Tuesday - August 2, 2005

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My goal is to help wedding professionals nationwide sell more of their products and services using the Internet. I've helped thousands get better results from their web sites. Tell me how I can help you.

I'd also like to draw your attention to my Inner Circle program. I haven't really pushed this in the past but I'm really getting some good results and I know more and more people are ready to take their online marketing to the next level (or get it off the ground!). The Inner Circle is a cost effective way to do just that. If you're looking for a competitive advantage that keeps your online marketing in top-notch form, consider joining today. It's a small investment with big returns.

And speaking of PPC... my Inner Circle Clients get free support and advice from me for their PPC programs!

+ + Ten Reasons You Should Be Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

The concept of paying to get traffic to your website from search engines might not sit well with many of you. Unfortunately, that type of thinking can be very shortsighted. PPC is an important part of any successful, long-term traffic building strategy. As competitive as the market is today for online brides, it’s safe to say PPC is very smart online marketing.

Why?

For several reasons, but most importantly because it works! Secondly, if your competition is using it and you're not it will immediately put your website at a disadvantage.

I believe if you're not using PPC advertising the odds are pretty high that you are losing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, in sales opportunities every year.

Consider this: If your website is the first a bride visits, assuming she likes what she finds when she gets there, and she makes an inquiry and you follow-up promptly – the chances of you getting the business are pretty high.

PPC can help you achieve this over and over and over again.

What Is Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC advertising is online advertising where you pay for every "click" the advertiser delivers to your website.

Typically, you can buy very targeted traffic by matching keywords and keywords phrases that brides are using to search. Even better, although often a topic of debate, the only brides who "click" on your advertisement should be those interested in, or in need of, your products and services. That's some pretty powerful advertising.

In most cases, PPC advertisements show up as “sponsored” text advertisements, along with a link to your site, on the right side of a page, top of a page, or now I’m even seeing them mixed into the middle of pages.

PPC programs are usually "bid" type systems where you pay as little as .05 cents per click. They really have no top limit. I’ve seen Boston area bands at Google bidding up the keyword phrase “boston wedding bands” to as high as $12.00 per click (I believe it was because the three companies bidding against each other had NO clue what they were doing). I’ve also heard that some casinos are paying over $20.00 per click for certain keywords.

In most cases you'll be bidding against your local competition but don’t be surprised to find a non-local advertiser or someone like AMAZON.COM in the game, even for terms like: “Chicago caterers” (i.e. promoting books related to catering or Chicago). Don’t despair; even in competitive markets you should be able to get good exposure and traffic for less than .50 cents per click. And while you can fix your cost per click to what ever you want, you'll find others who bid higher than you will show up above you.

Needless to say, managing a PPC campaign takes a little effort and know-how, but I’m confident telling you the rewards are well worth it.

Inner Circle Tip: Start out with a low bid (.10 cents), check your position, review your reports, and see what happens after a week or two. A month worth of data is even better. If you don't like your placement, or the click-through results you're getting, incrementally move your CPC (cost per click) up. If you’re not getting “clicks” but you are getting the “impressions” (i.e. brides are searching for your keywords/phrase/terms), you might need to rewrite your advertising copy. Avoid trying to “trick” brides into clicking on your advertisement or making your advertisement sound too good to be true.

If you don't understand what you're doing, or the program seems too complicated, get some professional help. The expense will be minimal and should more than pay for itself with both better results or less total cost.

The PPC Gorillas

There are many PPC programs on the Internet. The big ones I focus on are Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search (formerly Overture). Adwords advertisements show up at Google and Yahoo! Search advertisements show up at Yahoo! and at MSN.

If you're starting out I suggest you begin with Google AdWords. It's simple to set-up, it's easy to figure out, it's easy to target traffic geographically, there is no monthly minimum charge, the minimum cost per click (CPC) is only .05 cents, and the reporting is much more user-friendly compared to Yahoo! Search.

Ten Reasons You Should Be Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

1) Fast

Using Google Adwords you can be advertising online, promoting your website, and driving qualified traffic to it in as little as 30 minutes. Yahoo! Search "reviews" each new advertiser and this process can take as long as a week (one of the reasons I recommend starting with Google if you're new to this). That's still pretty quick.

The brides are out there and PPC is a fast way of getting your website out in front of them.

2) Flexible

PPC programs give you the flexibility to start and stop advertising when you want, whether it is a seasonal issue or a budget issue.

