A Pay Per Click Beginner's Guide.

Should you Pay Per Click?

Commonly refered to as PPC among the savy internet marketers. If you have been marketing online for any length of time you have probably seen PPC eat up your advertising dollars with little or no results.

You research and choose the hottest keywords, then burn through your daily budget in an hour with no sales. The myth that mega traffic produces mega profits is just that. A myth.

Traffic is great. Traffic improves your search engine ranking. It increases word of mouth advertising. Traffic gets you more traffic, but when you are paying a pretty penny for each and every click you want sales.

You may remember the class action law suit against Google. A group of businesses sued Google claiming the company didn't do enough to prevent click fraud so they lost money in their PPC campaigns.

In my less than humble opinion, click fraud was not the culprit. For those who don't know, click fraud is when someone who publishes Google Adsense ads clicks on ads on their own sight to make money with no intention of purchasing the product advertised.

As I said, in my opinion click fraud was not the culprit. It was badly chosen keyword phrases. Instructions on how to choose and bid on keyword phrases are available on the PPC sites so I won't go into the mechanics of bidding.

The important thing is, if you chose the most popular keyword your ad will show up in hundreds maybe even thousands of searches an hour. This means you will recieve hundreds maybe even thousands of clicks a day.

Mega traffic right? For instants. If you are selling hand painted porcelain piggy banks and you bid on the keyword "bank". Who will see your ad and possibly click on it? People looking for online banking, people looking for a rock band called "Bank", kids writing a report for school on the banking industry. In other words, people who don't want what you are selling.

They will click on your ad without reading the whole thing and go "This isn't what I want." and hit the back button. Remember, it cost you money for them to click. It costs them nothing, so people aren't careful about what they click on.

Choose your phrase carefully. You want clicks from visitors who are looking to buy what you are selling. Target your phrase. Bid on "porcelain hand painted piggy banks" if that is what you are selling. People who do broad searches are just looking. People who target their searches are looking to buy.

Will you get less traffic? Yes. Will you make more sales? Maybe, depending on your product, how easy your site is to navigate, your prices, etc, etc...

The point is, with PPC, looky loos cost you money. Save the most popular keywords for your free traffic sources. Target your PPC so that only credit card in hand buyers click your ads.

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Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

7 Things You Can Do Today To Make Google Fall Head Over Heels In Love With Your Small Business Website

Creating your own small business website can be a scary thing to do and extremely tough. It requires some planning to get it right and make Google sit up and take notice of your site at first glance. Small business website search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the keys, but all too often, business people leave the creation of their websites up to a family member or a friend who happens to know something about it. This is strange, for they wouldn't dream of letting the same people build their bricks and mortar store or office. This is why business owners should leave it to the professionals.

Of course, getting an expert who fully understands small business SEO to build your website is not likely to come cheap, but it may be the best solution if you are starting out from scratch. However, this article is aimed at those small businesses that already have a website, but are disappointed at how poorly it performs. If you're frustrated because your website appears on page 42 of the Google search results, and no one is visiting your website, here are 7 things you can do to quickly improve your results.

1. Create an Effective Website Title Tag, Description Meta Tag,
and Keywords Meta Tag

The most important part of any website page (in the eyes of the search engines) is the title tag. The title is enclosed between the opening title tag: and the closing title tag: . It is located in the head section of an HTML document, or web page. You should use your page's main keyword in your title. Try to use your main keyword near the beginning of your title, and perhaps again near the end. But always strive to make your title readable, and not obviously keyword stuffed. You must also make sure it appears on the main page at least 3 times, but don't be to repetitive.

Your description tag plays an important role in SEO for your local small business. This tag is used by most of the search engines in their listings, so you need to spend some time getting this right. The description tag looks like this:

<meta name="description" content=

and it is also found in the head section of your web page.

Something brief such as, "Acme Dynamite, Makers of Green Dynamite," gets the message across, but you could do much better. Try to list benefits rather than features, and use your main keyword in your description as well. Keep your description reasonably brief, but not too short. Something like, "Acme, Inc., Makers of the Strongest, Most Powerful and Affordable Dynamite on the Planet" is better.

Like a headline for an ad or sales flyer, your description may take time to develop. Start with a list of all of the benefits your product or service offers and then try to write 20 different descriptions for your site based on those benefits. Test your descriptions by reading them to your customers, employees or others familiar with your business. You'll find out which description resonates most strongly with your potential prospects - and that's good for the search engines and for your sales.

