Google Ad Words are a big fat waste of money pt1

Google Ad words are a big fat waste of time and money, I highly recommend that you do not use them ever, ever, ever!  In fact while we are at it, forget about search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and social media marketing as well; after all you have a website for your business and some people do find you, right?  Well not really!

My opening paragraph sounds rather ridiculous doesn’t it? It was meant to; but I have to admit that if you don’t know what you’re doing chances are you probably agree with my statement.

What I want to talk about today is what you need to know in order to begin marketing your business online. Before you start thinking about seo, sem, or even a Google ad word campaign for that matter you need to understand a few basic SEO concepts.

First, You need to start thinking about how to become an option in the search results page (also known as serp) when potential customers are searching for the product or service that you sell. The second thing you should start thinking about is what action do you want people to perform once they land on  your site, this is called a conversion.

A  conversion can be anything from requesting more information to making a purchase. A visitor will convert if your site can provides a solution for a problem that they are having AND you let them know what action you want performed. Do not assume that someone will automatically do what you want them to do once on your site, be specific and tell them.

Show me the money!!!

The search engines sole purpose is to generate revenue through advertising. The search engine that can provide the best content and search results to its customers wins. Currently Google dominates the search space with 64% market share so it is in your best interest to help a search engine provide remarkable content for people that seek it, which in turn will help you.

I highly recommend evaluating  your content and make sure it is relevant, fresh and can aligns with what a searcher is searching for.

Lets start by creating a list of keywords and phrases that help define your business, product or service.

The simplest definition of a keyword  is a term people use to find your product or service. With that said how do your visitors find you online? Do you even know?

In order to determine this you need to start thinking like a customer instead of a business owner. Understanding  how someone might search for your product and service will give you a huge competitive advantage. Think about how you search. Do you search using general or common terms or do you conduct highly specific searches; the people that search online for your products and services are no different than you.

 Create two lists

Your first list should be very general terms about your business, products and services. The second list should be very specific terms and phrases about your business, products, and services, which, are also known as a long tail search phrases. For example white bread is an example of a general term and does not illustrate a searchers intent. The best fresh crusty white bread in Boston clearly illustrates a searchers intent. The benefit to optimizing for the long tail phrase is that they generally have less competition and are more targeted to fill specific need of the searcher. They also help support the general keyword phrases that appear on your site.

I am Hungry lets eat!

Since we are on the subject of bread lets say that I own a bakery and I make the following items cookies, bread, pastries, cakes, deserts, soups, sandwiches, and pies as you can see these are very general and do not describe the types and variety of  bakery items that I sell. (For the record I did own a bakery called the Wellesley Bread Company and these were the items I sold.) I would put these bakery terms in my general list.

My second list would be more specific and describe the types and flavors of bakery items I sold; like soft white rolls, crusty French baguettes, orgasmic multi-grain, (just checking to see if your paying attention), etc. I would continue until I found the words and phrases that best described my baked goods I sold.

Here is a list of 6 questions to keep in mind when creating your keyword list.

1. What do you do?, Be specific!
2. What products do you offer?
3. What services do you offer?
4. What are you trying to promote?
5. What words or phrases do potential customers use to search for your products or services.
6. What words or phrases do your competitors use to attract potential clients?

In my next post Google Ad Words Are a Big Fat Waste of Money Part 2 I will be talking to you about techniques, and tools to help you create the perfect keyword list for your business. I look forward to your thoughts below to this post. Please contact me if you have any questions or would like help creating your list.