This is the second part of a five-part blog, that will give tips on things to look for when making tweaks and “cutting the fat” from your campaigns. Last time I spoke of keyword average position. In today’s blog I will talk about click through rate, impressions, and match types.

#2 keep your keyword Click Through Rate (CTR) high and limit keyword impressions.
After your PPC campaign has been running for about a month, your campaign will now have some good data to tackle my second recommendation. Your broad match type keywords will have many impressions, especially if your industry and keywords are highly competitive. If you have some keywords set to exact or phrase match type, then your impressions will most likely be lower for those keywords. If your click through rate, is higher than three to five percent, then this means searchers are drawn to your ads and feel the ads are relevant when they type in that search term. You want your keywords to have as high a CTR as possible. If you have keywords with a lower CTR, then there are a few things you can do before completely removing them. First, you can change the match type from “broad” to “phrase” match. This will limit your impressions and hopefully improve your CTR. I always prefer changing the match types before abandoning a keyword, because you never know if a different match type will work better. If the CTR is still low after changing the match type to “phrase”, then I would consider removing the keyword. The keyword selected may not work for your product.Tune in for my third recommendation soon. It should be posted in early January.

This is part one of a two-part topic.

The first commandment of a successful website is that you must have content. So, you’ve realized that maintaining that content is taking a lot of your time. You don’t want to keep track of URLs and meta data for all your pages. You need a content management system, or CMS.

In addition to helping you with the above tasks, a CMS can provide an efficient way to syndicate the content you create to other websites. Similar to a blog, it can also keep track of who created the content and when.

Essentially, a CMS allows you or your staff to create and update content quickly and without the use of a stand-alone program like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver. The content you create can be web pages, sections of web pages such as a common footer, stories or combinations of those. CMS can keep track of those content types (or custom content types) and whether a specific piece of content is viewable (or “published”) to your visitors or just in the draft stage. The CMS will automatically integrate the common sections of your web pages with your content so you only need to create clean and search engine-optimized code for your common sections once.

Using a CMS has benefits for your search engine rankings as well. Each content type or content category can be assigned its own section of your site, even though it’s managed in a central location. This allows the CMS to create keyword-rich, search engine friendly URLs easily. Your meta data and title tags can be managed in a central location also, making changes simpler and faster.

While using a Content Management System can make your life easier, there are a few significant gotchas to be aware of including how they could become SEO unfriendly. Stay tuned for my next post when I will review those pitfalls and offer some helpful suggestions. While I can’t promise you’ll get a raise when you implement a CMS at your office, I’m sure you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

There are some important things to keep in mind when writing and targeting ads for your holiday campaigns. First, you need to remember that the mentality of shoppers shifts during the holidays; rather than shopping for themselves, they’re more likely to be shopping for other people. This means they will be responsive to different incentives and marketing messages. You need to make sure your writing captures the attention of gift-givers.

There are a number of ways you can do this. First, start by including holiday-related terms in your title and description. More than anything else, this will put you on the same page with your shoppers – they’re both expecting and looking for holiday-themed messages.

Second, make sure you place your ad in front of the right people. If you sell neck ties for example, then it’s likely that most of the year you’ll be targeting men who are shopping for themselves. During the holidays, however, women often buy ties for men as gifts. With popular gender-specific gifts, the shift from one target demographic to another can be dramatic. Don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Third, segment your campaigns and try different promotions that target different types of shoppers. For example, some shoppers are looking for the best deal possible. You can target these bargain hunters with special discounts and savings. Other shoppers wait until the last minute and have no choice but to select overnight shipping for their purchases. You can target procrastinators by offering crunch-time incentives, such as discounted shipping on last-minute purchases.

And finally, make sure to update your landing pages so they reinforce the offers and promotions you’ve pushed in your ad. This will improve both your quality score and your conversion rate.

Feel free to comment with additional tips and suggestions!