3) Cheap

For as little as .05 cents per click you can attract a highly targeted audience of brides and grooms to your website! At that price you could drive 1000 brides and grooms to your website and your total cost would only be $50.00. That's fantastic!

Think about that for a minute.

If you had 1000 brides and grooms visit your website shouldn't you convert at least 50 of them into inquiries? That's a 5% conversion rate. Of the 50 let's hope you can convert at least 50% into sales, that's 25 new sales for only $50.00. Your cost-to-book-a-new sale: $2.00.

Of course this makes one very important assumption: that your website is doing the job it should be and can convert visiting brides/grooms into inquiries.

4) PPC Is Easy To Set-Up

I recommend starting out with Google AdWords if PPC is new for you. Trust me, it's not complicated. Start by opening an account, answering about ten questions, selecting keywords and keyword phrases (which they will help you to determine), writing a small advertisement, providing the link to your website, and then activating your account via the email link they send you. 30 minutes. Done.

5) PPC Really Works!!

PPC works and if anyone tells you it didn't work for them it’s because they didn't use it correctly. I've been using and managing PPC programs very successfully for years now. While I love “free traffic” and search engine optimization is certainly a specialty of mine, PPC is one of the most effective ways to drive qualified traffic to any site. I use it extensively at my Wedding Planning Links directory of local wedding services (http://www.weddingplanninglinks.com).

6) PPC Is Very Cost Effective

If you drove 1000 qualified brides and grooms to your website, and generated 100 inquiries (a 10% conversion rate), for a cost of less than $100.00 . . . I'm hoping you'd be VERY happy with these type of results. Right?

But wait a minute; I need to repeat what I said above.

This makes one very important assumption: that your website is doing the job it should be and can convert visiting brides/grooms into inquiries.

If you've got traffic, but not the corresponding results, pick up the phone and give me a call right now – (978) 283-8295. http://www.sellmoreweddings.com/askchris.html

In my opinion, you can't buy better advertising than PPC anywhere in the world. Even if your conversion ratio is in the 3-5% range, you're still in very good shape.

PPC allows you to monitor your advertising campaign 24/7 and quickly analyze the results. At first look the reports can be a bit overwhelming, but after you learn what to look at and how to get the report you want it's easy. Most programs also allow you to "save" your favorite reports so that you can run them again later with just a click.

8) Easy To Budget and Easy on Your Wallet

PPC won't break the bank. Most PPC programs allow you to set a daily or monthly budget. If your clicks hit your daily budget of $3.00 they automatically suspend your campaign until the next day. I recommend that you set a budget of between $50-$200/month to start out. While Yahoo! Search has a minimum monthly charge ($20), Google only bills you for actual clicks with no minimum monthly charge. This is another reason I recommend starting out with Google AdWords.

9) Reporting

Frankly, I believe the data a PPC program generates is worth as much as the traffic it delivers. The reporting will tell you how many people clicked on your link, what keywords and keyword phrases they used to find your advertisement (this is very valuable when it comes to search engine optimization), how many people actually were exposed to your advertisement, and using the conversion tools at Google and Yahoo! Search you can actually calculate the cost you're paying for each actual inquiry your campaign generated (assuming you are using forms and not just an email link).

10) The Moment of Truth Test

PPC advertising is also a great way to figure out if your website is really working. I know you think your website is great, and brides tell you it's "great" all the time, but is it really working? Keep in mind the brides who visited and left and didn't think your site was that great rarely tell you. PPC advertising delivers what I call the "moment of truth" test. If you paid for 1000 "clicks" to your website and don't get at least 50 calls you have a problem with your website.

One of my clients was spending about $1000/month on PPC and it was generating loads of traffic to their website. The problem: no one “clicking” was making inquiries or phone calls. Imagine spending $1000/month on advertising and getting only twelve to fifteen inquiries. That hurts.

I immediately suspended the PPC programs, fixed the website so that brides who actually visited would make inquiries, and THEN restarted the PPC programs. Now it’s common for them to get 20 or more inquiries a week.

Side Note: Compare PPC to print advertising. I've talked with people who have spent $1500 for a quarter-page print advertisement in a regional magazine only to get 10 inquiries and book 3 jobs. That's a cost per new booking of $500. Ouch! A $1,500 PPC campaign, over 90 to 180 days, should drive hundreds if not thousands of brides to your website. Combine that type of traffic with a website that works and I’m guessing you’d book thousands of dollars in new business (or should be!). If you don't, you have a problem with your website or sales staff.