The keywords tag, again found in the head section of your web pages, looks like this:

<meta name="keywords" content=

The keywords you choose for your page are important, because they tell the search engines what should be found on the page. Google and all the other search engines present search results based on relevancy – how relevant your web pages are to the keywords and phrases your prospects are searching for.

Keep your keyword phrases to less than seven and don't repeat the same words. For example, if you have two keyword phrases, which are, "blue widgets" and "bright blue widgets," you should only include unique words after including the first "blue widgets" keyword.

Curious to know what your Title, Description, Meta and Keyword tags currently look like? Here's a simple tip – just go to any page of your website, then click on "View Source" or "View Page Source" from the "View" menu. Or Ctrl+U in most browsers. There you'll be able to see exactly what your tags are telling Google when they crawl your site.

2. Optimize Your Website Copy

Your website copy consists of the words on every page of your site. Try to make it interesting and informative. One simple way to arrange your articles, or informative pages, is to use a simple three-step format. Begin with an introductory paragraph that tells your visitor what you are going to tell them. Then in the next two or three paragraphs, tell them. Finally, wind up the article by telling them what you just told them.

This may seem overly simple, but it works. Speak to your website audience as you would to a seven-year-old child. Don't patronize them, but lay it out clearly in simple steps using straightforward language that anyone can understand.

When writing your copy for each of your pages, make sure to focus on one or two keywords per page. If you are selling dynamite in all colors and you also sell blasting caps, then dynamite should be on one page and blasting caps on another. Keep it simple for your customers and the search engines by focusing on one idea per page and your customers will thank you for it, and Google will thank you too.

3. Establish an Acceptable Keyword Density for Your Website Copy

While optimizing your website copy you also need to establish a keyword density that is acceptable to the search engines. Opinions differ, but somewhere between 2% and 5% is probably about right. This means that for effective small business SEO, your main keyword phrase should appear around three times for every 100 words.

Where your keyword appears is important too. Try to use your main keyword or phrase twice in the first paragraph, once in the second paragraph, once around the middle of the article, and once again near the end of the article. Try to start and end the first paragraph with your main keyword if possible, but don't force it. Always aim for copy that is readable before copy that has perfect keyword density.

4. Create Quality Back Links to Your Website

Increasingly, the search engines are giving added weight to the number of quality back links your website has. It used to be that reciprocal linking was quite acceptable, and it still is, but now Google and the other search engines give higher credibility to one-way back links as far as your search engine rankings are concerned.

And it's not just any back links either. You need to have quality back links, or back links from sites that are similar to yours. It's not much good getting a back link from a site about butterflies if your site focuses on racing cars. With Google, it's all about relevance. You should also strive to get back links from so-called authority sites. These are sites that the search engines deem to be an authority on their chosen subject. They tend to be quite big and to have been around for some time. Google gives more reward for .edu backlinks and its not really as hard as you would think. I have some from Harvard and I've never been there in my life.

5. Use Local Directories Effectively

If you are marketing to a local market, then make use of local directories. How do you find them? If, for example, you are located in New York, then go to Google and search for, "directory" + "new york." This will return a list of all the local directories in that city. You could even try searching for, "green dynamite directory" + "new york," if you are marketing blue widgets.

Once you find a suitable directory, submit your website to it. People do search on local directories, so even if your product has worldwide appeal, there's a greater chance that you will get the sale if someone finds you in a local directory over someone else located in another continent who can deliver just as cost effectively or as quickly.

6. Create a Proper Site Map and Google Site Map

Every website should have a site map. This is merely a directory of all your site's pages with links to every one. You should have a link from every page of your site back to your site map, and your site map must be updated whenever a new page is added.

A Google Site Map is also a site map, but one that is in a special format that Google can easily spider. It has the great advantage of allowing Google to instantly "see" your site and evaluate it. It can be a very useful tool in getting Google to index your site more quickly than otherwise. For more information on creating a Google Site Map, go to: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/.

7. Add Fresh Original Content to Your Website at an Acceptably Measured Pace

Your website should never be considered finished. It should always be a work in progress that is constantly expanding with fresh and original content. The easiest way to do this is to add new articles on specific subjects on a regular basis. One article a week is the least you should aim for, but don't add content too quickly either. Dumping 100 articles a day into your site will ultimately work against you, because the search engines look for organic growth – in other words, growth that seems natural. Since it's not likely that you were able to write 100 articles in one day, Google and the other search engines will see this as unnatural and will count it against you in your page ranking.

