Getting a business off the ground with AdWords
Small businesses are especially close to my heart. When he retired from teaching, my father ran a small art company in Maine, and I saw firsthand how fulfilling — and how difficult — it was for him to realize his dream of running his own business. Unfortunately, his business closed its doors after just a few years. His key challenge: attracting qualified customers.
Many new businesses face similar challenges, but the power of technology can help business owners find the customers they need. Whether you’re a fledgling entrepreneur trying to turn your passion into a profit or an established enterprise trying to get to the next level, Internet tools like Google AdWords are the key to being there when customers come looking for you online.
To show what’s possible, we invited 53-year-old Jay Berkowitz to share his experience creating a business and using AdWords to help it flourish. Here’s what Jay has to say:
Like most first-time parents, my life completely changed when my daughter Hillary was born in 1993. My wife Janet and I decided that one of us should stay at home to care for her while the other continued working full time. Janet kept her engineering job, and I ended up quitting my job as a Wall Street bond analyst to become Mr. Mom.
Later, when Hillary started school, I had more free time. It seemed like the perfect chance to do something I’d always dreamed of: launch my own business and work for myself. I started selling themed plates and lunchboxes at New York City street fairs. Then in 2001, eight-year-old Hillary showed me (her non-tech-savvy dad) how to turn on a computer. That was the beginning of taking the business online, and realizing a whole new world of possibility. Janet and I worked together to build a website,PlatesPlus4Kids.com, and we started advertising online with Google AdWords. Soon, my little project became a full-fledged venture.
By advertising on the Internet, I was able to reach interested customers not only in my area, but all over the country. More and more people found my store through online searches. In no time, I had so many orders that I could no longer keep my inventory of themed cups, plates and lunchboxes on the kitchen table. The stock moved to the den, then the basement, and finally to a warehouse 20 minutes from our house in Little Neck, New York. Over the years, I’ve also expanded my product line and now offer children’s backpacks, umbrellas, flatware, snack containers and sandwich boxes. What started as a hobby now brings in about $500,000 in sales annually.
I only pay when people click on my ad and go to my website, so the cost of marketing is within my means. I increase the budget during the back-to-school season and the holidays (my peak periods) so my ads show above the search results during those times. I’ve also noticed that customers seem to be in a shopping mood on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I sometimes increase my budget on those days to make sure my ads show up more. Depending on trends, I create new ads to promote different characters and new inventory. For example, now that Yo Gabba Gabba is popular andbaseball season is starting, I’m making adjustments so that those phrases combined with words like “dishes,” “placemats” and “cups” trigger my ads. And of course, I have ads that mention items with princesses and superheroes — those are top sellers year-round.
What’s really great is that even though my business has expanded over the past seven years, it’s still a small family company. Two people work for me at the warehouse, but I work from home. Janet takes pictures of the products and works on the website on the weekends. I’ve had the freedom to be a hands-on parent to Hillary and the privilege of helping other parents connect with their kids through my store. Certain celebrity parents have found me through my AdWords ads and bought items for their kids.I consider myself a pretty ordinary guy. When I started PlatesPlus for Kids, I had no idea it would become what it is today. It’s heartening to know that by following your gut and putting in a lot of hard work, you can find a fulfilling second career. Or maybe a first one.
Posted by Claire Johnson, Vice President, Online Sales and Operations, Advertising Programs
Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/it-takes-one-to-show-one-getting.html
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A Review of Spy Tools
There are quite a few spy tools on the market currently, some more heavily promoted than others. They come in a variety of flavors such as SEO spy tools, PPC spy tools, and some which do both.
Spy tools can be useful in an SEO and/or a PPC campaign. However, many of these tools essentially try to extrapolate scraped results which can lead to some fairly inaccurate results. Also, these tools occasionally come up with in-house metrics (of which they really don’t give you much useful info about how they arrived at the data the present from these “proprietary” metrics”) to help try and differentiate their offerings from their competition.
