Serve Your Customers First : Tips for Organic SEO

Before we get into the whole "keyword research as an organic SEO technique" discussion, I suggest you take a moment and think about what you are trying to achieve.

As R L Adams notes in The SEO White Book: "Today, to rank high, Google needs to trust you." The author then goes on to point out that Google's trust is influenced by three key components:

• age - how long has your domain been online?
• authority - who else that Google already trusts thinks you are great?
• content - is the content actually relevant and useful?

Organic SEO is only really concerned with the last of these - the content. However, your authority measure will be affected by the way that you link back to your top level domain (or whatever you're trying to attract customer attention towards) and the keywords that you use in promoting it to their readers.

This last assumes that you are attempting to increase authority using researched backlinking from a higher-authority site identified by its Google PageRank, and is not in the scope of this article.

What is in scope is the organic keyword research that leads to the content used for promotion, be it on-site or off-site. And key to that process is the mantra : Serve Your Customers First.

Author Avinash Kaushik echoes this sentiment in Web Analytics 2.0 : "...if you know the source of your traffic, you can strongly infer what kinds of people are coming to your web site..."

Kaushik then goes on to reinforce this idea by pointing out that "[organic traffic] accounts for an outsized percentage of its [website traffic] multiple conversions." The book sees PPC and organic SEO as two sides of the same coin, and I tend to agree that if you have both you will reap the rewards.

However, much can be achieved by deploying organic SEO on its own, as long as you start with your customers. To do that, you'll need to dig into the traffic stats, and uncover the actual search terms that are bringing traffic to the site.

You'll begin to note that there are certain combinations of keyword phrase with action phrases that lead to sales, whereas there are some common 'research only' phrases that might bring traffic, but with a very low conversion rate.

One of the easiest ways to start making organic SEO pay its way is by using keyword research to identify keyword phrases that are already bringing in traffic, and capture an additional portion of that segment of the market that are also ready to buy.

If you can leverage your keyword research to achieve that, then you will be able to boost sales, reduce your traffic acquisition costs, and help promote your authority to Google. All of which ought to push you yo the top of the pile, ready to serve your customers better with higher quality content and relevant product offerings.

The Three Aspects of Search Engine Marketing Explained

Today, I received an interesting email entitled Back to Basics with SEM from Website Magazine. If you're not signed up, and are a web site owner or search engine marketer, then you need to! (They don't even pay me to tell you that, either...)

Even if you don't want to give away your email address to receive yet another inbox magazine, it's worth taking a look at the Back to Basics with SEM article. With all the anxiety over Google updates, shifts in the landscape of paid search inclusion, and the like, some of the basic definitions are often overlooked.

So, for a 30 second scan-read, or a more in depth 5 minutes of your time, it's worth remembering that SEM is not the same as SEO, and that there are other traffic acquisition strategies out there.

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

Making Money with Keyword Research

Web Marketing and Money Making Tips from SEO, PPC and Business Strategy Guru.

Marketing tips and ways to increase income using keyword research, SEO, PPC and everything else you are already doing.

Nothing you do online should ever be a one-shot activity.

If you write a blog entry (like this one), then it should be done with re-use in mind. If you write articles, they should be easy to rewrite as blogs. Any Yahoo! Answers question that you answer can itself become an article or blog entry, and vice-versa. The same goes for forums posts, emails, phone calls, etc.

Over time, this will all bring great search engine marketing dividends; but how does keyword research fit in to this 'monetize everything' strategy?

Here are a few key ideas:

• Single keyword lists - multiple uses;
• AdSense / AdWords arbitrage;
• Content themeing;
• PLR resource creation;
• etc.

Do you see a pattern? It starts with the keyword research, expands with knowledge about the keywords being used to describe the niche, and spreads into wider knowledge about the subject. Before you know it - you're an expert, and another people will pay you for the niche knowledge that your research has thrown up.

Let's take these one point at a time.

A keyword list (such as you might download from Google AdSense) of around 100 - 150 words contains information that can be used for different things. For example, sorted by PPC value, it tells you how much you can make from clicks on adverts related to the keyword phrase. Sorted by average search traffic, it tells you how many visitors, comparatively, you might expect for a set of keyword phrases.

It's the same list, sorted two different ways. So, learn how to use a spreadsheet like OpenOffice.org, or Excel, and start making multiple uses of the same data. This is key to the Keyword Cracker mentality, spelled out in the acclaimed eBook 'AdSense and Keyword Research Guide'.

In that list, you might spot anomalies which indicate an arbitrage opportunity. For example, in my list 'adwords keyword research' has a PPC value of $0.05 which means that for every 1,000 visitors that click my link, I will pay $50. Now, if I have a product with a good sales page that converts at around 10-15%, and sells for $37, then I can make $3,700 from that $50. This is a good ratio, but there's more.

My research also tells me that 'adwords' appears in items with a PPC of around $16. So, even if my product fails to make a sale, some of the visitors are bound to click on related adverts displayed to them on the exit page, or a popup/under. I only need a few tens of those to click through to recoup my original $50 : it's a kind of safety net.

Now that I've started looking at AdSense and AdWords in my keyword list, it would be silly not to theme some content around the keywords. After all, sorting the same list by Advertiser Competition reveals what the industry thinks is important : 'AdWords', 'Pay Per Click Optimization', 'AdWords Advertising', 'AdWords Marketing', and 'Search Engine Marketing' are the top 5.

Now, I happen to know enough about all 5 to write 5 articles, and create a themed web of content around them; off the top of my head. And, I can even allow people to customize them and use them for their own site (the PLR angle). If I write 5 tightly focussed, 400-600 word articles (like this one), optimized for keyword phrases that Google reports as having a PPC of $5 to $10 per click, all with above average search engine traffic, how much would you pay for them? $10 the set? $15? $20?

If I make just two or three sales per 1,000 clicks, my time has been worthwhile.

Put all these streams together, and one little bit of research will pay dividends.

To your continued success with Keyword Research,
Guy

The Keyword Cracker
Get the acclaimed 'AdSense Keyword Research Guide'

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.

The Keyword Cracker
Get the acclaimed 'AdSense Keyword Research Guide'