Using you PPC account you write small (typically two line) text ads. Then, using a list of keywords you choose (most services have tools to help you select keywords if you have not done so beforehand) you set “bids” – the amount you’re willing to pay – for your selected keywords. The better you bid, the higher your ad will appear in the search engines. However, only when someone clicks on the ad, do you pay the bid price – thus the term “pay per click.”

By definition the nature of PPC is a competitive one making it complex. In a bidding environment, the highest bidder usually wins. However you must be cognizant that keyword values are always changing, as new advertisers enter the marketplace. A PPC campaign must be monitored and updated (on an hourly, daily basis, and at minimum weekly basis) unlike organic SEO methods.

OK…Is this something I need to do?

The truthful answer is…it depends…but we say YES! There are lots of reasons to here are a few quick ones:

• If your site is fresh out of the starting gate, PPC is a great way to get it on the radar quickly (manual submissions are taking upwards to six months as of this writing) with search engines.
• If you are in a highly competitive market (i.e. Used Auto Sales near a military base), it’s a great way to get a leg up on the competition.
• You want to steer visitors to a specific place on your website (that new product/service/promotion or just a landing page).
• You want to have more conversions (that’s visits to sales/sales calls or whatever your site is designed to do for you/your business).
• You only pay for the click through.

That last item is a really good point to stress. How much do you pay for your phone listing or yellow page ad? Imagine that the phone company provided you real time reports on 1) who is reading your ad, 2) who is calling from the regular listing vs. the yellow page ad, and lastly 3) you only pay the phone company ONLY WHEN a potential customer used the yellow pages to call you)! With a PPC campaign you can budget by bid/time so you can stretch the money for the web campaign. You can also increase or DECREASE your budget amount (so a ski resort can up the ads when the snow flies and then lower them during the summer) with a few clicks. The yellow page people can only give generalizations and averages…and just try to change your yellow page subscription rate or ad on the fly! A PPC campaign provides REAL value to your marketing dollar.

Also w/PPC you become a “customer” of the search engine…so they provide tons of useful information to help you get the best performance out of your ad. After all…it’s in their best interest to help you get lots of people clicking your ad!

So is PPC really right for you? Our rule of thumb is – if you are a non niche business (and who isn’t thanks to the internet) and would like to get more visits to you site, then yes.

Basic SEO Checklist:

• Determine what specific key words you want to target with search engines. You can use a tool such as Wordtracker to see what search words are popular, and optimize your site for them. Make sure the key words you choose are relevant.
• Clean up your URLs. Don’t use capital letters, spaces, or special characters. Separate each word with a “-” dash.
• Redirect the non-www version of your site (many hosts allow for you to browse to http:// and http://www). When you enter mygreatdomain.com into the browser, it should redirect you to www.mygreatdomain.com using a SEO friendly 301 redirection.
• Make sure you don’t link to “index.htm” or “index.php”. Instead, link to “/”. If you know of or find specific links from other sites, ask them to do the same.
• Good relevant content. SEO will be much harder if you don’t have plenty of content, so spend more time writing!
• Add both an HTML sitemap (containing a link to every page on your site) as well as an XML sitemap. Use this tool for your site (free if your site is less than 500 pages).
• Remove frames from your site.
• Ensure the title and meta (description and keywords) are different on every page of the site.
• Remove any flash or image based navigation. If using CSS styled text for navigation is not possible, then add a text based footer navigation on every page.
• Optimize your images. Ensure all have alt tags and are placed near text that is relevant to the image.

There are lots more things one can do beyond the basics, but with these simple items…you’ll be headed in teh right direction.

What is Google Analytics you ask?

It is Google’s very own visitor tracking utility. Using the Urchin 5 engine, this free service provides information ranging from simple traffic measurement through to sophisticated predefined sales goal assessment (or conversions). Google Analytics allows you to keep tabs on site traffic, visitor numbers, traffic sources, behavior & trends, how long visitors spent on the site and a host of other information.

However, unlike Google’s other free tools, Google Analytics is unobtrusive (as in it does not have any special banners or visible components), which when you consider it’s price – free - is a great analysis tool to monitor and improve the performance of your website.

OK…it’s free and it’s from Google. What else is there?

Analytics naturally has all the features and statistical data you would expect from a world class statistics package, however, it also features a number of additional tools which put it ahead of the pack where useability and depth of information is concerned.

1. The Map Overlay

Essentially, this feature brings up a map of the world, highlighting the countries a site’s visitors stem from. Clicking on a country produces a close-up view, along with a geographical breakdown according to the region and/or city from which visitors accessed the site. This tool in itself is invaluable for sites with geographic specific content, allowing site owners to concentrate on their particular locale.

2. The Site Overlay

This is conceivably Google Analytics’ single most important feature from a site owner’s or online business owner’s perspective, as it provides a hands-on view of visitor behavior. When clicked, ‘Site Overlay’ opens the tracked web site in a new window and, after a moment’s loading time, overlays each link on the screen with a bar, containing information about clicks to the target page and any goal values reached. Since it allows the site owner to navigate his or her site and see exactly how visitors flow through it, it is difficult to imagine a more effective tool than this as far as raising a site’s conversion rates is concerned.

3. Goals & Funnels

Unless the site being tracked is an information site which does not rely on generating sales or inquiries, funnel rates are as important as sheer visitor numbers. The ‘Goals & Funnels’ feature allows users to set up specific goals for their site, such as tracking a visitor to the ‘Thank you for your inquiry’ page for instance. It also allows the user to set up specific monetary values for each goal, and thus track the site’s financial performance and profitability during any given period of time.

The term ‘Funnels’ refers to the specific path a visitor takes to reach the goal’s target page. Since most web sites sell a number of different product ranges or feature a number of ways to inquire, all of which lead to a single ‘Thank You’ page, the funnels allow for the tracking of each individual path with a minimum of fuss.

4. Graphical Representations

A great many visitor trackers out there will present the collected information in a certain way, be it a list, graph, pie chart, flow-chart or whatever. Whilst all these methods of presentation are of course valid, it is nevertheless a fact that most users are different, and a pie-chart is not necessarily ideal for those users preferring to work with graphs or vice versa. Google Analytics however, allows users to choose between views on many of its reports. Although this may seem like a relatively minor point, it nevertheless makes things easier, as it allows the user to work with the view he or she is most comfortable with.

So…is Google Analytics worth it?

If you aren’t using a stats package or using something that only provides basic data, definitely. Google Analytics provides site owners with a highly effective means of tracking visitors and analyzing statistical data, easily the equal of most subscription based services in the industry. However, if you are using an existing package, your current statistics program is probably worth as much if not more than you are paying for it. Cost should never be the best reason to downgrade your statistics program, especially if your current system is superior to Google’s – so sign up for the free tool and try it out…then decide.

ADDENDUM: I’ve come across this really good site detailing most of Google Analytics’s more attractive features: http://mashable.com/2007/05/09/27-google-analytics-features/