Do you have problems in contacting Adwords support team? Me too. It took me quite some time to find out how to contact the Adwords support team.

If you have been using Adwords PPC since 2008, it has been known to most Adwords users that contacting Adwords people are seemingly almost impossible. Here is the link to contact them.

You can also login to your Adwords account, click on the “Help” link, you will be brought to a new page, scroll all the way down till you see “Contacting Us” on the bottom of the page.

By the way, Adwords team will be sending you an email that looks like it’s auto-respond type, so you will have to reply them back with more specific questions, so as to get someone real to communicate with you.

PPC is one of the fastest and targeted traffic generator the web has known, so if you are a new business owner your chances of making profit for your service or product is very vital online. BUT sometimes it might not be the case for some products or services that you are promoting.

What Happened???

Earlier this year, I found a very interesting local business where the competition was  not that strong terms of SEO and PPC. I decided to give it a try. As it’s a No Capital Down project – that means I have to pay for the PPC traffic for this new business. I decided to put a daily budget of $25. So my PPC costs should be around $750 total over 30 days.

Little did I know that the PPC bids on keywords for this local business was around $2 to $4. If I were to take $3 per keyword bid, I will only have 8 clicks for this business per day. Thank God that the keywords that I used are converting with average of 15% for click through rate. But it was not enough.

I was able to make some profits on the 1st month after cutting my costs, which me and my partners did not get any salary out of it. This goes on for a good 3 months.

Although every month, we could see that our profits are increasing, due to the SEO part for the website was done correctly and that the competition was not that strong either.

So on the 4th month, I decided to lower our PPC budget to $20 per day to test out. Our business did not drop, instead it became better and we had more profits. Then finally on the 5th month – our website finally received good SEO rankings for converting keywords. That was the turning point and I decided to stop the PPC all together (as well as our sponsored advertising on Yahoo and MSN).

That’s when we saw the real money coming in in terms of thousands of dollars – although we still have cost – but the major cost which was PPC was FINALLY stopped. This  meant we finally had much higher realized profits.

What went right for us?

The thing that went right for us was that we positioned our business targeting PPC and SEO together at the same time. We needed customers to start the cashflow running so PPC was used first. Also at the same time we finally continued working on the SEO aspects of the website.

During the 4 month period – it also became a good time for us to find out what are the keywords that people are targeting.

Without using Pay Per Click Marketing and Google Adwords, I would have missed out a on a very important keyword that was totally different from our primary keyword – and yet it has the almost the same meaning. We wouldn’t have discovered the important converting keyword without PPC.

We also created new content with new web pages based on the keywords that were converting from the Google AdWords reports. Creating more new relevant content for our targeted customers became very fruitful in our SEO efforts.

Summary

I must say that this business has made me realised that the beginning of new businesses will be tough and may not even make any money on the first month. I was lucky to have make at least a hundred dollars in profits. It was our consistency and our persistence in this new business that gave us the reward that can be seen now.

I will not stop using PPC as the main tool to find out the real demand of the market, and using SEO to get to that market free of charge.

This should be your goal too. If you have a different way to market your new business, do share below in general. I will be happy to hear from you.

So many people are talking about this new thing “Google Instant Search“. I was in Hong Kong when I realised that Google changed how search will be online, so I did some research on how we as PPC marketers can benefit or even not be hurt by this new move that Google has implemented.

There are so many articles or blog posts talking about Google Instant will not hurt us PPC marketers, some commented it will. For me, it’s a bit of both.

Why do I said that?

I did some experiments on my friends, asking them to search Google Instant online, according to their hobby and their interest. I found there are 2 different distinct searchers online. The focused and the browsers.

The focused searchers

They know what they want to find online, thus knowing the full name or related name of the search term. Like for example, I have a friend interested to find out the price of Macbook Air, so he typed in “macbook air price” as search term. Going straight for the search term he typed, ignoring other search results and PPC advertising. Most buyers come from this group.

The browser searchers

This is the complete opposite of a focused searcher, browser searchers do not know have a definite search. I find them doing a lot of random search on their hobby or interest. Some will look at the new Google search results, spending some time on reading the search results. They will even restart on searching on another related term too. Clicking on the PPC advertising that interests them and the organic search results too. Usually they are rushing searchers, that will also explain why they spend time reading the search results.

Now, both of the searcher qualities above are within all of us, just depending on circumstances and situations they are in.

How Google Instant Search Can Hurt PPC Marketers?

