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by Kirt Christensen
With the astonishing growth of the Internet, many companies are finding new and exciting ways to expand upon their business opportunities. There are very few successful companies that do not use computers in their everyday business activities, which also means there are very few companies that do not use E-commerce.
The sending and receiving of data by electronic exchange is the simplest form of e-commerce. The internet, as a result, is utilized as a means of conducting business transactions. Many firms that utilize e-commerce often have a large amount invested in the creation of sales online. As a result, the most important aspect of any e-commerce system is the amount of security involved.
A business security plan for securing electronic commerce must begin with a baseline. Firewalls and the use of encryption can only protect against 80% of all security threats. Common sense policy measures, such as proper configuration of computer systems and appropriate use of passwords, are often overlooked Here is a list of 7 things you can add to your site to get the e-commerce sales flowing.
The first is the use of cataloging, which involves the placement of inventory under proper headings in databases and on product pages. Simple, easy to navigate catalog pages that simplify the searching process for items will improve the experience. The second idea is utilizing specials that can highlight product offerings and drive traffic to your site.
Third, incorporate good visual content into your page. Vibrant colors, a clean look, and simple design can allow for the ease of use to increase for the average customer. Fourth, consider incorporating a simple way to identify the benefits and features of a product in summary for a consumer so that they aren’t forced to decipher a product description to find if the item meets their needs.
Fifth one is CUSTOMER SERVICE, Because you cant have a live sales person there to answer every question, a well laid out FAQs section with more than 5 questions is extremely important. Six one is CHECKOUT, Make sure your checkout process works, and that you provide multiple payment methods, by cheque, credit card or even provide the option to fax in the order
Seventh one is RESPONSE TIMES, Most major e-commerce stores reply in 3 to 4 hours or less. This is extremely important if you take longer than a day, you will frustrate your prospects and they will become your competitors customer
An extra tip that is more like a necessity for many businesses is the utilization of analytical software that most sites have in their E-commerce packages. This software, when combined with the aforementioned tips for bringing in traffic and customers, can allow the average business to identify who their target customer is. By identifying the target market, and tailoring the business to their needs and wants, you can drive the level of sales of your goods and services upwards.
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by Kirt Christensen
This article is not meant to a be all and end all list of ways to improve an online shopping service and decrease the number of people leaving your page. However, it wouldn’t take much to expand on this and come up with more ways to create a successful shopping cart web page.
One of the most important aspects to a good online shopping program is its ease of use, such as having a recently added item automatically be displayed in a cart, and remain there even when looking at other products. This is something almost all shopping cart programs have in common, and if yours does not, you should change immediately.
Many shopping cart sites out there are perfectly functional, but because they look disreputable, lose business. In order to keep prospective buyers on your site, it is important that your site appear trustworthy by displaying the logos of major credit card companies.
An important factor in the decision to buy for a customer is other customer’s opinions and previous experiences. In order to make their business more likely, you should include a place for customer testimonials. But while you may be tempted to boost your own reputation by adding words of praise for yourself by yourself, it is easy to spot and can have the opposite result that you want.
What further I can do decrease my shopping cart abandonment? There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for shipment of ordered items for weeks. Create a tracking system that would allow a customer to see what is happening to their ordered items. That way they could be sure when they should expect an item or where and when it got delayed.
The best online shopping sites often offer a way for consumers to easily find the item they are looking for in categories, and compare the item side-by-side with other products and prices. If your site doesn’t offer this, you could be looking at a mass exodus of customers very quickly.
Allowing a customer to personalize, modify and customize their shopping experience is a great way to increase loyalty and popularity of your site. Showing recently visited products and the like can help influence customers return to your site in the future.
In today’s economy, it is important to put yourself in the consumer’s place and imagine what they would be looking for in a shopping site. Easy-to-use, accessible, and modifiable sites will always have the upper hand against clumsy, improperly-designed sites any day, and it is your responsibility to make sure users will return to your sites and enjoy its use again and again. If you do so, the profits will be quick to follow.
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by Kirt Christensen
When you are running an Internet business over the web, it is very important what type of system you incorporate into your network. It really makes the difference in whether you break even or suffer from financial losses. What are the things that help you choose a good system? Actually there are seven key points to look at.
In asking the question, you may think that you, as the business owner, need to consider the different attributes of an E-commerce system that are integral to your business and make a purchase based your needs, right? While this may be true, there are also some general needs for your system that transcend the differences between business operations and can be considered as automatic things to consider in your purchase.
The first answer on the list answering that question \”What are 7 things to make sure that my ecommerce system has before I buy?\” should be scalability of the system. You need to be able to grow your business as the customer base grows, and you need to have a system that pays attention to how your business is trending and is able to react in response. Failure to address this need properly can result in your business suffering growing pains or being held back from natural growth.
Your new system will also need to combine with your other systems like inventory, billing or payroll with ease, to make an easy to follow network from one end of your business to the other, saving you time, and saving time increases your earning potential. This system needs to have the capacity for growth, as well.
