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Alexander McCall-Smith Engages Web 2.0

The Daily Telegraph is in the middle of a 20-week serialisation of an online book created by author Alexander McCall-Smith, his first such project. New Media Knowledge caught up with the organisers to discuss ‘Corduroy Mansions’.

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Business Brief: Video Advertising Looks to Future

Google has announced it will incentivise advertisers on its video properties as well as launching research programmes into how Web users consume Internet video material. New Media Knowledge spoke to a number of industry players to gauge their views on where the video advertising market is going.

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‘Virtual Home’ for Ex-Pats in London Established

A social network aimed at providing information for ex-pats living in London has been established. New Media Knowledge met the site’s co-founder to find out more.

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• Record Visits for UK Blog Sites
• Clearing Congestion
• Rough Guide to: Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Opinion: What Happens to Newspapers?
• LinkedIn Adds Business Applications
• What Happens to Newspapers?

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  Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on the Web has been one of the major growth sectors in marketing. Last year, Internet search engine Google overtook ITV for monies received from advertising and nearly $2 billion was spent on PPC globally. New Media Knowledge spoke to a PPC consultant to gauge what companies looking at the technology should consider. more

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Money Saving Pay-per-Click Tips

If you’re feeling the pinch and considering cutting back on your pay per click budget, it is possible to shave inches off your current wasted spend without sacrificing your search engine presence completely. Rebecca Appleton of Top Position explains how to make your existing budget a trimmer, leaner prospect with these money saving tips…

It seems that newspaper headline and TV news bulletins are filled with cries of a credit crunch. Traditionally, advertising budgets are one of the first things to be cut at the time of an economic slowdown, making justifying a high search marketing spend extremely difficult.

If you’re feeling the pinch and considering cutting back on your pay per click budget, it is possible to shave inches off your current wasted spend without sacrificing your search engine presence completely. Make your existing budget a trimmer, leaner prospect with these money saving tips…

1. Content Network

Contextual advertising is a powerful tool but should be afforded its own campaign and assigned CPC bids to really make the most of search network placement. Google AdWords pay per click accounts have content advertising set to default in the initial account creation process so go back and untick the box to claw back some wasted budget. Content ads have their own targeting tools and bids are more flexible, giving higher costs and poor conversion rates when search ads are shown as standard.

2. Too Many Keywords

If you’ve fallen into the trap of including as may key terms as possible within your ad group, it should come as no surprise that you’re spending lots of your budget on pay per click adverts with few concrete conversions. Being ruthless and deleting or moving irrelevant terms into their own ad group will result in a more targeted campaign.

Web browsers searching for your product or service will try to reach a supplier in the most direct way possible. That means no long winded or vague search terms. Removing keywords that fall into that category will ensure your PPC cash is used up by surfers who are actually interested in the product you have to sell.

3. Landing Pages

Even if you have trimmed your keywords down, the right person landing on the wrong page can also prove costly. New advertisers and those running a non-optimised pay per click campaign fall into the trap of sending all adverts through to the home page. If your site is complicated, is difficult to navigate, offers to many options or has sub pages that must be navigated through to find specific products, the person clicking on your advert will lose patience and take their e-business elsewhere.

The key to converting on the initial interest shown by the person clicking on your advert is to send them through to the most relevant page for that product. If you sell electrical appliances and are advertising flat screen TVs, point that advert to the page containing info and purchase options for flat screen TVs.

The easiest way to let pay per click spend run away with you and fail to deliver the expected results is to leave it to run by itself. There are always improvements you can make and small savings to be made if you have the time to invest.

Author Bio

Rebecca Appleton is the operations director at pay per click and search engine optimisation consultancy, Top Position.