SEO for your local small business is easier than you might think. Getting Google to fall head over heels in love with your small business website is not rocket science. You only need to implement a few simple things on a regular basis, and over time Google will notice and your page rank – and your placement with the search engines – will start climbing.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

An Introduction To Search Engine Optimization And Web Design

Create a website and in no time at all you will be receiving visitors, right? Wrong. It can take time before a search engine finds and indexes your site. Once it does, it is by no means any guarantee that you will be one of the first sites listed under your subject. Search engines index billions of pages and even the most obscure subject can have thousands of pages.

So how do you put your webpage at the head of the pack? It all comes down to search engine optimization. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the term used to describe methods and tricks used that will help improve how search engines rank your page. The higher that your page ranks, the better chance your page will be selected by someone searching, resulting in more traffic to your site.

Search Engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! use complicated, highly guarded algorithms to rank your website that can be so confusing Einstein himself would have trouble figuring it out. Instead of focusing on those issues, let us instead focus on a few basic areas that will help improve your websites ranking. 

One final note about search engines: The most popular search engine right now is Google.

Keywords
Choosing the right keywords for your page is the most important step in SEO. In actuality, "keywords" usually key phrases since you will be choosing about three or four key phrases for each page of your website and rarely focus on a simple word. It is important that you are specific when picking your phrases. You need to stay away from generic terms such as “cat,” “television,” or “car.” Pick phrases such as “marketing consultant”, “plasma television”, or “Chevy Corvette”. The more specific you can be the higher that your page will be ranked, and the better chance your page will be found by your target audience.

To pick the right phrases, think about what words you would type in when looking for your site. Ask your friends and family members what they would type into the search engine. Understand that television and TV are two different words and not interchangeable in the minds of search engines. Going back to my example of Creative Marketing Consultant, I might choose the keywords of “Creative Marketing Consultant”, “Professional Marketing Consultant”, and “Consultants in Peoria, Illinois” for a marketing consulting website. Keyword phrases should only be about three to four words long.

Domain Name
If you have not picked a domain name, it is best to pick one that uses at least one of your keywords in it. Use dashes to help separate the words, if desired. A website named http://www.marketingconsultingpeoria.com or http://www.creativemarketingconsultants.com is better than http://www.randombusiunessname.com. For even better results, choose something that is specific to your keywords. That said, it is believed that search engines may rank domain names with  two or more hyphens lower because they are usually associated with lower-quality or spam-ridden sites.

Anchor Tags
Anchor tags, also known as anchor text, are the visible hyperlinked text on the page. Search engines typically weigh them heavily. Make sure that your anchor tags contain as many of your keywords as possible. Also, they should not be too long, although there is no limit, and be a clear indication of what the user will find by clicking on it.

Headings
When designing a webpage for search engine optimization, it is important that you use headings (, , ) for your titles instead of graphic images. Search engines weigh headings heavily as an indication of what content to index your pages. Therefore, it is important that your page have headings that include your keywords. Pages without any headings rank lower in search engine results.

Meta Tags
Meta tags help search engines index a website correctly. Although there are quite a few meta tags to choose from, the two most important are description and keywords. If you do not place these two in your heading section of your website, search engines will decide for themselves, usually by taking information from the first text it can find. Here is an example of each of the meta tags.

• meta name="description" content="An introduction to search engine optimization, or SEO, including how to pick and use the right keywords, use meta links, title tags, alt tags, image names, site maps, links, and headings.

•  meta name="keywords" content="search engine optimization, SEO, webpage design, choosing keywords, anchor tags, headings, meta tags, title tags, alt tags, image names, site maps, robots.txt, keyword spamming or stuffing, web content development

The description should be about 170 characters long and never exceed 200 characters--including spaces and include all the major keywords for the webpage. Notice that commas separate the keywords and there is no comma after the last keyword in the sequence. Also, try not to repeat a word more than twice in the listing. A lesser important meta tag is the author tag. While it will not help your website be ranked higher, including it will help your company or your name be recognized.