A third ecommerce system need is simple and easy content management. This is something that the best ecommerce software is able to address properly, and is something that a larger business finds is an increasingly crucial need. Content management can make the difference between an easy to use, informative inventory that can easily update and service customers and a sloppy, mismanaged database that doesn’t have the flexibility to keep up with your sales.
A fourth ecommerce system need is great security. A good system is only good if it can provide enough security to both keep the customer’s safety in find at the time of purchase as well as keep information safe once the transaction has been made. The system you choose needs to keep info safe at all levels, as poor security in any area can lead to your business becoming disreputable.
The fifth thing you need is a great check-out system. Your customers want to have a quick and easy shopping experience. If they have had a quick and easy experience they are much more likely to return and purchase again. It is crucial to check carefully the shopping options available with the system you will be choosing for your Internet business.
The sixth desirable characteristic of a good operating system, worth your investment, is the customer service offered by the company that you purchase it from. What good will it do if you have a heavy customer database dependent on it, and it fails on you somehow, and you can’t contact the person you purchased it from for advice or replacement?
The analytical software that is included in the systems software packages with these systems is very important. It is these tools that tell you who your customers may be, and, what they are buying, in addition to what they want from your business. This will help the business owner apply his marketing skills in the most efficient ways.
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by Kirt Christensen
Over the last decade ecommerce has evolved so that the small business owner can have customers all over the globe. To give their customers the best online experience the business owner needs to concentrate on which ecommerce software to select for their website.
A business owner may naturally think <” How can using a shopping cart increase my sales?” This happens since the efficiency of the website is enhanced.
The shopper is able to manage their purchases by selecting items they may be interested in purchasing by placing them in the shopping cart. This order processing system helps them see all their options.
The software needs to offer the customers flexibility to add or delete or increase the quantity of the merchandise that they want to buy from your website. All these changes will be managed in a simple manner so that your customers are not confused by the process.
Now the answer to the business owner”How does this increase my online sales?” The answer is that the shopping cart must have links to databases with related items so the customer will add those companion items to the cart as well.
The shopping cart software links up with your product database to enable your website to reflect the changed price the moment you make the changes. The shopping cart software also has features for you to run special promotions on selected goods without affecting the prices of your other products.
You do not need to hire people with technical knowledge to run your shopping cart software since there are templates and examples of each type of required information. The interactive graphic interface is explained in plain English.
The shopping cart software allows you to beef up your online sales by efficiently managing your clientele and by being able to respond by having special promotions and using other marketing tactics as required to stay competitive.
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by Kirt Christensen
If you are anything like most modern business owners, you are probably wondering how you can get started with e-commerce. Don’t worry, getting started with e-commerce is not hard! You can find many guides online to assist you with the process. This particular guide will focus on building a shopping cart system.
If you’re wondering, \”Why do I need a full-featured shopping cart system?\”, you’re not alone. Recent studies have suggested that close to 80 percent of small business owners are not offering products for purchase through their website and are uncertain whether they would want to do so.
However, according to successful e-commerce veterans, setting up a shopping cart system is the first step to creating an online e-commerce empire. Since small business owners generally tend to increase their revenue when they begin offering products online, this is a smart decision.
A great deal of money can be made by allowing customers to purchase merchandise with a few clicks of their computer mouse. Customers will be grateful for the ease with which they can shop!
It has been reported that customers are attracted to sites that have taken e-commerce seriously. This causes customers to see the merchandise more favorably and rate the company more highly because it makes the seller seem attentive to their needs and creates a quicker and easier shopping experience.
The holiday season is vital for businesses, and the right e-commerce software will make this time period more profitable and easier to handle. Your customers get stressed during the holiday season just as you do, and stressed customers may choose to do their business elsewhere if the shopping experience is not easy or convenient.
They would tend to rather stay home and make purchases, rather than braving the crowds. In addition, your brick and mortar store is less crowded, and your employees are able to focus more on providing excellent customer service. Online purchases require little or no work on your part.
E-commerce software is simpler and more affordable than ever before. Your specific needs and budget can be met with anything from turnkey software to a customized solution. The best part is that it only costs you pennies for each purchase made by an online customer!
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by Kirt Christensen
This is not meant to be exhaustive summary of what can I do to decrease my shopping cart abandonment. However, if you ran small sanity test you may quickly come up with simple advice that would help any web developer in creating shopping cart webpage.
When looking at the best shopping cart softwares many people are surprised by their similarity. The most commonly occurred element in these softwares is a simple use. Whenever you are putting a new item into a cart it is automatically displayed and you see it from that time on whenever you browse for other products. If your shopping cart software does not use such feature it is time to change it immediately.
Many web retailers allow you to use a virtual shopping cart, but many lose viewers because they do not look credible. It is critical that your site displays the logos of major credit cards, such as MasterCard and Visa.
An important factor in the decision to buy for a customer is other customer’s opinions and previous experiences. In order to make their business more likely, you should include a place for customer testimonials. But while you may be tempted to boost your own reputation by adding words of praise for yourself by yourself, it is easy to spot and can have the opposite result that you want.
