Have you ever tried to change how your domain name is displayed in your ads? Hopefully you have tested out different methods and different display types with your domain name in your Google Pay Per Click ads. A better question might be why even try? The main reason you try different ads is to appeal to different people and see which one tests better giving you the best results. I thought today we would go over different ways to use your domain name in your Google Adwords Ads. Remember you 35 characters for display.

1. www.LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com - Try capitalizing the different words in your domain name and see what effect that has. This happens to be our favorite.
2. www.lovelysantamonicacondos.com - all lower case may appeal to some as well so it is good to try it in different ways.
3. LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com - remove the www. It is not required for Google to have it and if someone typed in your address without the www most web browsers resolve this automatically.
4. LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com/BuyNow - use a word or phrase after the slash. You don't have to have the directory on your website but it will attract the potential visitors attention.
5. www.lovelySantaMonicacondos.com - capitalizing just the city that you work in is also a great way to attract the users attention.

I always recommend testing two different displays of the same domain name or URL when you are running ads. If you have a greater CTR(Click Through Rate) when you have a different display format of your domain name then you have a winner on your hands! Good luck and enjoy success online.

Labels: google pay per click, pay per click

For those who are new to Google Adwords there are 4 different types of matching that can be done for your ads. They are as follows:

• Broad Match
• Exact Match
• Phrase Match
• Negative Match

These are used when you add words to your ad groups. For today's post we are going to cover Broad Match and Exact Match. By the way one is not really better than the other it just depends on what your goals are. So let's get into each one and figure out why we would want to use each one differently in our real estate ads.

For all of our examples today we will use the word that we are advertising on as 'Spring Valley Homes' in reference to my hometown of Spring Valley, CA.

Broad Match

If I want to advertise on the search phrase 'Spring Valley Homes' and I want a match that covers as many different search possibilities as possible I will add the phrase Spring Valley Homes to my Google Ad Group without "",[], or - around the word. I would merely just add the word to my campaign. So what does this mean then.

This means any time someone types any phrase that contains the words spring valley homes my ad will appear. So what are the problems with this. If someone typed in the following phrases I would appear:

• spring valley homes for rent
• homes spring valley by food
• food in spring valley homes
• Rent spring valley homes

This means my ad is possibly showing up to people who I don't need to see my ad and may click it even though I don't want them to. Keep in mind this isn't always a bad thing but it is a very broad search and for that reason you will want to watch your ads carefully.

Exact Match

This is basically the opposite of a broad match search. When you put [] around your words such as [Spring Valley Homes] that means the user must type exactly that phrase. In fact if they type anything else before or after those words your ad will not trigger. The sample list below shows when my ad would NOT show up.

• Spring Valley Homes for sale
• Spring valley homes for purchase
• buy spring valley homes

Now you can see that I would miss out on these searches but I would get anyone interested in just Spring Valley Homes. I would probably be getting a person just starting their search and that is who I would be targeting with the ad.

Each match type has it's place in your ad groups. You want to make sure to use different types of match types in your ad so it triggers for different types of users. Have fun with it and you can always check out the free guide I wrote on Improving Your Performance on Google Adwords. We also have a free video tutorial section on different portions of Google Adwords as well at http://www.onlinerealestatesuccess.com/resources_video_tutorials.shtml.

Labels: Google Adwords, pay per click, real estate pay per click

One of the things that can frustrate anyone who uses Google AdWords is not seeing results. Now one of the surest ways to make sure you don't get the results you desire is to drive all visitors from Your Google AdWords Campaign to your home page. There are reasons for this so we will go over our

1. They are looking for something specific - this is the best reason not to point an ad to your home page. A user who clicks your ad has something very specific in mind. Your home page is general. Give them what they want.
2. It will take more visitors to get the same results - If you weren't paying for each and every visitor this may not be a big deal but you are. So if you have to pay for 10 times as many visitors to get the same results then you are just wasting money.
3. It is not how Google Recommends you to do it - Now Google even tells you in various tutorials that you want to make your ads specific and make sure they match up to your landing page or destination page. Ensuring that you follow a winning formula is a great way to ensure success.
4. Your Visitor wasn't trying to get to your home page - often times the home page is a great place to start for a user who finds you organically because it provides an array of choices to start their visit but the visitor wasn't trying to get to a general page.

