An Introduction to Traffic Research Using Google Tools

One of the questions that  comes up fairly often is 'How do I do traffic research using Google?' People tend to forget that Google isn't just about search, but also about advertising, publishing and revenue generation, too. 


The two main tools that Google provides that can help with traffic research are:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Google Analytics

 Both of these tools need to be used together; when people talk about traffic research, what they mean is:

• finding traffic
• getting traffic to visit
• holding on to that traffic to make a sale

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can be used in traffic research to scope out new opportunities (keyword phrases) that will yield visitors. Luckily, it's not as hit and miss as it might sound, as the AdWords Keyword tool provides some excellent comparison and filtering modules.


Tip : When using the AdWords Keyword Tool, look for traffic of around 10k and Low competition, as this is usually the easiest to target.


The other side of the traffic research question is Google Analytics. This is a very sophisticated service that takes a lot of experimentation to master. Luckily, the Traffic Research with Google Analytics  article will give you a head start in unerstanding how to make the most of it.


Key to using these two resources together, however, is in feeding back some of the Analytics results to the AdWords Keyword Tool in order to find new traffic sources. The process for bloggers is described in the article Using Blog Posts for Keyword Research.


In essence, traffic research using Google tools is like having an insight into the mind of potential customers, and is part marketing and part traffic acquisition.

Paid and Free Traffic Acquisition Models

Traffic acquisition is the method by which you drive traffic to your site. All traffic has to be acquired via some means. It is pointless expecting people to happen on your web site by chance : they will either be referred to it through word of mouth, click on an advert, or be driven to it as part of a bulk traffic campaign.

PPC & Free Traffic Acquisition Models

These are advertising based. We're all familiar with the model - a potential visitor sees an advert, is attracted to the site, visits it by clicking the link, and then converts (we hope) to a customer.

Pay Per Click (PPC) exchanges, of which Google AdSense / AdWords is one, offer the possibility to pay a set price per click. This makes it very easy to manage the total cost of acquiring the traffic. However, competition means that this can be an expensive way to acquire traffic. However, the upside i that the traffic will usually be pretty responsive; and you don't pay if nobody clicks your advert.

Services like Traffic Swarm are great, in that they offer a PPC model, but for free. The way that this works is that you earn credits by visiting other people's sites, which can then be used to display your own advert. It is a little self-serving, but as long as you are offering something original, that is of use to fellow Traffic Swarm users, it can be very effective.

Bulk Traffic Acquisition Models

Bulk traffic is slightly different, in that the cost of acquisition is fixed on the number of visitors generated; regardless of the way that they are generated. So, one could be paying $40 for 1,500 visitors without them having chosen to visit the site at all.

How does this work?

It's easy. A bulk traffic service sells popup, redirected, and search engine traffic. They either pop a site up in a window, redirect traffic from a defunct domain name in a similar business area, or redirect it from search engine results tailored to specific keywords. This means that the quality of the traffic varies, and, more importantly, it's passive traffic.

Crucially, this means that the visitor has not elected to visit the site - they're being forced to do so.

However, this may well work for some - and the low cost CPM (cost per thousand) often makes it worth testing out. The service of choice as far as the KeywordCracker is concerned is Revisitors. They offer a professional service, and deliver exactly what they promise. As always, your mileage will vary depending on how compelling your sales letter is, and the nature of your niche.

CPC and CPM

CPM is the cost per thousand, and is a reasonable measure of the cost of traffic acquisition. It is the figure usually quoted by other online advertising channels. A CPC of five cents is a CPM of $50. This means that, in order to attract 1,000 visitors to your site, using PPC, you will pay $50.

On the other hand, using a bulk traffic service, the cost will be substantially lower. However, remember that PPC visitors have chosen to visit your site, based on your advert copy. Bulk traffic visitors, on the other hand, have had little choice but to land on your sales letter or web site. Subsequently, they may be less inclined to stay, depending on how compelling your offer is.

This will affect the conversion rate. PPC traffic, and fre.e traffic that is sourced from search engines or advert based services will offer a higher conversion rate than bulk traffic, but bulk traffic can produce very quick results if it is correctly targeted.

And that's one of the reasons we use Revisitors - they offer the possibility to target the bulk traffic to offer the best chance of traffic conversion at a very low cost of acquisition.

CPC PPC and Traffic Acquisition Explained

Using Google Resources for Keyword Research and Know Your Numbers

Why you should always be able to calculate the cost of acquiring traffic, the anticipated income, and the market price of keywords for your product niche, or risk leaving money on the table!

Someone asked me the other day why so much time is spent concentrating on PPC, CPC and the cost of traffic. It's easy - if you don't know your numbers in business, whatever the business, you're doomed to failure from the start. Whether you're talking about keyword research, AdSense/AdWords or other pay per click advertising, or just looking to buy some bulk traffic or ezine adverts, the only way to know that it will be profitable is to know the numbers. Chiefly, it is in the infopreneur/affiliate marketer's interest to know:

• the cost of traffic acquisition
• the conversion rate
• the income per action

In other words, it is necessary to have a good handle on how much the campaign will cost, what proportion of the resulting leads will become customers, and how much each anticipated action is going to make. It is only when in possession of these three indicators that the calculation as to whether a campaign is worth the time and money can be performed. Before making any sense of these numbers, it is necessary to understand a few terms.