What further I can do decrease my shopping cart abandonment? There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for shipment of ordered items for weeks. Create a tracking system that would allow a customer to see what is happening to their ordered items. That way they could be sure when they should expect an item or where and when it got delayed.
Easily accessible and navigable categories on your Web site will make it a more popular site. This makes it easier for customers to quickly, easily and simply find the product they are looking for and compare it to others. The best shopping sites offer this feature, so if yours does not, you are at the risk of losing market share.
Make your shopping cart software customized. If a customer has visited certain pages before make sure that they are displayed like commercials somewhere on the web. This way you would not only remind him/her of previous purchases but also attract him/her again to your website. Do not forget making account modifiable so that a customer may change settings to make it even more suitable for him.
In today’s economy, it is important to put yourself in the consumer’s place and imagine what they would be looking for in a shopping site. Easy-to-use, accessible, and modifiable sites will always have the upper hand against clumsy, improperly-designed sites any day, and it is your responsibility to make sure users will return to your sites and enjoy its use again and again. If you do so, the profits will be quick to follow.
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by Kirt Christensen
If you know exactly how to use your online shopping cart to the best of your ability, then it may be able to help you increase profits. This software is not only a way for your customers to buy multiple items at once, or pick the best shipping method, but it can also be used to better your sales. Here are some things you should know about online shopping carts.
The central concept to keep in mind when deciding how to use cart software is that the shopping cart is a point of communication between you and your customer, and you can use it to engage in active selling, rather than just passively waiting for them to add items. Use your shopping cart software to learn about your customer, and to offer them additional opportunities that are tailored to them.
You need to choose items that go along with whatever your customer is buying. An example is to suggest batteries if they are buying a toy. Another example is if they are into a certain type of cooking, offer similar cookbooks. By offering the right item to coexist with the one they are already planning on purchasing, you may be able to increase your sales.
Still asking \”How can I use my shopping cart to beef up my online sales?\” You can use the shopping cart to offer special deals and discounts. Suppose someone has ordered a pair of shoes, and you have a \”buy 2 get 1 free\” sale on. If you remind them of this on the cart webpage, they may well be tempted to add another pair in order to take advantage of the sale. Specials that encourage the customer to add additional items in order to get discounts or free items are a good way to increase revenues.
If you know what your customer bought in the past, then you can offer them similar items when they return. You can do this by saving the information from the shopping cart. This helps you get to know your customers needs and once again encourage them to buy more. By targeting your customers needs and suggesting specific items you are also letting them know all the products you offer.
Not every software package can help you do these things. The last answer to \”How can I use my shopping cart to beef up my online sales?\” is to find the best ecommerce software for building a profile of your customer, both during a particular visit and over the long term. Look over the options each package provides for tracking and providing dynamic information based on customer activity.
The features offered with the software is not always user friendly. You may need help getting the features to work on your website. Some software comes with free help, or help for a certain fee. Make sure you know what features you want to install before getting the help. If the software is well known, your hosting company may even be able to help. Lastly, you can hire someone to come and install everything for you.
Lastly, you will need to do some serious thinking about your customers, your products and what techniques will be most effective given these two factors. For example, if your products are very expensive, encouraging impulse buying may not be the best idea, as you probably won’t get many sales, and people may cancel after they have had time to review their decision. Match the tactics to the situation, and you can score big.
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by Kirt Christensen
Most online businesses should pay more attention to their e-commerce solution needs. When starting out most businesses do not make much of a profit, and their e-commerce system can be responsible for allowing the company to sink or swim. Before buying an e-commerce system, ask your self “What are 7 needs for my E-commerce system?”
Each e-commerce system has a few necessary elements to consider. Before you allow your business to \”open it’s doors\” and take it online, there are many seemingly unimportant elements that are significant to include in your e-commerce solution. Do not overlook these essentials.
Need number one is scalability. The system must be able to grow along with your increase in customers visiting and buying from the site which increses the amount of business being done. You cannot allow your company to grow larger than you e-commerce system can accomidate.
Need number two is that your e-commerce system must be able to interface with other systems that you business may employ or that you user may have. Incompatibility will create problems with your expansion or the amount of business you can do if the systems cannot be used together.
A third e-commerce system need for many online businesses is simple management of content of your website. Good e-commerce software can address the management of content properly, and larger online businesses need content management to mesh well with their operations. Proper management can differentiate a well developed, informative site and a complex, mismanaged page that can be difficult to navigate and may have a lot of misinformation.
Need number four is a security system for you and your client. Major retailers have seen national media coverage for their recent difficulties in this area. Any kind of information breach of the information for either you or your client can be very expensive to solve.
A fifth e-commerce solution needed in the typical e-commerce system is a great, easily utilized checkout system. Customers that experience an easy checkout system with an online business will be more likely to repeat their visits to a business’s page in the future. There are resources available on the internet with shopping cart software review pages, which can make choosing ecommerce shopping cart software easier than other elements of the e-commerce system.
