Hi,
I was wondering what your experience has been with Google and Yahoo pay
per click. Thanks.
I have a lot of experience with Google’s version of Pay Per Click (PPC) called Adwords, and moderate experience with Yahoo’s version which they call Search Marketing.
It would help if you asked a specific question on what you want to learn about them, but here’s MY experience.
I have set up Google PPC campaigns for a number of different clients ranging from attorneys to the dating industry.
In each case buying targeted traffic from Google has resulted in
- an increase in raw traffic to their website
- an increase in number of leads per day
- an increase in sales
- an increase in lifetime value of a customer/client
In all but one case, my clients had products for sale. One of my clients is an attorney who asked me to help him develop the niche of working with small and medium sized non-profits in the USA.
Google has been hugely successful for him in getting new business for his services working with non-profits.
It’s easy to get started with Google, for $5 you can be registered and buying traffic within 10 minutes. Simply use the link below, set up a google account, and in minutes you’ll be advertising online.
With Yahoo it’s a much longer process as they have to’approve’ every ad you write. The Yahoo interface is very ‘clunky’ too. (There is a good reason Yahoo is losing market share to Google.) To be fair, Yahoo has just started reaching out to it’s customers by actually CALLING them and offering to help with ad campaigns. If they keep up this kind of service they will give Google a run for the money.
You can register with Yahoo PPC here:
Yahoo Search Advertising Sign Up
I’m going to focus on Google for now since it’s the first place you should use PPC advertising. Also Yahoo is making big changes to their program including the management console. I don’t want to comment until I’ve worked with the new version.
Google allows you to buy ‘local’ traffic, which for most hypnotherapists is what you want to do. This will keep your from wasting money, and prevent Google from running up a huge bill on your credit card. (this can and does happen)
9 Quick Tips for Using Google PPC Advertising:
1. Always write 2 different ads for each keyword, test and find which one wins. Then try to beat that one. Google is built for testing and makes it easy.
2. Do NOT try to sell ‘hypnosis’, target the reporting conditions people would be searching on.
3. Avoid using the Google ‘content network’, you’ll get very little response from it.
4. Be sure to limit your daily budget until you have the traffic + conversion formula working. Then open it up until you have more business than you can handle.
5. Set up the Google reports to email you daily in the beginning. If you are getting enough impressions you can make changes daily until you have ads pulling traffic. Later you can change the automatic reporting to weekly.
6. Once you have traffic, focus on conversion. Focus on your ‘landing pages’ and how well they convert the traffic into leads and/or sales.
7. Your best results will come from what is known as a ‘2-step’ process. I don’t have time to explain how to do this now. I may do a podcast on it. Basically this means, don’t try to sell them hynosis sessions when they are looking for more information. And have a follow up process.
8. You want to be in the top 8 positions. This puts you on the first page of search. 80% of people searching never go past the first page. This means you’ll need to do good keyword research to keep your bid prices low and still be in the top 8.
9. Know your numbers! See this post on my blog.
The 5 Most Important Numbers for Effective Hypnotherapy Marketing
Note: 3 years ago when I started doing Google adwords, it was easy because very few people used it. Now competition is stiff since even the big corporations have now realized the importance of PPC. Thus, it’s important to choose your keywords (your market) correctly and target the ad and the landing page to that market.