Spy Tool Reviews
There is a much more in-depth review, with examples, up in our members forum. Here, we will do overviews of some of the more popular tools on the market. Specifically, we will be taking a look at:
Value of Spy Tools
The idea that you are missing out on something is a core marketing tactic so even if you are comfortable with one tool chances are you’ve been tempted to go with another. Keep in mind, from a cost standpoint, the ROI you would take by just finding a few decent keywords to target will likely far outweigh any cost associated with these tools. Your business probably won’t collapse if you pick an A minus tool versus an A plus tool and none of these tools are able to make concrete decisions for you. What these tools provide are additional data points for you to consider in your own research.
We hope you’ll find these reviews useful. There are perhaps a few other services we missed given how many of these tools as there are and our primary focus on SEO. If these reviews are well received we could also review everything from Quantcast & Alexa right on through to AdGooroo, but we need to know if you would be interested in those types of reviews. If there are any other cool products or services you would like us to review just let us know.
A few disclaimers: some of these services have given us free review accounts, whereas we have paid for some of the others. And some of these tools offer affiliate programs, but all reviews were done without those 2 factors influencing the editorial. Most these reviews do not have affiliate links in them (I think SEM Rush is the only one which does have an affiliate link right now), and Aaron reviewed SEM Rush before they even had a public affiliate program.
Already an SEO Book subscriber?
- We license SEM Rush’s SEO data for our competitive research tool.
- The second post in this thread has some killer member’s only tips for getting the most out of competitive research tools.
- This thread is also awesome, and these three threads really shows how to use these tools in a way that really kicks arse.
If you can’t make $1,000’s from reading those threads then you certainly are not a professional grade SEO. 
Google’s Annual Rev. From Typosquatting Put At $497m
Most people regard typos as nuisances, just inconsequential mistakes that cause them to lose a second of time hitting the backspace key. But for Google, typos may equal big business, as Benjamin Edelman and Tyler Moore have estimated that they make the search giant $497 million per year.
Edelman and Moore, who both call Harvard their home, coauthored a paper titled “Measuring Typosquatting Perpetrators and Funders.” In a blog post summarizing it, they presented several sets of statistics and wrote, “According to our analysis, 57% of typo sites include Google pay-per-click ads.”
Then they made a rather more interesting comment regarding the effect of Google’s connection: “Combining our observations with financial reports and others’ estimates, we conclude that Google’s revenue from typosquatting on the top 100,000 sites is $497 million per year.”
Also, Google’s pretty much the only search engine they point a finger at, since not nearly as many ads from Yahoo and Microsoft appear on typosquatting sites.
Now, it’s necessary to mention that Edelman is involved in a lawsuit against Google (”arising out of Google’s use of typosquatting domains to display advertising”), so he may not be the least biased person in the world. The numbers he and Moore presented are still stunning if true.
UPDATE: Ben Edelman was good enough to drop by in the comments section, and he wrote, “Surely it’s not Google’s fault that some people misspell. But our study [shows] that typosquatters register more domains targeting companies in sectors with high PPC prices. That tells us that PPC funding is *causing* and *exacerbating* typosquatting. Without PPC payments, there would be fewer typosquatting registrations — much less reason for squatters to register these domains. Google’s payments put the system in motion; squatters register domains exactly in anticipation of getting paid by Google. Google knows where it’s showing ads. (Example: Google shows Expedia ads if you misspell Expedia, but Travelocity ads if you misspell Travelocity!) So it’s natural to look to Google for resolution of these problems.”
>> Click to read the rest of Edelman’s comment …
Online Ad Revenues On the Rise
Filed under: Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines, Social Media Marketing
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers released their latest Internet advertising numbers for the third quarter. According to the organizations, Internet advertising revenues reached nearly $5.5 billion for the quarter. That is an increase of 1.7% from the second quarter.
The numbers are still significantly down from the same period last year, but any increase is a good sign of things to come. There has been a 5.4% decline from last year.