The sixth essential is customer service to you from the e-commerce system company. Contact information and service call capability are extremely important. General knowledge of the software is not your only concern, but they must have solutions to minimize interruptions in your service.
The seventh and final essential is the insertion of analytical systems into your e-commerce solution. Systems must track demographics of clients, and what the market is for your products. This will allow you to adjust the site to be more productive.
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by Kirt Christensen
Two years ago, I decided to take on the venture of selling rare books online. My vision was to have people logging on and buying my books by the dozen. Sadly, my vision was replaced by the realization that it was not as easy as I anticipated. In trying to increase my sales, I learned several things along the way.
I was wrong, time past and my sales were scarce, to say the least. If I had a good SEO strategy and good website design, what was wrong? Nothing. And yet, I couldn’t help wondering “Everything is alright. But how can I use my shopping cart to beef up my online sales?” I had to read a lot of articles on e commerce shopping cart software to find out!
One thing I learned was to know what you are doing before you take the first step. It is not as simple as just choosing the first software you find. You need to research and study the different options out there so you get the one that best suites your needs
Now that I have the right software, I need to see what else is missing. So, I examined my own shopping habits and found that I tend to buy things just because I see them, not necessarily because I want them. This is known as impulse buying and is a great driver for online sales. When a customer sees similar items other customers brought, they will be tempted to buy the same things.
Buying more than one item, the customer will be more likely to complete the sale if they are offered a discount. The more they buy, the more they save will keep the customer coming back. Some carts even allow for groups to chat and decide on buying in bulk so everyone receives the benefit.
Another way the shopping cart may help to increase you sales is by creating a well designed affiliate program. It will help you to promote your product for a very low or even null expenditure. A decent shopping cart may also: take care of signup process, provide statistics, check payments, etc.
There should not be any basic question the customer can have that cannot be answered on the website. The site should include information such as pictures, shipping cost, and time in transit. A very important aspect of online sales is shipping.
Once you have researched as much as you can and are still coming up short, ask for help. Professionals are available to answer any questions you may have. They have experience in the business and can guide you in the right direction.
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by Kirt Christensen
One of the most common new ways of expanding a business is going online. By using the tools available a business can grow very quickly in this new market. But this process has now gone much farther than just building a web site.
To really bring in the buisness, your web site will need to use promotional materials as well. With competition so fierce, it is important to keep ahead of your peers.
Even if you get a visitor to your site, a sale isn’t definate. Even more hi-tech tools are needed. Providing a virtual shopping cart is one beneficaial option.
If you’ve heard of an online shopping cart then you are already aware of the assistance such a program provides. But how can this help increase sales?
Your shopping cart must allow the customers to keep track of their orders/purchases. You can add the feature of discount coupon on your web site to attract more customers and eventually make more sales. How can I use my shopping cart to beef up my online sales?
Another beneficial tool is to sell in bulk. This attracts customers who are always looking for such deals. You can use a specially designed software program to help manage such a sale.
By attaching yourself to an affiliate program yoiu can also bring in more visitors. You can also create more sales from these shoppers by having an informative and friendly site. People expereinced in marketing can be a great resource in this area.
There are a number of forums on the World Wide Web which can teach you a lot about online marketing. Never rely on guess-work while trying to improve your web site in order to attract more traffic. With a little hard work, you can definitely convert your web site into a money-making machine.
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by Kirt Christensen
Recencently I have been considering starting my own ecommerce site. In my research I have come across, and gone through many shopping cart software reviews. There seems to be two types of solutions available: hosted software and licensed software.
Licensed software is software that you purchase/download on to your computer in conjunction to it there was also free software. One of the biggest advantages to the licensed software is the fact that it can be easily manipulated and tailored to fit your specific needs.
Hosted software solutions has various different types of services that they offer which may include: credit card processing, comprehensive reporting features, live support, and marketing help. These solutions can not downloaded to your computer or server. They are hosted on the provider’s website and there is normally a monthly fee associated with this. Choosing additional features will lead to extra charges or a more expensive monthly bill.
After an exhausting search of shopping cart software, which ones are highest reviewed? It depends a lot on a persons specific needs and what there goal is with the software. A person that has a good understanding of computers and software would probably prefer the licensed software as it affords you the ability to own and customize. However, if you do not have a proficiency with computer or just do not want to deal with the hassel of setting up software yourself the hosted software is the better choice.
Many hosted sites off free trials, sometimes as much as 30 days. Reading reviews and getting more education on the subject is great, but nothing replaces first hand knowledge of the software. If available I would definetly say to try it out first. Testing the software will also allow the ability to check out the customization aspect to see if it is right for you and your company. This also provides a great opportunity to monitor the host companies technical support and see if that meets your expectations.
Taking word of mouth, in this big business decision is not the best route to go. Make sure you spend ample time researching and first hand testing of the software. You do not want to have your website up and running with customers already flooding in just to discover you have made a poor decision on you shopping cart software.