It is critical that your description and keywords are accurate and relate to that page. Listing words or phrases that are not included in the text of the page lowers their relevance ranking. Search engines will rank the relevance of terms based on how many times the term occurs on the page, the position they are located in the document, the length of the document and the “weight” of the search term. Weight is determined by how often and the location of the keyword. Words that appear in the title, headings, and tags are considered heavier than other terms.

Title Tags
Technically, the title is a meta tag but because it is probably the most important one, it is listed separately. It is also what search engines list first, so it should be carefully thought out. Make sure you have a unique title for each of your pages.

The title tag is placed in the header section inside . Most people simply place the name of their site in the title tag, which is not good SEO. Instead, place your most important keywords phrases inside the title tag without listing them. For example, instead of saying “Andy's consulting” say, “Andy's Consulting - Home of the finest creative marketing consultant in Peoria, Illinois”.

Length is also important. Google displays 66 characters of a title tag, cropping between words. Yahoo! allows much longer titles, up to 120 characters. Therefore, you are best to include a title that is at least 66 characters long and subtitle that is an additional 54 characters long. You also want to consider what will be displayed by web browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. What would be displayed if a visitor bookmarked your site or on browser indexes?

Alt Tags and Image Names
Search engines only index text. However, they do index the alt tags associated with images. This is why you should label each image on your website with tags that use your keywords whenever possible and relevant to the image. Do not include alt tags that are simplistic. Be as specific as possible without going overboard.

File names are another great place to include keywords. While you cannot include spaces in a file name, you can separate your keywords with hyphens (-) or underscores ( _ ), which will be perceived as spaces by search engines. Going back to the above picture, instead of naming it “image1.jpg” list it as “american_wirehair_kittens.jpg” or “wirehair_kittens.jpg”.

Site Maps
Site maps are documents that can be submitted to search engines that help them learn the structure of your site. You need to set up a site map that has a direct link to every page on your site and place a text link to that site map on the index page of your site. You can also submit this site map to search engines such as Yahoo! and Google.

Robots.txt
The robots.txt file is a file that you place on your web server that instructs web robots which directories can or cannot be crawled. A robot is a program that searches the web hypertext structure looking for websites to index. They are also known as web wanderers, web crawlers, or spiders. Robots.txt implements the Robots Exclusion Protocol, which allows the web site administrator to define what parts of the site are off-limits to specific robots. The very basic robots.txt file will simply contain the text:
    User-agent: *
    Disallow:

This signals that any robot can search all of the pages on your website. If there is a page on your site that you do not want robots to index, simply insert a backslash and list it after disallow. For example, if you want to exclude the page “www.calebscattery.com/friends.html” you would place the following in your robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
    Disallow: /friends.html

Once you have created and uploaded your robots.txt file, you can make sure it is valid by going to Robots.txt Checker [http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml].

Keyword Spamming or Stuffing
Keyword spamming, also known as keyword stuffing, is when irrelevant keywords are included on a webpage in the hopes of attracting unsuspecting surfers to the site. This can be done in a variety of ways such as listing phrases at the bottom of the page, including hidden text on the page, or other methods. This is also the most popular of the “black hat SEO” methods, or unethical search engine optimization. DON"T DO IT OR YOUR SITE WILL BE BANNED
Search engines are good at recognizing these tactics. Sites that employ these methods are either ranked lower or, in extreme cases, removed altogether from the search engine. Even if the web robot does not recognize your methods, your competitors might and then report you.  

Web Content Development
Each page of your site needs to contain at least 250 words, although 500 words would be better. When web robot visit, they will read your site from top to bottom, left to right. For that reason, try to include your keywords very early on in your text and then a few more times within your text and in the last sentence of your text. Do not list the words or repeat words just to repeat words. You have to write your content for humans too. ;-)

It is also important to note that web robots “count” any html, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript or other code listed on the site. Learn and use external style sheets to remove it from your page. It is believed that most robots will only look at the first 80-100 lines of code--including any blank lines you may have included. If your text is buried at the bottom, it might not get included when they index your page.

Spending the time to optimize your site for search engines is as important as developing quality content when it comes to finding and keeping visitors. Having the best site in the world does no one any good if it cannot be found. Good SEO should not change the content of your page or alter it significantly. It will only alter its ranking by search engines.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

Advertising Your Business With Google Adwords

The object to successful advertising is to find a method of conveying your information to as many people as possible, while keeping the cost on the advertising low to begin with. This is the easiest way to generate traffic, and retain your profits. Google Adwords is a great method of getting both of these objectives done and making your site successful. It is very important to try and maintain a low click through cost when trying to target the appropriate customers.

