For as long as I've been doing SEO (Search Engine Optimization), at the beginning of each relationship, clients tend to focus on a few really big, killer keywords for their industry. They'll say things like "why aren't we attacking those keywords?" or "the traffic is too low for these other, less used keywords." And, early in my career, I'd panic. I'd start to question myself. Was I steering them wrong by going after a larger number of long-tail keywords, which individually have less traffic potential? Hell no!

Each time I'd calm myself, knowing that I was helping them build a strong net that we could cast wide. I knew we'd bring in far more visitors with this approach than spending more effort, time, and money trying to win on the really popular keywords. The fact is the majority of traffic for any keyword will go to those in the Top 5 of a Google search result. So, getting 100 keywords into the top 5, will often bring considerably more traffic than getting two or three ultra-competitive keywords on the bottom of page one or on page two of the results. The other important fact is that people rarely conclude their research with their first click. They usually go back and refine their search with additional words. So, those long-tail keywords we focus on are typically searched by those getting closer to a purchase, and that's what this is all about!  

If you do nothing else to improve your PPC Management (meaning increase conversions at a lower cost per conversion), you must always run two Ads per Ad Group. This gives you the ability to compare and replace the poor performing Ad, leading you down a path toward conversion-optimized advertising. That's what I talk about in this episode (under 3 minutes).

Have a wonderful holiday season!

This is the introductory video for a new series on Pay Per Click Advertising. I discuss the cardinal rule of online advertising success and provide five (5) techniques for creating Ad variations. Keep in mind, this is just one of several methods to increase Web traffic.