For the most part you want to keep it simple and easy so that your customer has a good understanding of the process. The last thing you want is to lose business because the customre found you software applications to be overly complicated or confusing. Always make sure the customer can easily pay for there purchase, know clearly their shipping options, and be able to concact and communicate with you.
The Internet has become increasing influential in our societies shopping habits. With just a little iniative anyone can set up their own ecommerce site and reach an entire world wide audience. Making a smart decison on you website applications, systmes, and programs will help steer you towards much success with your ecommerce site.
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by Kirt Christensen
There was a time that computers were exotic: now, almost every business, even the smallest businesses are moving from global to local. And with online shopping cart software, it is possible for anyone to be selling their products anywhere in the world.
First, you must find a good eCommerce system. Make sure you research your software a lot before implementing it. Read reviews online, ask on forums about it. Once you find some good software, set it up, configure it, half of the job will be done. Now all you need to do is follow a few strategies to take advantage of this software.
Having a shopping cart will make the buying experience better for your clients by allowing them to buy multiple products at once, choose shipping options and see what each will cost, and handle email notifications to your customer about their orders.
However, even though those features are very cool, and will draw a lot of customers, there is much more you can do with ecommerce software. It has gone a long way from a storage place for items before checkout, like a regular, traditional shopping cart that you use at local stores.
Good ecommerce software has info on both your products and your customers. You can use this data to increases your revenues. Using shopping cart software, you can offer your customers deals that are specific to them, and offer them discounts and sales that they would be interested in.
Here are a few ways in which shopping cart software will get you the big bucks. First of all, shopping cart software will offer the customers recommendations for products which in some way relate to the products that they are buying. For example, you can offer memory cards for digital cameras or water bottle clips for bicycles by looking at the items in the customer’s cart.
These features can be implemented without knowledge of programming or very much technical understanding. However, you can hire a consultant or programmer for a fixed sum or an hourly fee, if you prefer. Just make sure that you give the person your hire a very clear list of which features you want and get a price upfront.
In summary, if you want to know \”What are the best practices to using my ecommerce system?\” the answer is to know your products, know your customers, and use the system to bring the two together. You win and your customers win!
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by Kirt Christensen
In this short article, I’m going to give you some information you can use to decide if you want to hire someone to manage your pay-per-click campaigns in Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter, or if you want to do it yourself.
The bottom line is that it depends on YOU - I am just making you aware of what to watch out for in PPC managment. Hopefully I can save you some time and money too!
If you’re considering managing your own PPC campaigns, here are a several things you should to take into consideration:
Time –> How much free business time do you have? How much are you willing to give up to manage this? Managing a PPC campaign can be VERY time-consuming!
Experience –> How much do you already know about the PPC industry? Most of the bigger companies have someone with at least four years of PPC experience. If you do not have much experience, there are a few ways to get it.
One way is to spend lots of time reading the PPC marketing forums (this way is free). Secondly, just go ahead and open your own PPC accounts and get started, and get your hands dirty (this is what I did, and it was very expensive). Nevertheless, both are good ways to gain experience, and both can put you on track to make a profit.
Competitiveness –> How many other bidders are there? How much are the bids going for spots on the first page of results for a specific keyword?
Keywords –> How many keywords will you be managing? Keep in mind that if you are in a competitive industry, you will probably be going up against other advertisers who are using expensive bid management software.
Ad Copy –> Do you know if you can write good PPC descriptions? I’m not talking about normal ad descriptions, but relevant PPC descriptions. The difference can be the deciding factor between your site making a profit or a loss - a lesson I learned first-hand.
Budget –> How much do you have to spend? If you are new to PPC and plan on spending more then $500 per month, I recommend you start off hiring someone to manage your PPC ads or to act as a consultant. It will be well worth the money if you shop around for the right person or company to help.
Learning new techniques and strategies - The PPC market is constantly changing and evolving. You have to stay up-to-date with everything, because you can be certain your competition is. Staying up-to-date involves reading newsletters and forums regularly, consistently, and carefully.
If you are going to hire someone to manage your PPC campaign, here are a few things you should take into consideration:
1) Experience & Knowledge:
What type of experience do they have? Do their current clients recommend them unconditionally? Are their current clients getting good results?
2) Cost:
Shop around - you can always find a good deal on the internet. Just watch out for the ones that are TOO good. Remember the saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Talk to at least three different companies and compare them carefully before making your choice.
3) Bid monitoring and ROI:
How many times per week do they check your bid positioning?
4) Service:
You are going to be communicating (via email or phone) a lot with the person running your PPC ads. You should like talking with them and find them easy to talk to.
5) Response time:
How quickly will your calls or emails be returned?
6) Support:
Do they offer phone support or only email?
7) ROI tracking:
Is it offered? It is not necessary to have ROI tracking, but in today’s market, it drastically increases your chances of having a profitable PPC ad.
All in all, for most people, hiring a professional and knowledgeable person to manage your ppc accounts is the way to go! Unless you have the time, patience and money to burn on getting past the learning curve can be pretty painful. Hire someone to help you get going today, and you won’t ever regret it!