“The Internet has transformed the consumer experience of media, providing marketers with unprecedented opportunities to engage with their customers,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “The advertising sector overall has been hard hit by the economy, but digital media has been a bright spot within the larger economic downturn as it is capturing an ever-increasing piece of marketers’ advertising spend.”
“While all segments of the media industry have experienced declines, online advertising remains resilient and is once again showing signs of growth,” said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
The information from the IAB/PWC is considered the most accurate measurement of interactive ad revenue, the IAB says, because its compiled directly from info supplied by companies selling advertising on the web. The IAB releases a full report twice a year to reflect half-year periods. It will be interesting to see how the second half of the year plays out in its entirety.
Related Articles:
> Online Advertising is Having a Big Year
> Online Ad Revenue Tops $10 Billion
> IAB Releases Ad Unit Guidelines Update
Borrowing From PPC
Search marketers know that if the title of the ad matches the searchers keyword query, they stand a good chance of getting the click.
This mirroring strategy works for obvious reasons. The visitor already has a psychological attachment to the phrase – after all, they typed it in!
Making Sure You Get The Click
A lot of SEO strategy talks about how to achieve rankings.
Whilst important, the SEO pro knows ranking is only half the battle won. While it’s true to say most searchers will click on the top results in preference to results lower down the page, they will also scan across the various titles displayed. All links on the results page compete for the click, and a compelling title may win out over a higher ranking position.
If the user doesn’t find what they want when they scan, they will likely rephrase their search and try again. So the way you phrase your title tag is not only important in terms of helping attain a ranking position, it is also important that it stands out.
But how do you know which phrases will work?
What You Can Learn From Adwords
Actually, the answer is right in front of us.
Google rewards top performing Adwords advertisers with the top positions i.e. the advertisers who are achieving the highest click thru rates. The copy and titles you see in the top PPC ads are proven.
If the advertiser has been in that position for some time, it is highly likely s/he is making a positive return on their spend. Their approach is, therefore, working.
That’s a lot of valuable information.
Look at the copy the advertisers are using. What words are they using in the title? Try emulating their approach. Emulating their description is a little more tricky as Google uses snippets. However, if the phrase the user is searching for also appears in your meta description tag, Google will tend to display the tag snippet instead.
Of course, SEO’s have to balance ranking considerations, too, but if you can get these factors aligned, you’re in a great position. Given that most people – estimated to be around 70-80% – will click on a natural search result, as opposed to an advertisment, if you can occupy the top few spots using a similar phrasing as the PPC advertiser, you are more likely to get the click.
Don’t stop there.
Check out the landing pages used by the top advertisers. If they are occupying top positions over a long period of time, they are either carelessly blowing through a lot of cash, or, more likely, their PPC campaign is making money.
Whilst it’s not advisable to copy exactly what they do – and it’s probably against the law – you can use their approach as a guide. How are they structuring their landing pages? Where are they placing their offer? What language are they using? What titles are they using? How is the copy structured?
Use a similar approach in your SEO campaign.
One thing to be careful of is to understand that SEO and PPC often have a different focus. PPC tends to be driven by ROI and other profit per visitor type metrics. Once a PPC advertiser pays for the click, they try to move the visitor to desired action quickly.
SEO, on the other hand, can afford to be less specific as there is little jeopardy in only appealing to a tiny fraction of visitors who click. SEO can afford to go wide and broad. Engagement and brand metrics come into play a bit more in SEO.
By The Way…..
Because SEO can afford to go broad, and has the added task of ranking for keywords based on the content of your page, Google’s Wonder Wheel is a great tool for finding related phrases which you can integrate into your copy.
If you haven’t heard of the Wonder Wheel, here is how to find it:
1. Conduct a search. Click on “Show Options…”
2. Click on “Wonder Wheel” (shown on the list at the right hand side)
3. Click on a few of the spokes….
4. Integrate any relevant, related keyword terms in your copy….
I use this tool a lot as it’s great for picking up on long tail searches that still relate to your chosen keyword term. If any of these terms prove worthwhile, you can then develop separate pages to target them specifically.