It is no secret that pay per click can really make your business swell with traffic and customers, by placing the highest bid on a keyword, or keywords you can get great page ranking when someone types your keyword into their browser for a search. If you have heard of Google Adwords you will know that it is not really a pay per click search engine, but a very powerful Google tool that can be used as an advertising template. It is said that the largest Internet based network for marketing is indeed Google. It is a global industry and is a very good way to get exposure on the Internet. If you are interested in the Google Adwords you can find it on just about every page that Google showcases, their ad can be found in a little rectangle by the organic search results that are free.

The basic premise of the Google Adwords realm is quite simple, the member makes their own advertisement, and then has to bid on a keyword, this key word will then trigger the next step of the process. The next step is where the appearance of the ad can be showcased, to the viewers online. A members site consists of approximately 25 words or characters, this will include spaces so be mindful, it will also allow for a description segment of up to 70 words or characters, again spaces included in the total so you must watch what you are using as description. The great thing about this feature is your site will be posted within just a few minutes of you submitting it to Google. It could even become one of the sites that are sponsored, where they will sit on the right hand column of the search engine pages.

Google’s Adwords runs a little differently than the standard pay per click programs, it is not entirely based on the bid you place on the keyword. It has other factors penciled into the equation, such as the click through rate, plus the cost per click. This in turn dictates what your page ranking will be in the end of the ratio. You will need a steady flow of traffic to your site prior to this method to be effective, so it is best to get a good game plan in motion.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

Are You Making These 5 Common Pay-per-click Mistakes In Your Small Business?

Because of the ability to specifically target your unique prospects based on interest as well as geography, the ability to tightly control your ad spend and to precisely measure results, Pay-Per-Click (PPC such as Google's Adwords) is probably the greatest breakthrough to come along in advertising since the launch of television.  And, because of those same benefits, it’s much more affordable for the small to mid-size business owner to leverage for their business (as compared with television and many other advertising alternatives).

That being said, PPC is not as easy as it seems at first glance. Business owners looking to launch their first campaign will quickly discover how easily they can spend hundreds – and even thousands – of dollars in wasted efforts while they learn to navigate the PPC waters.

While entire books have been written on the ins-and-outs of pay-per-click advertising, there are 5 common mistakes that I see business owners making when I’m asked to evaluate their pay-per-click campaign strategies.  These mistakes are easy to fix, and doing so will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your pay-per-click campaign!

The 5 most common PPC mistakes are:

   1. Using your home page as the landing page.  No matter which search engine you use for your campaign – Google, Yahoo!, Bing or any other – you can decide where to direct your new customers when they click on your ad.  The most common mistake I see business owners make when they launch their PPC campaign is directing those clicks to their home page.  The thinking seems to be that their home page is equivalent to the front door of their business, and they want their new customers to walk through – but that’s where they go wrong.  With PPC advertising, your prospect is searching for something highly specific – that’s the “keyword” they’ve entered into the search engine.  Having them land at your home page is the equivalent of having them ask you for a specific item in your store, and you telling them – “it’s in here somewhere, it’s up to you to find it.”  Obviously you wouldn’t do that in person with your customers – and you don’t want to do it online, either.  By designing what’s known as a “landing page” – the place where visitors “land” when they click on your ad - you can present your customer with exactly what they are looking for when they come to your site.  Your landing page should be tightly focused to the keywords you are using for your PPC ad, with no other links or distractions to confuse your prospect. This dramatically increases their satisfaction with your site, as well as the likelihood that they will make a purchase from you.

   2. Not customizing your landing page to your prospects’ keyword searches.  The way an ideal PPC campaign works is something like this:  a prospect enters a search term – for my business it might be “e-mail marketing.”  They are presented with my PPC ad with “e-mail marketing” in the headline AND the ad copy.  My prospect clicks on my ad and is taken to my landing page that is all about our services.  (I will have bid on all of my keywords there to capture searchers entering them).  The likelihood that my prospect will become a customer is high, because there is no confusion about what the page is about – no wondering if he’s in the right place or if we offer what he is looking for.  A common mistake I see business owners making with their PPC campaigns is to try to combine several products or services into one landing page.  This leads to frustration when your searcher clicks on your ad and lands on a page that they aren’t sure offers what they are specifically looking for.  Make sure your landing pages are customized to the keyword your prospect is searching for – and quickly turn prospects into customers.

