I find that when everyone gets started on Google and advertising with Google PPC (Pay Per Click) they either leave all the check boxes checked or start checking as many boxes as possible. This can make your first campaigns not as effective and can make them very costly to you. I want to make sure that you avoid the hard times of advertising on Google and make sure that you get the results that you desire. One setting that I encourage people (read into that tell them) to turn off when they get started is advertising on the Google Content Network.

The settings by default encourage you to advertise on the content network. Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the Google content network it is just a different kind of ad that you would want to run on it.

Think of it this way. The Google Content network is literally thousands upon thousands of websites that run Google Ads. So a user may be reading an article on say the New York times on real estate and they might also see an ad for real estate. So this potential buyer is not looking for real estate info exactly they are reading an article. Your ad would have to make them not want to read the article anymore and visit your website or page instead. This is possible and there can be great traffic to be found on the content network but you shouldn't start there. You should start with only Google Search and I like the Search Network as well. That means your ads will be shown when someone is searching Google or one of their affiliate search engines. These are potential buyers that are seeking information out and these are the ones that you want to attract first as they already show a willingness to look for your information.

So when you are just getting your first Google PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns started start with just Google and their search partners and stay of the content network until you determine how things are working. Good luck!

The high volume search phrases "myarea real estate" are usually the most competitive and many strive to show up on the first page of Google so you can get those customers, but are they converting for you? It very well may, but before you spend more time writing up pages and garnering those coveted back links take a look at which words are really working for you. Here is a small sample from one of our websites. This is a snapshot from Google Analytics of some terms that are providing traffic to our Long Beach Condos website.

(the first column next to the keywords is the number of visitors, 2nd column is # of pages visited, and the last column is the average time spent on the website)

Now, note the same portion of the report, but we have a view of the word phrases that are converting.

(the column next to the words is the number of conversions for that phrase)

Hmmm, they aren't the same! This is important as you are working on your website as you may want to add content, create PPC ads, or put up some BLOG posts for the words that are converting.

Now, dig in your reporting tool deep so you can find out what is going on. We looked and found that the plural version of one the phrases we listed above "long beach lofts" is converting so we added some more content and kept our ads running for that so we can continue get contacts from our website.