AdWords is for-real!

psychdev · #1 (**permalink**) 03-22-2008, 11:50 PM

I signed up for AdWords today using my $50 voucher, I finished the day with 10,717 impressions! Google said I didn't pick very good keywords.. but thats okay... it only cost me $1.30. I agree they were bad.. I only had 16 clicks.. haha.. BUT I really like how Google helps narrow down what keywords are worth keeping.

I just don't know how to pick good keywords for my site... my site doesn't have a lot of "content" to use for keyword suggestion.. I'm lost

(this is for my rate-my-website.com site)

ALSO I have another question:

How come my 16 adwords visits don't show up on my visits in analytics??

ssmorgan · #2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 12:16 AM

Google is going through a yet another modification to their Adwords algorithm/software that analyzes keyword relevancy, quality, etc... Over the last few weeks, a lot of Adwords advertisers got slapped big time. They are getting a bit tougher on advertisers. They want to make sure that if you're using Adwords to advertise, then your ad offers some quality to the Google user. For example, they don't want to see a website about "laptops" bidding on cooking recipes types of keywords. They want to see that your site is about laptops and you're advertising for laptop keywords.

In addition, I think they are looking for specificity and relevancy - to put it simply, if you are advertising for a specific model of a laptop, say Sony VAIO xyz. Your landing page (that page someone arrives to if they clicked on your ad) would include Sony VAIO xyz in the H1 tags, sprinkled across the page, and in links (basic SEO techniques, if you think about it). Again, the reason for this is to eliminate lack of relevancy and specificity.

One of the most crucial things when playing around with Adwords is not to get excited about the number of clicks, but what the quality is of those clicks. For example, if you bid on a general keyword like "laptop" and get 1000 clicks per day... that would suck!!! Because you would have to pay for those 1000 clicks, and more than 99.9% of those clicks won't buy anything, because nobody would type "laptops" in their Google search and end up actually buying a laptop with whatever ads come up. Obviously, they are still in their research about laptops and not in ready-to-buy mentality.

To be honest, I am not sure promoting rate-my-website.com with PPC is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea for your site, but I can see it doing better with social networking websites, spreading by word-of-mouth. I could be wrong, but I feel that if someone is seeking out your website, they wouldn't find it through Google Ads. It may be a good idea for an application on Facebook

Just curious, do you mind sharing what keywords you used for your site?

Also, be careful when using Adwords with poor quality keywords and having low CTR (clickthrough ratio, i.e. % of clicks to impressions), because you don't want your domain to get slapped.

Sorry I rambled and threw a bunch of info out there. Let me know if I need to clarify some stuff

Sherif

ssmorgan · #3 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychdev

ALSO I have another question:

How come my 16 adwords visits don't show up on my visits in analytics??

Analytics can be slow in reporting, but if it still doesn't show up in a few hours, then something else is wrong.

psychdev · #4 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 12:59 AM

That is exactly the kind of information I was looking for.. thanks!

I agree now that you mention it that social networking would be a better method of advertising.. but I'm just so new to this whole advertising thing.

How, other than a facebook app, could I promote my site on social networks? Seems like i would just have to face the dilemma of advertising my app too?

keywords i used:
rate my, rate your, website reviews, rate my website, site reviews, rate my web site,
site critic

ssmorgan · #5 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychdev

I agree now that you mention it that social networking would be a better method of advertising.. but I'm just so new to this whole advertising thing.

How, other than a facebook app, could I promote my site on social networks? Seems like i would just have to face the dilemma of advertising my app too?

I can't think of any specific ones other than Facebook off the top of my head, but sites or forums that attract webmasters would be ideal. For example, there is this great forum called WebsiteBabble.com ...

You know... now that I think about it, applications can be tricky to make and promote them. You can use Facebook in different ways, though, e.g. joining webmaster groups.

Here is where I would start: make a list of everyone you know who owns a website and tell them about your new website, encourage them to submit their website and to tell everyone they know about it, so they would go on your website to rate their sites

Also, here is another idea... think from the perspective of a webmaster... what would be the benefit of adding their site to yours to be ranked. You can create a landing page with a list of benefits and quality/targeted keywords and use Google Adwords to promote it. But since this costs money, I would tend to stick to the word-of-mouth approach.

Sherif

psychdev · #6 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 01:44 AM

If you think a facebook app would be a great way of increasing traffic, I can do it.. its sorta my profession... haha.. But I feel like if I knew how to advertise my facebook app, I wouldn't have a problem with figuring out how to advertise my website

I realize that my main target audience is webmasters. My AdWords ads target webmasters by telling them "Increase traffic to your website by having it rated & reviewed! Get your site seen!"

I guess the bulk of people who search for "rate my" arent going to be webmasters, and if I want to appeal to this group, I should reword my ad for them (im guessing that can be done by attaching different ad campaigns to different keywords?).

How would i appeal to the average "rate my" searcher? "Discover great new sites at Rate-My-Website.com!" ?

ssmorgan · #7 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 02:10 AM

With Facebook, if you're already on Facebook, look to see if there are similar applications. If you're not, start by creating a profile and adding your friends. Typically, I think applications take off virally... so if you add it, invite all your friends to add it to their profiles and add their websites, etc, it may take off that way. I would hold off on that, though, because nowadays, there are a TON of applications, and I think a lot of people are getting irritated with all the application invites.

I would focus on targeting webmasters for now. Once you have a good list of websites, I would try to bring in traffic of people who just want to spend time on the internet

I am worried with Adwords right now, because let's say I don't know you and I clicked on your ad, and if I only see a few sites listed, I would be reluctant to add my website... do you see what I mean?

Here is another idea... I don't know how good you are with scripting, but what if you have an "email to friends" script, where webmasters can email all their friends to encourage them to rank their sites on rate-my-website.com

Hope this helps

Sherif

ssmorgan · #8 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 02:11 AM

Oh, and by the way, I will get around to submitting my sites soon

psychdev · #9 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 02:18 AM

Do the "email to friends" scripts really work well? I just know that I personally never ever use these

If you feel 100% that I should do this i'll put a script up.

And I totally agree with what you say about people being reluctant to add their sites.. However my 16 adwords clicks did result in 2 new members

with 4 new sites added.... 3 being the same basic thing.. but I don't mind.. because my top 10 list no longer has blank lines lol.

ssmorgan · #10 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychdev

Do the "email to friends" scripts really work well? I just know that I personally never ever use these

If you feel 100% that I should do this i'll put a script up.

Well, I think generally they may not work, but in this case, where a webmaster may want to tell his/her friends about rating the website, then they may be interested. Hard to tell though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychdev

And I totally agree with what you say about people being reluctant to add their sites.. However my 16 adwords clicks did result in 2 new members

with 4 new sites added.... 3 being the same basic thing.. but I don't mind.. because my top 10 list no longer has blank lines lol.

Well, that's great! 1 in 8 is not bad.

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