Remember you want your ads to go to pages that match up to exactly what the user was looking for. In a perfect world each ad would go to it's own page and that would be exactly what the user was looking for. Since we don't have the time for perfection we want to strive toward it and make sure that each ad goes to a page within the website that matches to that ad. If you don't have a page that matches the ad you may want to ad a page. Good luck with Google. For more information on how to improve your ads check out our 5 Tips to Improve Ad Performance Guide.

Labels: Google Adwords, google pay per click, pay per click

Labels: Google, Google Adwords, google analytics, google pay per click, Google Webmaster Tools, pay per click, real estate pay per click

As you are continuing to practice your SEO skills through development of content and use of tools like WordTracker to find the most often searched words, sometimes we lose track of which words are the ones generating traffic and which ones are actually leading to conversions.

Labels: BLOG, conversion words, google analytics, keywords, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, word phrases

Increasing the time that a visitor stays on your website, increases the likely hood that they will contact you! This metric has been focused on a great deal by companies that run e-commerce websites, but we should be focusing on it as well. Here are 5 tips on how you can increase the time a user spends on your website.

• Pay Per Click Campaigns - Ensure that when you a user visits the landing page, it is what was advertised in the advertisement. For example, if you are advertising "Get a Free Foreclosure List" in your ad, and then the ad takes them to your "Home Page", it is unlikely you will get that user sticking around on your website!
• Links on Every Page - The navigation menus that you have on your website should not be the only way to navigate through your website. Within every page of content you should be linking to other areas WITHIN your website that can provide additional value. This way a user can stay on your website to learn more and see that you are the expert!
• Quality Content - Getting content from your title officer or the library of sources from your template provider is nice, but it is not unique! Concentrate on writing up content about your area from the perspective that only you can provide. Help people learn about neighborhoods, condos, homes, and more through your eyes!
• Calls to Action - Providing great content is essential, but you must also give them a reason to contact you. Make appropriate calls to action like "If you like this neighborhood, get the FREE list of Homes available" or "With lovely tree lined streets here in Bixby Knolls, use our FREE Long Beach MLS to see what is available".
• Multi Media - Sounds obvious, but enrich your pages with pictures, videos, or sound. Great products, like Instant Audio, allow you to put sound on your website for Testimonials or just explaining about your area.

Concentrating on these aspects of your web presence will increase a visitors time on your website and get you more contacts out of the same number of visitors! Our websites have increased by over 1 minute per visitor in just the past month, just by updating some of our Pay Per Click campaigns! :)

Labels: anchor text links, landing page, marketing real estate web site, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing, real estate leads, real estate pay per click

If you are focusing or at least are running pay per click ads for your real estate website you want to make sure that you are focusing on always running the right ad. So how can you do this? Well there is a way to make sure that your real estate pay per click ads are fine tuned and operating at the best of their abilities. We walk about a great website today of http://www.splittester.com/. This website is completely FREE and in fact tells you which ad it recommends that you run.

This post is about running ads on Google Adwords and works with their system. It may also help you with your MSN or Yahoo campaigns but the site has been designed for Google.

The great thing that I always like about the Internet is the ability to test an ad's effectiveness. In fact the greatest part is that you can test the effectiveness immediately. Now especially in pay per click advertising you want to make sure you are only spending on ads that you want to.