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by Kirt Christensen
Sure, anyone can create and run an AdWords advertising campaign, but do you have the tools you need to ensure that you are running a successful AdWords campaign?
What stands in the gulf betwixt an AdWords campaign and an AdWords campaign that is a success is dollars, too often it is hundreds of dollars. Ad campaigns that are not a success can burn through hundreds-of-dollars that might be used in other places.
How can keep yourself from throwing away you valuable advertising dollars?
Simple. You are going to have to use all of the resources at their disposal to carefully manage every step of your AdWords campaign. You are going to have to carefully select and bid on your keywords, and then continuously monitor the success of each keyword and advertisement after its creation.
Selecting keyword may not be an easy thing.
Keywords that bring in the best traffic are those that are broad enough to be used by the general public but specific enough that casual browsers won’t use it. After all the general idea of advertising is to get back the money invested.
Help is available for marketers from the Google Adwords site in making keyword selections. The tools available help marketers find words that are popularly searched for along with the synonyms and other relevant words to your marketing campaign.
An advertiser may not recognize that, at heart, pay per click advertising, such as Adwords, is just a huge auction and the best prizes go to the high bidder. What that means is the advertiser who bids highest on a keyword is going to walk away with the most exposure because he will appear in a top position in the “sponsored links” area of a search results page.
With the notoriously short attention span of the average internet browser (think a three year old with attention deficit disorder) when it comes to trying to find the information they are searching for it is more important than ever that an advertisement be direct, to the point and easily accessible.
Ads that are hidden in back of pages of results is not going to get the searchers attention like the one that is on the top. However one at the top that gets a lot of unprofitable and idle browsers isn’t helpful either. The balance between the two is tricky.
When ad campaigns are set up a contrast must be made between profits realized from the campaign and costs of running the campaign. Alterations to the campaign or removal altogether of an ad may be necessary if they are not showing a profit.
Adwords is set up so you can keep tabs on the traffic going to your website from your ads. You should also use software to find out where the customers that are making purchases are coming from.
Careful management of your ads will result in an almost guaranteed success (or at the very least, a minimum of loss prior to the necessary adjustments being made).
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by Kirt Christensen
All over the world-wide-web marketers are calling out the virtues of Adwords. They promise youthful lazy enterprisers that for just so much money the will impart their knowledge on how they can generate several hundred dollars each day in the comfortable surroundings of their own home, and they only have to work 3-4 hours too.
Whoa there tiger, did you say lazy?
That’s right. The simple truth of the matter is that AdWords is not that difficult to navigate. With a little bit of effort on their parts everyone who has willingly handed over their money to these so-called “experts” could learn everything they need to know without spending a single penny.
In order for an AdWords campaign to succeed it is necessary for the strategy to contain three key components:
1. A successful keyword. The choice of a keyword is the true make-it-or-break-it point in an AdWords campaign. If the keyword is not efficient enough to stimulate business it does not matter what the advertiser does from that point on.
The key to good keyword choices is to find one is broad enough to allow the web surfer who has no foreknowledge of the product/service you are selling to be led to it but at the same time it is precise enough that there won’t be an overabundance of unprofitable leads.
It is important to remember that a search engine is going to charge the advertiser for the placement of their ad regardless of the resulting profit; after all, the only profit they are truly concerned with is their own.
The crux of this is that if an ad uses a well used keyword (a marketer may go over to the search engine database and get keywords that are often used in their ads) it will usually get a whole boatload of traffic, but what it won’t do is bring in a lot of sales.
AdWords has a number of tools available for marketers who are having difficulty finding an appropriate keyword for their ad. By visiting www.adwords.google.com advertisers will have complete access to some of the greatest pay per click resources on the internet.
2. High ranking bids. The unfortunate truth is that internet surfers are a broad representation of most types of people. They want precisely what they want and they want it right now.
What happens if these searchers don’t possess the patience to look through pages and pages of data. What they will do if they don’t find what they want in the first several pages is they will redirect their search somewhere else.
For the marketer this means that they have to have their ad on the first few pages if they want it to be seen. Of course search engines don’t put the ads up first in; first out. The marketer who will pay the most for a click with get the top spot when ads are displayed.
It is essential that the advertiser find the delicate balance between their sales and the money they are willing to part with; while an ad at the top of the list may receive more attention that does it little good if the advertising budget won’t stretch far enough to allow it its maximum exposure.
Lucky for us that Google has a feature that lets a ceiling be put on the amount of money spent on ad campaigns. If the ceiling is reached, the ad is labeled inactive and not shown in the search results etc.
3. Follow up. With all due care and diligence given to the setup of the ad campaign, there are no guarantees that it will bring in the desired results. The marketer should remain vigilant so the can see how the ads are performing and avoid any problems and make changes to their campaign as warranted.
There it is! All the key features of a profitable Adwords campaign have been laid out for you without a high price tag. The ball is in your court .are you going to take it and score?
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to ppc advertising management, he’s the man!