PPC

This acronym refers to a specific model used to acquire traffic, Pay Per Click. It is the model used by Google AdWords, amongst others, whereby the advertiser pays a fee for each visitor directed to their site via an advert that they supply. From the point of view of an online entrepreneur, the model is very powerful in allowing adverts to be tested for a relatively small fee.

What is more important is the amount of control that the advertiser has over the budget. For example, the PPC provider (be it Google or another) will let the advertiser know up front how much each click will cost (see CPC, below). Added to that, the advertiser can also pick a budget for the campaign that fits their needs, and know how many guaranteed site visits that will bring.

It is a very, very, powerful, and flexible, traffic acquisition model indeed.

CPC

CPC is the Cost Per Click. It is the amount that an advertiser has to pay, per click, to receive a single visitor. Depending on the traffic source (paid inclusion, context sensitive advert, email advert, site advert, etc.) this can vary greatly. A reasonable indicator (for reasons explained below) of CPC is the Google AdWords cost.

This can range from $0.05 (five cents) right up to $10 and more. For a single click. This is a very important metric, as it allows the site owner to calculate the expected profit of a campaign, based on the cost of traffic acquisition.

The profit is equal to the selling price, multiplied by the conversion rate, multiplied by the number of visitors, minus the CPC multiplied by the number of visitors. So, if a site owner sells a $37 eBook, from a sales page converting at 10% (0.1), then the profit from a 100 visitor campaign, with a $0.05 CPC would be:

profit = (($37 x 0.1) x 100) - (0.05 x 100)
profit = $370 - $5
profit = $365

Simply turning this equation around allows the site owner to calculate the highest CPC that they will tolerate, for their product price and conversion rate.

Google AdSense and Google AdWords

A final word, since this is a keyword research blog, on AdWords and AdSense.

Google AdWords works by allowing site owners to bid on keywords. The more bidders there are, the higher the CPC. Then, the Google AdSense system is used to display adverts on pages which seem to match the keywords in content and context. The owner of the site running the advert then gets paid a (small) portion of the CPC.

So, when researching keywords, it often pays to look at the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and check the CPC. It's a great indicator of keyword value, be it for an AdSense affiliate, or an AdWords advertiser.

Specifically, the AdSense and Keyword Research Guide gives direct instructions from both sides of the marketing fence.

Until next time,
Guy

Secrets of an AdWords Professional

Pay Per Click Optimization and AdWords Marketing Guru Reveals All!

In this post, read the top tips from an AdWords professional, learn all about pay per click optimization and AdWords marketing, and follow some simple steps to success...

Google AdSense and AdWords are two sides to the world's most popular, influential, and widespread pay per click (PPC) advertising platform. Content creators can use AdSense to generate income, whilst online sellers can deploy AdWords as their PPC traffic generation mechanism.

AdWords and AdSense are also linked to Google search too, which means that keyword researchers can use the same tools that AdWords professionals use to target their keywords accurately to optimize their content for search engine marketing.

The goal of the AdWords professional is to use pay per click optimization and PPC keyword research to get the best return on investment for their clients, but also to use the techniques to deploy their own content to attract attention in their chosen niche.

It requires some careful tracking, management, and some clever manipulation of the tools Google makes available to it's users to achieve the best effects. But when they come together, the results are outstanding - whatever the final goal:

• Great search engine placement
• Naturally occurring Web 2.0 promotion
• AdSense revenue generation
• AdWords keyword campaign ROI

Part of the whole process involves making sure that the pay per click results are carefully optimized.

Pay Per Click Optimization

Running an efficient AdWords campaign means getting the most clicks (actions) from the investment. This usually means making sure that the revenue from each action - on average - outstrips the cost of obtaining that action (the _pay_ in PPC).

For a low margin product, such as AdSense income through advertising (a.k.a AdWords / AdSense arbitrage), the cost per click (CPC in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool), must be minimized, while the expected CPC from AdSense income must be maximized.

High margin products, on the other hand, might pull in enough money that a high CPC can still reap benefits. If the conversion rate is 10%, for example, and the CPC is $10 (easy numbers), then the cost of a single sale is 10 x 10, or $100. So, the margin has to be higher than $100 on each product in order for the AdWords campaign to break even.

And, it goes without saying that the keywords have to be logically connected for the entry and exit points of the system. It is no good paying for cheap AdWords that have nothing to do with the content / product on sale.

AdWords Marketing and Search Engine Marketing

The other side to the technique is as a way to get great search engine rankings using the PPC paradigm and Google AdWords. Here the trick is to leverage the AdWords and AdSense tools to research keywords that have actually been used in real Google searches, and at the same time, are being targeted by advertisers. The result ought to be content that is heavily weighted in favor of good natural search engine rankings.

So, from the point of view of an AdWords professional, anyone can use pay per click optimization techniques to help deliver more traffic. And because it concentrates on AdWords marketing, the result is content that is heavily optimized towards search engine marketing, as well. Using pay per click advertising services such as Google AdWords as a form of keyword research is a key secret to traffic success on the world wide web.

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