   3. Using generic ad copy in your PPC ads.  The tricky thing with PPC ads is you don’t have much real estate to work with.  Google allows just 70 characters; Yahoo allows 190 characters (with spaces) in a text ad.  When every single word counts, you can’t afford to use meaningless words like “high quality service,” or “established in 1903.”  While these statements may be true about your business, they don’t target the specific searches your prospects are entering to find the products and services they are looking for.  A mistake I see clients make in their PPC ads is to include these type of generic statements that don’t set their business apart.  When you are writing your ad, you’ll want to include specific keywords that your prospects will likely enter to find what you have to offer.  Your headline must be captivating and should include your main keyword.  The next line of your ad should contain the single biggest benefit you offer to your customers.  What sets your company apart from your competitors?  That’s what goes in your PPC ad.  The 3rd line of your ad should contain a feature of your product or service or an offer – special discounted pricing or something free work well here.  By making your ad specific to the keywords that your prospects will likely enter, you’ll be well on your way not only to increasing clicks, but to turning clicks into cash as well.

   4. Not securing high enough placement with your bids.  All of the search engines use a slightly different method for determining the position for your ad.  Google and Yahoo use a combination of ad relevancy (how relevant your ad is to the keywords you’ve bid on and the landing page you present to your visitors) and bid price.  A big mistake I notice my clients making is not targeting their keywords tightly enough and specific enough to their product or service to allow them to bid high enough on those keywords to secure top placement on the search engines.  It’s estimated that 85% of all PPC clicks occur on ads that appear in one of the top 3 positions on the page.  That means, if you aren’t working hard to find keywords that are specific enough to your niche and not bidding high enough to secure a top spot, you are missing out on a good portion of the clicks that could be yours.  Use a keyword tool such as Wordtracker or Google's Adowrds Keyword tool to research keyword possibilities that you may not have considered.  Look for a Keyword Effectiveness of 10 or greater – meaning that the keyword has sufficient search queries with the engines to result in significant traffic, without a lot of competitors bidding on the same keyword.  When you place your campaign, use these keywords and bid high enough to secure a top spot, ensuring that the people searching for what you have to offer find your website – instead of your competitors.

   5. Not testing your ads to determine their effectiveness.  While there is a “formula” for crafting an effective PPC ad, slight changes – even changing one word – can have a dramatic impact on your click-through-rate (the percentage of people who click on your ad as compared with the number who see it).  A mistake I see business owners making with their campaigns is to choose their keywords and then write only one PPC ad to display.  All of the major search engines offer the capability of creating ad variations so that you can test different ad copy to determine what works best.  This is known as “split testing” or “A/B” testing, as you are comparing the results of two different ads for the same keywords.  Google will alternate the ads for you, and you’ll easily be able to see which ad performs better by looking at your click-through-rate.  When you find an ad that outperforms another, that ad becomes your “control” – or the ad to beat.  Put the under-performing ad on “hold” and create another version, changing one or two words or possibly just the headline.  Then test that ad against your control.  This is a continual process – you are always trying to beat your control to improve your number of clicks.  Not surprisingly, advertisers who test their ads in this method are more successful with PPC, as they tend to know their customers better and are able to target their prospects with captivating ads that turn into an increasing number of clicks – and customers – for them.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

3 Traits Of High Quality Seo Web Design

When it comes to web design, there are so many amazing designers out there.  Most web designers are very creative and have a strong artistic background. They are able to use their talents to create layouts that are guaranteed to catch the eye of your visitors.  Unfortunately, there is one major thing that most web designers are missing. The overwhelmingly vast majority of web designers are not familiar with the concepts and implementation of search engine optimization techniques. Even if a web designer has at least some basic knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) they do not worry about implementing search engine optimization strategies into their designs.