And One More....

11) Guaranteed Placement

Some of you are having trouble getting your website to show up at Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. Others are probably frustrated with the positioning of your website in the SERPS (free search engine result pages/listings) – either it's up, down, or a needle in the haystack. Top positioning on the “free side” of search engines isn't for amateurs anymore and unless you have an extensive knowledge of search engine optimization (or have hired someone to do it for you) you're probably not even in the game. PPC addresses that problem quickly and very effectively. The catch is you'll have to pay for it. Start a PPC campaign and you'll be showing up where you want and when you want at Google, Yahoo!, or MSN.

Inner Circle Tip: If you’re having trouble with organic search engine positioning use PPC until you optimize your pages and see better positioning and rank. At that point you can pull back, suspend, or discontinue your PPC programs. I don’t necessarily recommend that you end your PPC campaigns, even with good placement, but it is an option to be aware of.

When PPC Doesn't Work

With very few exceptions, PPC works. Actually, I'm pretty comfortable saying it works all the time. When people tell me it didn't work for them there are usually a couple reasons. The first thing I look at is their website. If a website isn't converting its current traffic into inquiries, phone calls, and sales, PPC isn't going to change that. In that case, PPC does NOT work and it is probably a waste of money.

Another reason PPC doesn't deliver is usually a result of not understanding how PPC works, how to set it up correctly, or improperly targeting keywords and keyword phrases.

Frequency of search is another issue to consider. In other words, how many times are brides actually searching for your keywords or keyword phrases? It's unlikely thousands of brides each month are looking for "djs in anchorage alaska" or even “wedding ministers in Cleveland”. Again, this is where the reporting is so valuable and your PPC reports will tell you exactly how many times your keywords/phrases/terms were searched for.

Inner Circle Tip: Use your PPC reports and impressions on your keywords/phrases/terms to optimize your pages for organic search engine positioning! It works very well.

A Final Note

Like I said, PPC works. There’s no doubt about it. And certainly there is more to it than I can cover here in one newsletter (a long one at that, sorry!). The only “big” issues that make it a bit tricky are probably initial set-up and then fine-tuning. With all the other things you have to do starting and managing something new probably isn’t going to make it to the top of your list – but PPC should.

If you’re just starting out and need some help drop me a line. I can help you get going quickly and at least “get in the game” for a small fee. If you’re already running a PPC program, without professional help, it might be valuable to have an experienced professional look at it. Drop me a line or give me a call at (978) 283-8295. If you're a member of my Inner Circle, I help you for FREE. More information is here: http://www.sellmoreweddings.com/innercircle/

Here are the two programs I've discussed:

Google AdWords: http://www.google.com/adwords.html
Yahoo! Search: http://www.overture.com

Next week: Converting brides who visit your website into inquiries and phone calls and getting your website ready for the 2006 wedding planning season . . . it's time to start planning!

+ + Are You A Member of My "Inner Circle" ??

Speaking of keywords and keyword phrases, members of my Inner Circle can just login to the members bulletin board and "cut-and-paste" the keywords and keyword phrases they should be using. Caterers, DJs, Photographers... more categories and keywords are being added this week. You'll also find the full suite of meta-tags I'm using that help me get and keep top positioning at Yahoo!, Google, and MSN.

Now Online

Keywords Forum: http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=5
Full Meta-Tag Suite: http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=21
Need Great Website Stats (for free!): http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=10
Glossary of Internet Terms (that you have to know!): http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=24
How To Add Your Website to the new MSN Search Engine: http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=27
Keyword Tools: http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=28
More Tips, Techniques, and Great Information are in Toolbox area: http://www.jimedia.com/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=4

For more information about membership visit: http://www.sellmoreweddings.com/innercircle/

 + + More Traffic, More Inquiries

You can have a great web site but if brides can't find it what good is it? Advertise and link your website with WEDDINGPLANNINGLINKS.COM and I'll send you great traffic for a full year. On average we'll send more than 500 brides/grooms to your site and unlike Google, MSN, or Yahoo! I can guarantee you top positioning. 95% of my advertisers renew because WEDDINGPLANNINGLINKS.COM works. More information is here: http://www.weddingplanninglinks.com/inquiry.html 

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Best wishes,

Chris Jaeger
(978) 283-8295