Hopefully everyone is always running two ads at a time. With Google Adwords you can run different ad variations for the same set of keywords. I always recommend to friends and co-workers to run two ads as Google will run the ad that it deems is the most relevant. They determine this by judging based on the CTR (Click Through Rate). This is simply (number of times the ad is shows)\(number of times the ad has been clicked). As the ads run the one with the higher click through rate will be shown more often. It is hard to judge just by this number which is the better ad. Now since we always want the best chance at success we want to always be testing new messages. If you can get a CTR rate above 1% you are on your way. It is not uncommon for us to have some of our ads have CTR rates above 15% or 17% it just depends on the words and the ad that is running.

A great site http://www.splittester.com/ helps you judge the effectiveness of your ads. This site was created by Perry Marshall and if you have not had a chance to read any of his books on Google I would highly recommend them. I hope this site helps everyone judge the effectiveness of their ads!

Labels: paid ads, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing online, real estate pay per click

Testing your landing pages is what can help you to get more contacts out of the same visitors! Landing pages are where you send your customers from you online marketing like pay per click. Often as soon as we get some results that we are happy with, we stop trying to see if we could improve those results :).

For simple testing of pages you may want to consider changing the following changes to different versions:

1. Display the same adcopy in a different format (i.e. with bullet points or bolded)
2. Drastically different adcopy to get he same idea across
3. Different colors on your page
4. Change Page Titles on each version
5. Provide a Guarantee on some versions and none on the others

The professional SEOs recommended testing anywhere from 3-9 versions! Try testing a few different landing pages with your real estate pay per click ads to see what has the greatest impact. A great BLOG post by SEOmoz, a leading SEO company in Seattle, put together an in-depth article so you can consider different aspects of Landing pages and how to convert visitors.

Labels: BLOG, lading pages, pay per click, real estate pay per click, SEO

So why would you want to increase your click through rate? Well it means that more people find your ad compelling and want to see what you have to offer. There is nothing better than increasing your click through rate on the ads you run on Google, MSN, or Yahoo. So we thought we would put some of our favorite ways to increase the click through rate.

1. Use the keyword that you are advertising on in the title of the ad. For instance if you want to advertise on the word "San Diego Condos". Make sure this shows up in the title. It could be as simple as "All San Diego Condos".
2. Use the key word in the domain name. Users on search engines and the search engines themselves reward for the word you are advertising on appearing multiple times within the ad. So in our above example if our domain was www.LovelySanDiegoCondos.com that would be fantastic. The user would see the word they typed in multiple times in your ad. Remember you don't have to have a separate website just a domain name that points to the landing page on your website that you want it to go to. You can pick up more domain names at www.TopAgentDomains.com. Now you don't have to have a domain name for every keyword but for the top 5 or 10 you want to dominate in we highly recommend it.
3. Make sure all your ads tell the user the benefit of going to your website not just a feature. For example a feature would be FREE MLS. The benefit would be "See all available homes without signing up". Remember it is about them not us.

We hope these three tips help you increase the performance of your ads today. Good luck on the Internet!

Labels: Google Adwords, msn, paid ads, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, Yahoo

It is always amazing when people say "I have the perfect ad, can't get any better, no way, no how, never going to happen." Now this could very well be the case but then you ask that person how do they know and they have no idea they just say they do.

Luckily if you advertise with Google Adwords they give you an option that allows you to run two ads at the time same for the same set of key words. Now the ads aren't literally running at the same time but what Google does is alternate them. Google keeps doing this until it determines which is the better ad. Now since Google is a system and not a person it judges your ad based on the number of times that someone clicks on it. The more people click the more that Google determines that this ad is "more effective". Now we always say you should double check things. There is a fantastic website that allows you to do just that. In fact it will even tell you which ad it feels is the better ad.

You can visit this website at www.splittester.com. This website is 100% free and gives you a great tip on how to make sure that your ads are performing at their best.

Just make sure that you always have two ads running at all times and you can make sure that you always have the best ad running. When one starts to fall too far behind in performance check it out against splittester.com. If it agrees with Google sounds like you need to delete the ad and write another one to take its place! Good luck and happy ad writing!

Labels: advertising, Google, Google Adwords, paid ads, pay per click, SEO