An increase in impressions will be the cause, thus decreasing CTR, thus paying more for the keywords in the long term. Although Google did stated that as long as the Google searchers using the Instant Search, does not stay more than 3 seconds, it will not counted as an impression for the Adwords marketers. Click Here to read more about Google Instant.

The problem here is that most of the searchers are browsers, thus getting more impressions for your PPC ads and keywords. But the good news is that most beginner Adwords marketer who do not have a very tight organised Adwords campaign and do not have budgets that can last their business long term, will be eliminated sooner than before Google Instant was introduced.

For those Adwords marketers, who are the opposite of the above, will most properly be successful and having ROI for their business. Because most of the tight campaign Adwords marketers, will target on long tail keyword and they are in phrase and exact match only. Their ads are targeted, landing page for that specific keywords only, thus showing more relevance.

Google Instant is on when you used Google. So how do you switch it off? Go to “Search Setting” which is on the top right of Google, go to Google Instant column, select “Do not use Google Instant”, and click save. This will help to decrease the impressions, or you can always use the Adwords preview tool.

My conclusion

For new and un-organised Adwords campaign PPC marketers or users, it will be a much harder to have a higher ROI. Whereas, for the more advanced PPC marketers, are the ones who will make it and earn even more ROI from PPC marketing. So the only way is to constantly upgrade yourself for more PPC strategies and tips.

Local business has been a long forgotten area in Internet marketing, but is now currently a hot topic that has been making a lot of people some money, some has made over $10,000. I have a friend who made $100,000 a month with 20 businesses. One of the businesses is making him an average of $10,000 per month.

I must say that using PPC to reach your local business is one of the easiest way to make money online, and most of the local business owners do not know how to use PPC properly and not engage in a PPC consultant to help them get the most out of PPC. This is good news for us who have been using PPC to make money.

How to get most profit out of Local Business?

Landing Page: This is one of the essential part of the local business. You can read 9 Landing Page secrets that will make you money for more info. 1 important thing I like to add in the landing page is a phone number. Why a phone number? Some people may need your service urgently, so a phone number is a great way to let them reach you.

I would recommend having the phone number on the top right of the landing page, together with the header.

Autoresponder. I would recommend using Aweber to capture leads, the lead capture should be on the right side of the landing page, just below the phone number. Aweber is able to create opt in forms easily and you can add in more details besides the name and email address.

I would recommend adding a phone number detail and additional information from the customer to you.

Calling Customers. After you have their details, you are to call them to make the first contact. I have found out that if you want to increase the chances of closing the deal, calling them is the best way. I would usually call them during lunch time and after 6pm, these are the times they are most properly not working and are more receptive to your calls.

Another thing to add is that in the beginning of your local business, you may not be able to close so easily, because you have not work on this area before. This is okay, because it took me a month later to close my first sale. But what you need to learn is to note the way you communicate with them on the phone or on email. Always be flexible to change and ready to make fast decisions that will make your local business profitable.

Upselling to your list. You have a list of names that are targeted to your business services or products. You know what they are looking for, and this is a great advantage for you who has their names, emails and phone number. Selling them some services or products that are related or relevant to your products or services. This is where you can earn even more from your local business.

In this area, you will need to constantly email them of your local business news, new products, etc… Get them to expect your emails. This is not email spamming, you will need to send good helpful emails to them, that will help them in some benefits.

Using this simple system, you will find that your local business will thrive while others will suffer because you are using PPC. Local business is the way now and will continue to be part of making money online.

There are a lot of PPC consultants out there with Adwords Qualified Professionals, or Yahoo PPC Qualified Consultant, but most of them have not use PPC to generate income for themselves yet. They are just like stock brokers who are trying to sell you stocks, yet they have not invest in it yet.

That is a very sad thing, and of course there are real PPC consultants who knows what they are doing, and will help you in driving targeted traffic, and at the same time lowering your PPC cost.

The question now is, how do you find these PPC consultants who are experts and can help you drive targeted traffic, making you money in the end?

1) Ask them if they have been making money using PPC to drive traffic to their websites?

I must say that this is going to be quite hard, getting them to show you their money making niches or markets. Who would let someone find out what their profit making niches are? To tell the truth, I would not even tell you my niche let along the PPC consultants.

BUT what you can do is to to get them to show you the total amount they have actually pay in Adwords PPC, or other PPC platforms. The amount will show you their experience in using PPC as a traffic tool to their websites. I would recommend that the PPC consultant has at least $2000 spending in their PPC. This would be a normal range to gauge them.