While this may seem like a trivial detail, it can actually be the root of some major problems for your site and your businesses bottom line. No matter how attractive your web site is, if it is not indexed by the major search engines, the traffic it receives is going to be minimal. Once you realize this is happening, you are going to have to hire someone with SEO knowledge to fix your layout. Therefore, you may end up paying double for something that should have been done the first time around.  Whether you are a web designer or someone getting ready to hire a web designer, here are three traits of quality SEO web design:

Usability: As a general rule of thumb, if the design of a web site makes it easy for your human visitors to navigate, it will also be relatively easy for search engine robots to access, crawl and index your web site.  Making your site user (and search engine) friendly includes minimizing (or completely eliminating) things such as Flash (in some cases), Javascript navigation and layouts designed with tables.  By designing with usability in mind, you can be sure that your visitors and the search engines will be happy with your web site.

Avoid Being Sneaky: Because web designers are generally very creative people, they like to push the envelope when it comes to designing web sites. Although this mentality can result in some truly amazing web layouts, it can also cause problems if taken too far. When creating a web site layout, it is important to keep the web master guidelines of search engines like Google in mind. Incorporating things like hidden text into your designs is a sure way to get penalized (or de-indexed) by search engines. It is ok to push the envelope with your designs, but just make sure that you avoid doing anything that the search engines tell you not to do.

On-page SEO: Although this is the last item on the list, it is actually the most important.  On-page SEO is the basis for quality SEO web design. It is vital that properly implement things such as title, meta, H1 and H2 tags (header tags), along with internal linking and the other key components of on-page search engine optimization. Taking the time to employ these practices will make a significant difference in where your web site ranks in the search engines.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

5 Reasons Why Your Business Must Have an Online Presence Today

The Internet has officially changed the face of business and in case no one has done this for you already, let me be the first to formally welcome you to the “Information Age”, or should we call it the “Internet Age”. So...Welcome to the 21st Century! Things are going to be different.

The Internet is not a fad or a flavor of the week anymore and hasn't been for some time.  It is the real deal and it is here to stay.  It may morph in one way, shape, or form however, it is here to stay and the most successful businesses are taking advantage of it.

So why exactly should you take your business online?  Although there are tons of reasons, here are 5 key ones:

1. It is expected.  Quite simply, the Internet is the first place people look to find out more about you and find services, your business, and/or your product.  They look for your website as well as information they can find out about you from other websites.  Yes, I dare say it, in 99.9% of the cases, it will damage your credibility to some degree with a prospect if you cannot be found out there.

2. It is cheap.  Never in history has a marketing medium been available to all businesses, no matter the size of their company or bank account that afforded them so much possibility for success.

Obviously money if applied properly can increase your results on the Internet; however, you really can get started with little or no money.  Skeptical, just read some of the books from the “Guerrilla Marketing” series by Jay Conrad Levinson (they are awesome by the way, I've read a few.)

3. It is immediate.  Face it.  We live in a world of instant gratification.  We want everything yesterday.  If something is not immediately available, we just may lose interest or worse yet get it from somewhere else – like your competition.

4. It is 24/7.  The Internet simply never sleeps.  Having and implementing an effective Internet strategy can be like having a well tuned marketing and sales force that continues to do your bidding around the clock.

5. It is global.  Why limit your business to the 15 minute radius surrounding your office?  Your current competition certainly isn’t and new competitors are seemingly coming out of nowhere every day. (I have people visiting me from 150 countries world wide and climbing everyday)

Look at the Internet as a means to allow you to share your genius with prospects who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to experience what you have to offer.


So in closing, what’s the best advice I can muster up on this topic?  Make a sincere effort to understand the Internet and the sheer power and opportunity it brings to your business. Create a plan of attack and get in the game. Play on the grandest court available today, the Internet! 

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

Advertising Your Website With Pay-Per-Click

The best way to help optimize your online image is to consider using the pay-per-click advertising. What pay-per-click means is that you purchase sponsored links on the pages of search engine results. Search engines are used every single minute of everyday, which means advertising your website with pay-per-click will greatly increase the advertising of your website and business.

By advertising your website and business with pay-per-click, you are helping to advertise your business in what is usually an inexpensive way that is growing larger and reaching more people everyday. You can also tailor your pay-per-click advertising to fit your business or company budget needs. This is a plus for those of you who are starting out on a budget and want to stay away from paying a lot for advertising that may or may not be seen. By advertising your website with pay-per-click, your ad is going to be seen by your target market. More advantages to advertising your website with pay-per-click include the speed of advertising, the increase in traffic to your website, boosts SEO (Search Engine Optimizations) efforts, and the ability to research and compare data to see what works best for your website.

