and I had been working on. I needed to run a test on two different domains. One had been set up properly but one had not. The properly set up site was doing great with keywords in the .20 to .30 cent range and high quality scores. We took the same content and posted it to the other domain and SLAP! Bids went up to $1.87 per click. The problem was the second site had not been set up correctly and Google didn’t like it a bit.

The moral of the story is Google doesn’t suffer fools well. Start your website with a plan that includes proper SEO and Google Adwords. Work your SEO first making sure all the elements are in place and THEN start on Adwords. Your clicks will cost you less and your conversions will increase and that’s money in the bank. Never again worry about Google Slap!

Low quality scores in Google Adwords can drive up costs and drive down conversions. Find out what you can do about it!

Let’s face it having a low quality score in Google Adwords stinks. It’s like being the kid who never gets picked for the team. It’s embarrassing, all right maybe not embarrassing but it is costly. A low quality score can mean that something in the market changed or that your ads need refreshing. Let’s take a look at what goes into the quality score and what we can do to make ours better.

There are three main things to look at when you have an issue with low quality scores.

1.      Click through rate (CTR)

2.      Keyword match (broad, phrase or exact)

3.      Landing page quality

4.      Overall site SEO

Your click through rate is the number of impressions divided by the number of clicks. The higher your click through rate the better. The first thing to check is not your Adwords account but the news. If your business is affected by outside forces like a bad economy or a change in season that may the answer. The next consideration is how long your ads have been running. Have you tested some new ads and left the old one off line. Try to test your new ads along with your old ones and only take one offline when it outshines the other over time. Taking ads out and deleting them starts the quality scoring process all over again. Try writing some new headlines or attention grabbers to get people clicking. Try a new offer and test it against an ad that was doing well.

Can I really trust you? That's the question your small business has to answer everyday.

This video is all about trust and what you can do to build it. Getting people to your site is just the start now you need to show them that they can trust you. More and more people today are concerned about identity theft or hiring someone who will rip them off. Today I will some simple ways you can build trust into your small business website. Remember being in business is all about building a business relationships and that call for trust. Just apply these simple techniques and watch your business grow!

Small business web design for the do it yourselfer

I know it seems like I’ve lost my mind but I haven’t. And NO I haven’t been drinking! Don’t get me wrong trying to build a website for your small business with NO prior experience, all by yourself is just as crazy as it sounds. What I’m talking about is something that any hard core “do it yourselfer” can do and that’s work with a website template.

Website templates are pre-designed websites or webpage’s that can be tweaked into a whole site. Website templates can be a low cost alternative to hiring a professional web designer. If you do a search on the web for “website templates” you will be presented with hundreds if not thousands of different choices. There are even sites devoted to free templates. That’s right I did say FREE! There are also small business website templates that start at $49.00 and go up into the thousands. The choice is yours. So where to begin?

Well the first thing is to assess your abilities. Do you have the ability to download and install a template? Do you know how to use an FTP client? Are you familiar with html? If you can answer yes to ALL of these questions maybe you can pull this off.

The main thing is to find a template that IS what you’re looking for not one that’s almost there. Unless you’re really good at html and have experience in re-coding websites don’t pick just any template. Take your time and look for a template that is set up the way you want it to be. If you have a company logo, check that the template is logo ready. If not you’ll have to re-code it. Not fun!

Are there banners or graphics you don’t like or don’t need? You can change the graphics by checking the size of the picture and creating a replacement of the same size. Changing the banner may be more difficult because you may need to dig to find where it’s stored. By the way generally speaking most graphics are in the images folder.

Even if you end up paying a couple hundred dollars for a good website template pre-designed the way you want it you’re going to save money. Not time just money. Remember, this like any do it yourself project is going to take time. Probably lots more time than any pro would take. So what’s the up side? Experience for one, along with the money you save the experience garnered from delving deep into the dark recesses of your chosen template will help you in administering said website in the future. That saves you from hiring an administrator.

The other thing that makes this a big plus is if your small business has never had a web presence you may not know what you need. Yes a web designer could probably help with that but for the most part they do a better job if YOU know what you’re looking for. By experimenting with your website template and asking your customers what they like and don’t like you’ll be more prepared to sit down with a designer when the time comes.

Let me know what you think, leave a comment!

Well I am sure if you do a little investigating on the internet you will find questions like these “Which one is better Google Adwords or Optimizing a website for search” or “Isn’t SEO better than Adwords because it’s free”. These are just a few of the questions and comments I have seen. One guy consistently writes post saying Adwords S**ks. Now I won’t go that far but Google Adwords can be tough on the uninformed. What I want to do is explore the pros and cons of each.

Adwords Cons:

• ·         If you’re a newbie it can be expensive
• ·         Takes work to set up
• ·         Needs to be checked often
• ·         Requires adding new pages to your site
• ·         You will be spending time testing  (Everything)
• ·         Requires lots of organizing

SEO Cons:

• ·         Can take time. Lots and lots of time.
• ·         Definite learning curve
• ·         Requires minor html knowledge
• ·         Prepare to learn some copywriting
• ·         Takes work to set up
• ·         Needs to be checked often
• ·         You will be spending time testing  (Everything)
• ·         Requires lots of organizing

We all in all they seem to be running close to neck and neck in cons. How about we check out the plus side.

Between search engine optimization, pay per click marketing and website administration can you really do it ALL yourself?