2) Past Clientele Of PPC Consultant

Besides having the Adwords Qualified Professionals, the consultants would have some past or current clients who engaged in their PPC services before. Finding out from them, how are the consultants doing, how much profit has the clients made since they use the PPC services, etc…

This is a great way to find out. Having some social proof will set your mind at ease.

3) Traffic Or Leads?

Someone who would engage a PPC consultant would usually come from a middle or large enterprise company. They would sometimes want to capture leads instead of just getting traffic to their websites.

This is where the consultant, will share with you on creating a specific landing page for your company product or service, plus using a form to lead capture or even get the targeted audience to call your company. They would have to advise you (company) on getting the best structure of getting sales for your company.

From there onwards, monitor your sales compare to the previous month where the PPC service was not engage. If there is an increase in sales of 10 to 15% from the online, then the consultants know what they are doing.

If you are looking for a PPC consultant, be sure to find out from them the above 3 things, before you engage them.

How do you rectify when you have 1000 impressions and no clicks?

First of all, the problem lays in the click through rate (CTR) of the ad. That is to say – your ad copy 2 lines.

If your ad copy is not compelling for someone to click and find out more, then the ad copy is a failure. Simple as that.

How do you test your ad copy if they actually work?

I have heard of someone going to a bar to test if the ad copy works. He wrote a couple of ad copy (one page length), read to the people in the bar. Just to inform you, this guy promised to treat to those who listen to all his ad copy will get a free beer after that, they have to tell him what to change and what is good. All of these are not winners till someone in the bar ask  him where this product can be purchase. Then the ad is the winner.

I am not asking you to do the above, but maybe in a better environment like in a cafe or something.

Now the thing is that having 1,000 impressions and no clicks, can be due to 3 reasons:

Reason 1: Your PPC ad is not compelling enough, and do not attract click through.You will need to test your ad by spit testing your PPC ads constantly. In this way, you will be able to change the ad and become a compelling PPC ad.

Reason 2: The Ad position is not even in the first page of the search result. You have to find out what is your what is the best ad position for your PPC ad. Not every niche or everyone is suitable to be in the first 3 ad position in the first page.

Reason 3: Using the wrong keywords. I think this is the worst of the 3, as it just targets the wrong crowd, meaning not making money or profit. This will also incur unwanted clicks, making your cost high.

I do not think 1,000 impressions will not attract any clicks. This can only mean that this 1,000 impressions are all from content networks. This will usually not happen in search networks.

Then in this case your Ad copy has to “Scream” at the content networks traffic, in order to get clicks. I will touch more on content networks soon. If you have any questions, do use the comment below and I will reply you.

Cost Per Click (CPC) in Adwords is the cost of each click when someone searches and found your PPC ads relevant, this is the price that you pay for the traffic from Google. So if you have a high cost per click, it just means that you have a very competitive keyword and that a lot of your competitors wants a position in the first page of the search result as well.

In my previous post, on High Cost Pay Click, Competitive Market, What To Do!, I shared on how to rectify when you have this situation.

Today, I will go further on why the cost per click will continue to increase in cost, and how you can further solve this ever increasing cost per click problem by just changing a very simple yet not known to a lot of PPC users.

Why Cost Per Click Will Continue to Increase in Cost?

As more and more people realised the power of the Internet, where they can track results on their business, whether their advertising is working, how many people saw the ad, how many click on the ad, how many become leads from the ad, and how many was converted to sales from the ad. All this can be track, whereas the newspaper you can’t track a lot of things like how many saw your ads, this is a very important element that we as marketers want to know. This can be shown only in the online marketing.

The supply (number of ad positions) in the Google search results is only 11, and there can be as many as 100 competing to be on the page one of the search result, thus making the cost per click increase more than ever before. This is just like in stock market where there are a lot of buyers, but little sellers, making the price of the stock increase in value. We as PPC users are the main cause of making the cost per click increase.

So how do we find solution to this problem?

I shared a smart solution on the post of High Cost Per Click, Competitive Market, What To Do! You can read more about it. Today I will share with you on a more advance strategy where most PPC marketers do not use and that you can take advantage in.

One of the most important reason why some keywords are so expensive are they are very general and usually make up of 2 or 3 words. This is where the most expensive keywords are usually landed. In order to get a better keyword to target, you need to target on the long tail keywords of the market you are in.

You need to find out at first what is most general keyword of your market, preferable two words or less, then from there buy this keyword in the PPC position where most will see and click on your PPC ad. I would use phrase and exact match only for this strategy.