There are times, however, when advertising your website with pay-per-click can prove to be costly. For example, it will cost you more to use competitive keywords than it will to use ones that are not as competitive. Finely tune your keyword strategies. You can find information on the Internet on this or you might want to consider consulting a professional such as our company Subversion Design Solutions. Also remember not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with one pay-per-click provider first (we recommend Google), using ads you have tested, and then extend your campaign accordingly.

Advertising your website with pay-per-click can be a very quick, inexpensive way to get your website and business rolling. Drawbacks can always pop up, but if you educate and prepare yourself, you will be able to make the most out of advertising your website with pay-per-click.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com

Using Google Adwords To Promote Your Website or Business

Setting up an account:

To do this you just go here: https://adwords.google.com  Google adwords has provided a very detailed and useful “Sign-up Demo” which is in the form of a video you can use to refer to as you go through the process of signing up.

One of the best things that Google adwords has to offer is the statistical information. This can save you lots of money and help you target your prospects in the most cost effective manner imaginable. BUT, if you don’t understand or use this service you may be throwing you hard earned money away. Now we don’t want to do that because it defeats the purpose. Because there are so many variables involved in using adwords it’s difficult if not impossible to explain exactly how you should run your campaign. The best way is going to be different for everyone reading this, but we can help you to interpret the statistics that you see and then you can “tweak” your ads to get the most out of them for your particular promotion or we can run your campaigns for you. Currently if you sign up to have us run your campaign you will receive $100 in FREE advertising on Google's Adwords. Click here to request a quote or consultation now.

For starters, you should use the “conversion tracking” option.
After you click on “conversion tracking” you’ll need to choose “get Conversion page code”, there you can follow the instructions and choose the one that suits your needs.
The code that Google generates is then pasted into the page described when you choose the option that suits you. To insert this code follow Google’s directions.

Having this code in place will enable Google to provide you with statistics that you can use to assess the effectiveness of a Campaign or ad group.

I recommend having your adwords account running for a day or two before trying to understand this next bit.

For example: (Talking about  Search totals only) if an ad is being shown 1,000 times (Impression) and only has a CTR (click through rate) of 0.20 (displayed as a percentage) it means that your ad is being shown, but the people that see it aren’t clicking on it very often, or they aren’t seeing it. So it could be either because the ad is showing in a poor position (Avg. pos) 213.7 this would be on about page 15 or something, there may be a lot of competition for that word, you would need to raise the bid to try and get it to be seen more often. Or it could be well positioned (Avg.pos) 1.1 but not being clicked on because it is poorly written or not targeted to the keyword people are searching on. Or the key word/s could be too general. 

So you would need to improve the wording of the ad, or choose more targeted key words. This is an extremely generalized synopsis.


Conversion Rate:

It is necessary to consider the (Conv. rate) 20% this is the percentage of actual sales/sign-ups resulting from the “Clicks”, So if you find that your ad is receiving a lot of clicks but the conversion rate is low, it may be an indication that your ad is misleading! People click on the ad and go to your landing page expecting to see motor cycles and find chickens there! Or it could mean that your landing page is just poorly constructed, and not conducive to getting the sign up or making the sale.

A rule of thumb to get started is this: Use Google’s “Keyword tool” to select keywords from your landing page this will help ensure the keywords match the landing page. Let’s say you’re selling apples. People searching to buy apples will search for a keyword like “apples for sale” you will have “apples” as one of your keywords for the ad, because you would have “apples” on your landing page. Your ad wording might be something like, “we sell Apples”. So The customer is looking for apples finds an ad that says “go here to buy apples” they land on a page that sells apples, we have a synchronization happening all the way through, and that is cost effective target market tactics.

A Campaign can contain many different ad groups; an ad group can contain many different ads.

Split Testing:

And ads can be split tested. This means running two ads using the same keywords and settings as though they are one ad, but alternating shows of each ad, Google adwords does this part of it for you. After you make the ad that you wish to test, you then let it run for at least a day or two, and then you can assess which ad is better, using Google’s stats such as Clicks – CTR – CPC (cost per click) , and the number of times each ad has been shown, over a given period of time “Served” then discard the looser. Like a competition.

Andy Ray Uppole is an artist from Peoria, Illinois that specializes in audio and video production, graphic design, commercial art, and creative consulting. You can contact him by calling 209.509.4120 or email him at subversiondesignsolutions@gmail.com