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by Kirt Christensen
The reports you hear on the TV on making big bucks in one day by using Google Adwords, the ones that say it take little time and effort. They are feeding you a line.
When they say this, they aren’t telling you everything. The truth is that they have spent many, many hours in research for establishing these profitable campaigns. The other truth is that because they are well organized they are making a profit.
This unveiling of AdWords may be misleading. The whole idea behind AdWords is stellar; the advertiser brings the creativity and adwords does all the finding of clients. Making big money using Adwords is very possible if you know how to go about it.
The most important factor relating to setting up a profitable Adwords campaign is keywords that are chosen with care.
Ideally the keyword you choose should be one that has broad enough application that it allows a searcher who may not know of your product to find it by searching but the keyword is not so general that everyone and their brother doesn’t see and click on your ad even when they have no interest I what you offer. The search engine who handles your account charges for every click even when there are no sales off it.
There are various tools offered by Adwords to help advertisers in the choosing of keywords for their ads. The tools aid them in locating the most searched on words on the internet, the ones with the most popularity. They also help in finding synonyms that can aid them in the expansion of their ad campaign or to use in future campaigns.
A further key point in successfully managing an Adwords Campaign is the amount of cash the marketer has that he can offer when someone selects their ad
The average web browser will not continue to search for information beyond the first five or ten pages of search results; therefore, in order for an ad to bring in the largest buying pool possible it must be within these five or ten pages.
PPC advertisements are arranged by the search engine on a greater to lesser basis; that means that ads that are bringing them greater profits will be given higher rank status than those that bring lesser profits. The more an advertiser will pay the higher it will be ranked and the more visibility it will be given.
Finally, after selecting your keywords and establishing your bids you must carefully monitor the success or failure of the ads you have launched. An advertisement which is bringing in nothing but false leads needs to be restructured and one which is bringing in more positive leads may warrant a higher bid to move it up in the ranks.
Diligently managing your AdWords campaign pre-launch and post-launch presents you with the most probability of success.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords management company, he’s the man!
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by Kirt Christensen
To all those using Google AdWords to promote their products the concept of keywords is a sacred one. The effectiveness of their keywords in attracting business is often the deciding factor between success and failure.
An unprofitable Adwords campaign can result in a great amount of money thrown away into advertising all because the ads did not attract serious traffic but attracted surfers that were “just looking” and whiling away the hours clicking on the ‘Sponsored Ads”
What these people often do not know is that it is not necessarily luck or careful research that determine whether a keyword will be successful.
Of course taking a look at the database of a search engine will reveal the keywords that attracted the most business in a given time period; but the keywords are going to produce tons of results pages because they are popular. Internet searchers aren’t going to look past 5 or 10 pages. So anything beyond that point is not going to be seen.
Obviously it is necessary that an advertisement be among these first few pages in order to guarantee its success, but what does that have to do with keywords? In order to ensure that an advertisement is among the top of the sponsored links (i.e. listed on those first five to ten pages) the advertiser is going to have to be among the top bidders for that keyword.
Of course that indicates that a higher price will be required for each click on the ads if we want to stay on the first pages and not end up on the other ninety nine.
Now that may not seem to be a great amount, but if you think about it the marketer has to pay that amount for every person who clicks and every click he makes even if no sales are generated. The possibility for loss of advertising monies is great. That is why every ad needs to be functioning as optimally as possible to warrant the expenditures.
If you want your ads to be successful than the keywords need to be successful also.
The best keywords are those that cover a specific topic so that you can eliminate some of the unrelated words (such as “small dog breeds” as opposed to “dog breeds”). At the same time you want to be general enough so that someone might truly enter it in their search engine.
If you are having trouble choosing your keywords for your ads, go and visit some of the terrific tools that Google makes available for the adwords customers. www.adwords.google.com.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to ppc management agency, he’s the man!
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by Kirt Christensen
When you searching on the internet for some bit of information what do you do first? Are you able to go right to just the place you need to be, guided there by some force that helped you know where to go?
No way! You, and every other of the more than million searchers around the world, head straight to your favorite search engine to get help. With a few words or phrases, or maybe even a whole sentence that you type in, you have the search engine doing all the work for you. It guides you, as if by magic, to various web pages that will probably have what you need.
The words you typed into the search engine are what are known as keywords, and they are what are going to direct your consumer market to you when you launch an AdWords campaign. It is important that these keywords be as specific as possible without completely alienating the portion of the consumer market which has no idea that your service or product exists.
If you lack the right keywords your adwords campaign will be unsuccessful from the get go. We are talking pay per click, that means you have to pay Google everytiime there is a click on your ad even if you never make a sale on any of those clicks.
Improper keywords mean that the target audience you are seeking will not be directed to your ad and you will not be able to capitalize on the exposure; however, an audience of people with little to no interest in what you have to offer but who searched for that keyword will continue to drive your advertising expenses higher and higher until you have no choice but to throw in the towel and close down your AdWords campaign.