What this will do is help you in two things, one is to find out the long tail keywords people are using to search online, second is to find out the negative keywords that are not in your negative keywords list in your Adwords campaign. Thus making your campaign very tight and focus.

I will share next on how to even tighten and focus on your Adwords Campaign on the coming post. Do you have anything that you want to know, or not sure? Please use the comment and I will reply to you.

I just recently started to use the Mobile Adwords targeting only Singapore. As most of my online market are targeted to offline services instead of online products, as I find that it’s a much more better market than the later.

Now that the world is all about mobile, should we go ahead with Mobile Adwords too?

I would say why not? But make sure that it is in the testing process, as not all markets are suitable to be on the mobile. A mobile searcher is some how different from a searcher who is using a desktop or laptop. From my point of view, desktop and laptop searchers are more of a buyers.

But to support my answer on to go ahead in using Mobile Adwords for all the Adwords users, are to test the market in a small area first. If it’s giving you result then go on, if not find out why. You may want to lengthen the Mobile campaign to see the results coming, as this is still a new market area you may find it untapped.

I will be updating on the new campaign in a week or two which only targets mobile devices. Remember always be testing in marketing….

What do you do when you have a high cost per click (CPC), like $4 and above and in a competitive market or niche that is full of Adwords PPC ads (more than 11 PPC ads). Do you quit or continue?

Quitting is a very easy choice to do. You may not have enough budget to carry on or the sales or conversion is very low using PPC, thus not making profit and the cost did not go down as well. It may seem that quitting is the way out now, but do you know that you can rectify the situation by doing some correction on your PPC campaign?

First, you need to realise that you need to correct three things that will turn your situation around instantly.

1) Writing compelling PPC ads that will attract clicks, and to position your ads on the above the fold area (preferable from position 1 to 5 at least). Spit test the PPC ads as well in a ad group. The keywords are to be place on the headline of the PPC ad, so that you can get good quality score.

2) Targeting conversion only keywords. This way you can ignore those that do not bring in the profit. If you have been using Adwords PPC for at least 2 to 3months, you can find out which keywords convert sales. You will need to have the Adwords conversion code in your thank you page, will you find out the conversion keywords. Read how to set up Adwords conversion code tracking.

3) One Landing Page To One Ad Group. Having a landing page that only targets a specific keywords in a Ad group, can also increase quality score, thus lowering the CPC of a particular keyword.

The above way can only work if you only have budget to continue with, but what happens when you do not have enough budget? One very simple tip is to place your Ad on the first position of the second page. Yes you hear me, second page of the search result.

Most of the PPC ads are competing for the first page of the keyword there are targeting, because there are the most 11 places on the search result, if there are more than 11 ads, then the 12th person will have to pay CPC that is at least higher than the 11th ad, presumably all are new ads. This is where the the demand (more than 11 ads on a particular keyword) is more than the supply (11 ad positions).

There is a saying that those who really want to find what they are looking for will go for the extra mile of searching the second and even the third page of the search result. They are really looking for the product or services you are providing. This has a huge advantage compare to the been on the first page.

a) Lesser Impressions; I mean much lesser impressions than on page one. This will greatly increase your CTR of your keyword because the impressions have greatly decrease.

b) More Targeted Audience; These people are the ones that will go the extra mile, and they mostly are buyers.

c) Cost Per Click Decreases; Because it is in the second page, the cost is so much lower than the first page, it can go as low as 90% less than in the first page itself.

I have shared with you on amending your PPC ads, keywords and landing page for those who can continue to target on the first page. For those who do not have enough budget to carry on, the second page will be a great idea to go into instead of the first. This is not just theory, it is very practical and what you always need to do is to test it first. Sometimes it does not suit the niche you are in for the second page, you got to test!

Content networks in Adwords is a great way to get massive traffic in the fastest time, it is relatively cheaper then using the search networks. BUT they are not people who are looking for the services or products you are selling online.

I have done a major mistake of not switching off my content networks before (thank God it was once and only for a day), getting un-targeted impressions to the content networks are not really a good idea, if your PPC ads are not screaming at them to click on your ad.

That is why if I would want to use both the search and the content networks, I would separate them into two different campaigns. This way I can track and find out the type of traffic in both the networks.

Back to my past mistake of switching on the content network, is that I incur additional cost (CPC), but thank God the impressions are not taken into account in the search networks. Why?

It is because Google knows that the content network traffic are not as targeted as the search networks, so Google only take into account of impressions in the search networks.

So remember always, to switch off your content networks from your search networks. In order to get the best result for your PPC ads, thus increase in conversion.