This is a subject that I am all too familiar with. I have had to do a great many things on my own like search engine optimization, Google Adwords, marketing, and website administration for my business. The reasons for my DIY adventures ranged from needing to get something done cheaply to not being able to find someone to do a job the way I wanted it done. Sometimes it was a matter of needing to experiment with a new idea without wanting to commit a huge investment. I have learned that doing it yourself can be very rewarding but it can also be a big pain in the…well you get the idea.

How good are you at self learning? Can you pick up a book or watch a video and learn how to do something new? If you can then maybe doing it yourself can work for you. If you frustrate easily or need to be in a classroom to learn then this may not work. You need to work with your strengths not against them.

How fast do you need things done? If you’re already set up with a website and you’re looking at restructuring maybe taking your time is a good thing. If you’re losing business every day and need a change now, maybe it would be better to hire someone. You see sometimes being cheap pays and sometimes…not so much. Let’s say you’re looking at putting up your first Adwords campaign, taking your time and learning as much as you can is a good plan. Putting up your first website without the help of a good web designer is not a great idea.

Be realistic. Web design is an art. You might be able to put up a web template that contains all the elements of what you want in a website but trying to create one from scratch is just nuts. Think about your goals. If you just want to save money then get ready to some studying and take the long road. If you think waiting will cost you money then hire someone. If you decide to do it yourself remember you’re not a pro so don’t expect perfection. Honestly perfection is over rated. You need sellable you need something that will get you business and that you can do yourself.

Get the best tools you can afford. I know there is a lot of free software on the internet but in most cases you get what you pay for. Spend the money on what you need. If you need Dreamweaver then buy it. Need to save money, use EBay and buy it cheap. The main point is to get tools that will save you the most time and frustration. Need Photoshop and don’t want to spend the big bucks? Get Photoshop elements. It’s a cheaper more basic version that will give the small business person everything they could need. The cost of buying the best tools is going to be offset by the money you’ll save by doing it yourself.

If you’ve got the time and the right attitude doing it yourself can be a big plus. Whether its search engine optimization, Google Adwords, website design or other areas of marketing your business online doing it yourself can make you money and teach you skills. Even if developing those skills help you hire a professional when it’s time to take your business to the next level it’ll be worth it.


 

Using Google Adwords to market your church can be the best and cheapest way to reach out to your community.

During the current recession in giving has dropped off the map for most churches. However he cost of advertising has not gone down. In order to get the word out most churches, Synagogues, shelters and other not for profit groups still use direct mail to get the word out. I have received post cards and letters from many of them in my area.

The problem is that the expense involved in producing and mailing these materials can be quite expensive. Here is an example. Let’s say you wanted to print 5000 full color 5×7 post cards, they are going to cost around $400. Now that is a price from an internet printer so if you went local look for the price to double, add to that postage at .25 cents for bulk mail, around $1250 and your nearing the $2000.00 mark.
 
With a well thought out Google Adwords campaign you could end up reaching the same amount of people for a fraction of the cost. You might even decide to spent the big money and reach even more people. How can this be? Most churches aren’t using Adwords to create awareness or get traffic to their sites.

How about we conduct a little experiment, do a search for a keyword associated with your churches. What would you think someone might search for when looking for a local church or Synagogue in your community? Maybe it’s the denomination followed by the city “Baptist church Tampa”. That’s great if you trying to let people know that your there in kind of a phone book way. What if you wanted to draw on issues or questions that people have about faith? You might try keywords that have to do with significance, faith, loss, or death. If you’re a nonprofit like a homeless shelter you may want to try something like feeding the hungry or helping the homeless.

Most of the keywords for searches like these are cheap. Many of them hover around 5₡ and most are under 20₡. By doing some keyword research and asking question to people that have donated in the past you could come up with a fairly large list of cheap keywords. Assuming that your conversion rate is about one percent you’re looking at 50 donations for each 5000 clicks. Based on what printing cost would be for the same amount of post cards you would be looking at $1800 or a $36 donation from each of the 50 people that converted. On the Google Adwords side the same 5000 clicks cost around 15₡ each for a grand total of $750. At the same conversion rate those fifty people would donate $15 each for you to break even.

It doesn’t take much to see that a well thought out Google Adwords campaign could really help a church up their donations and continue doing the good works so many in their communities desperately need.

 

Creating SEO strategies for your small business can be easy as checking out the competition

No you won’t go to jail. It’s not that kind of stealing. What I’m talking about is checking your competition out, seeing what keywords their using and seeing what’s working for them. With that data you can plan on how to gain an advantage. Keep in mind, depending on your business, your nearest competitor may have built their website themselves or had it designed by a professional. They may not have thought to optimize it for search or had an SEO company do it for them. If you do a search for your product or service the way a customer would look at the results. What do you see? If your competitor(s) are in the first page and you’re not then they are getting the bulk of that business.

So what do we do now? First, I want you to go to the view tab in your browser and click view page source. Now you need to look at the top of the page and find the TITLE Meta tag. This is the title for the page and is one of the elements that Google uses to rank the importance of a page. Next is the KEYWORD Meta tag. This is a list of keywords your competitor is using to tell Google what the page is about. Last is the DESCRIPTION Meta tag. This is the description of the page that shows up in the search results and lets the reader know what the site is about. Copy this information into a word document and save with your competitors name on it.