You can go about selecting your proper keywords for your google campaign in several ways. Primarily the marketer should step back and think about the product/service and the market for it. What is the client desiring from this product/service? What needs will it fill? These should be included in the ad. If there is no need the product/service wouldn’t be marketed.
Once the advertiser has accurately identified a number of keywords which will help to direct traffic to their AdWords advertisement they can visit Google’s AdWords site at www.adwords.google.com for assistance in finding synonyms and other related terms to allow them to make their ads as specific as possible and to sit back and enjoy the profits as they come rolling in.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to professional ppc management, he’s the man!
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by Kirt Christensen
A headline is just the start of converting a potential customer to your customer. You can still show him that you have what he needs. You can still get more clicks. Here is where you let the salesman inside you come out to play.
Check out the difference between these two ads:
Popular Ethernet Terms
3 Page Guide-Free PDF Download
Complex Words-Simple Definitions
www.bb-elec.com
0.1% CTR
Then this one:
Popular Ethernet Terms
Complex Words-Simple Definitions
3 Page Guide-Free PDF Download
www.bb-elec.com
3.6% CTR
The first ad had 1/36th of the amount of clicks than the 2nd did. How did that happen? Is there some kind of secret? If you examine the ads, you see they both have precisely the same words. Than what is the difference here?
In the first ad the offers and features are listed in the first line of the body and the benefits are listed in the second line. This key for managing PPCs is applicable to both long form sales letter and in the little 3 line ditties known as Google ads.
Your products features and offers are its characteristics, or what you offer with your services. Features and offers describe it, what’s included and how strong, fast, big or little it is.
On the reverse side, benefits are what the emotional gains are for your clients, what they get from the use of your merchandise. Your feature list for an ebook may include things like this:
So the list of features for an e-book you sell may include these items:
15 lasting rules
20 chapters, 180 pages of substantial information
72 photographic illustrations
Helpful, easy-to-read charts and graphs
One step at a time guide
Captivating narratives, interesting reports and first person experiences
An intro by Lee Iacocca
Et cetera
On the other hand, when you list your benefits, you let your customer know exactly how what you have written can benefit them. There may be some points that fall in the gray area between benefits and features:
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Trying to fit all this content into one little Google ad is not possible. However the concept of splitting the ideas into groups of benefit and feature is a sound one.
The main focus of your Google ad should be more about the benefits or emotional payoffs than the features. As you describe benefits and features, you are best served if you emphasize the benefits.
The clear way to superior PPC Management does not require a higher degree or years of experience and training. It only requires you to convince the potential buyer that you have a thing of value for them. With a clear and simple statement of your case with benefits accentuated and testing to find the best way to state them, you will have winning ad copy.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords ppc management, he’s the man!
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by Kirt Christensen
In times past there was no trouble getting an upper position in those highly searched, general keywords like ‘china’, ‘business’, ‘running’ and ‘headache’ for a nickel a click. When you did a search on Google for one of those terms, you would get only 1 or 2 results, indicating to you that you could bid a minimum price for your clicks.
But advertisers had a very hard time getting a generic term like “running” to stick, especially in the early days before phrase- and exact-match options were available. A person who typed in a keyword like “business” could have any of a thousand completely different ideas in mind for what he was looking for, so he was not only unlikely to click on your ad, but even if he did click on it, he was that much less likely to buy anything from you.
Now the rules have changed in the world of PPC management. There’s no longer a minimum CTR, so maintaining a certain number of clicks isn’t an issue. And advertisers are much smarter now than they were even two years ago and are turning these generic terms into profitable information marketing opportunities.
So there’s now value in bidding on generic, nonspecific, high-traffic keywords. But how do you make them work?
Here is the answer:
Run trials, test copy ideas, and try again, writing ads until one works. This can take a long time, and you may fail a number of times before you find a winning formula. But you’ll win by attrition, if you can keep testing and testing until something works.
Make full use of negative keywords.
In your ads have phrases that are disqualifying to those you don’t want to click. By offering ‘Free Golf Instructions’ with your ads you will most likely attract undesirable traffic, but if you advertise ‘$49 Golf Video” most of your clicks will be folks serious about making a purchase.
Market information, not just products. Send people to a landing page that collects opt-ins, and offer a free guide, a tutorial, or an e-mail course of some kind, which will establish you as an information source, create longer-term customers, and grow your visitor value to where even the most generic clicks are worth getting.
Managing PPCs - The New Rules
Literally every keyword in your list is a market of its own.
Every keyword represents a mindset that people have when they type it.
Behind each of the words your clients type in while searching is a desire, necessity, inquiry, or premise they have, but may not be aware that they have.
The markets for your keywords will vary in size large, small and in between.
Some keyword markets are more competitive than others.
Some keyword markets produce more dividends for the winners than others.
An excess of competition for some keywords will cause the bid price to rise unnaturally above actual market value.
In contrast some keywords are left out even though using them would bring you to a stronger market with better responses, and they can be found using a reliable keyword tool.
When you mirror the language playing in your customers head, that is when he is going to buy from you.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or “fix” your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords campaign management, he’s the man!
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