Oct 23, 2008

Top 10 Most Common Internet Marketing Mistakes

Top 10 Most Common Internet Marketing Mistakes

Every Internet Marketer makes mistakes and those mistakes often cost a lot of money! It's important that we learn from our mistakes so we don't make them again, and so that we can gain insight into where we went wrong. In this section we're going to list the top 10 mistakes that Internet Marketers make (we have made many of them ourselves). Our goal is to help you steer clear of these errors in the hope that we can save you some money, and time!

Mistake #1 - Using the Content Network

When you start a campaign you should always remember to turn the content network off. The reason for this is that you do not want to receive traffic from pages with Google Adsense on them as these pages are many times plagued with click fraud and irrelevant traffic. If you are not an expert, you should not be using the content network. We usually avoid the content network with our campaigns unless we are aiming to squeeze as much as we can out of them (and often times using content network doesn't turn out to be profitable).

To turn the content network off, log into your Adwords account, click on a campaign, then click the "Edit Campaign Settings" button. On the right of the screen "uncheck" the box that says "Content Network". You can leave "Google Search" and "Search Network" checked.


Mistake #2 - Too Many Keywords Per Ad Group

As a Wealthy Affiliate member you have access to keyword lists that we have compiled to help you start your advertising campaigns, but these keyword lists are not to be abused! Many people sign up to WA hoping to be able to simply copy an entire list into one Ad Group and start making money! This is not why the keyword lists were created.

You need to limit the number of keywords per ad group to fewer than 20 keywords (60 if using broad, phrase, and exact match types). Having more than 20 keywords can negatively affect your Quality Score, as the more keywords you have, the less relevant they are to the ad. DO NOT put more than 20 keywords in an ad group unless all keywords are very highly relevant. We suggest aiming between 5-20 keywords, ideally keeping them closer to the lower end of the scale.


Mistake #3 - Keyword Grouping

When you put your keywords into an ad group, you need to make sure that they are all very similar and have at least one common keyword. You will also want to use the keyword(s) within the ad title and description as much as you can. Here is an example:

Ad Group Name: Internet Marketing
Common Keyword: Internet Marketing

Keywords: internet marketing, internet marketing book, internet marketing resource, internet marketing guide, best internet marketing book, internet marketing ebook, internet marketing help.

AD:

Internet Marketing e-Book
Learn How to Make Money Online
Top Internet Marketing eBook Review
YourSiteName.com/InternetMarketing

You can see that the common keyword has been used in the ad copy and that all keywords have the common term Internet Marketing. This is how to properly set up an ad group.


Mistake #4 - Using only Broad Match Type

To optimize your keywords for best performance and highest CTR you need to use Broad, Phrase and Exact Match Type Options. A common mistake is to only use the Broad Match Type as many people are not aware of the other match types.

Broad Keyword: Internet Marketing
Phrase Keyword: "Internet Marketing"
Exact Keyword: [Internet Marketing]

Use all three keywords within your Ad Groups. You can use our Google Match Type tool to quickly build lists with all the match types. You can use it by clicking here.


Mistake #5 - Low Daily Budget

If you want to achieve high amounts of traffic you cannot expect to do so with a low daily budget. If your budget is $5/day and you set your campaign to reflect this budget, chances are that you will not achieve much traffic at all. Google displays your ads based on a number of factors including daily budget. If your budget is set too low your ads will rarely be displayed (if at all). We recommend setting your daily budget slightly higher than you are actually prepared to pay, then monitor your advertising costs. It is very difficult to get any kind of traffic with a very low daily budget.


Mistake #6 - Duplicate URLs

Google does not allow multiple instances of the same URL under the same keywords within their paid search results. If you are advertising the url: www.wealthyaffiliate.com, and another advertiser is advertising the same url, only one ad will be displayed. When coming into a new market you may find someone else already advertising the url that you would like to. In this case you need to either raise your CPC in order to outbid the competitor, or create a landing page within your own website. Landing pages typically convert better as they allow you to offer your visitors reviews, comparisons, and opinions about products prior to them making a purchase.

If you are not getting impressions for some of your ad groups, this could be one of the reasons why. If you are interested in learning how to create a landing page (highly recommended) please read this tutorial by clicking here. You may also download some pre-built templates from the resources section by clicking here.


Mistake #7 - Keyword Bid Price too High

When you set your bid prices you need to have a limit! Unless you are an experienced marketer and know in advance that your campaign is going to earn you money, you should start off with a conservative bid. We know that you are anxious to get traffic, but paying over $1.00 per click is too high when starting out a fresh campaign. Try to keep your bid prices as low as possible while achieving the best position you can and aim for $0.50 or less. Do not try to get traffic by simply out-bidding your competitors. Use our techniques to outsmart competitors and in turn you will pay less and see better results.


Mistake #8 - Ad Positions are Too Low

When trying to get traffic to your site you need to use the Google Traffic Estimator to help you determine how much you should bid per keyword. Many times if your CPC (cost-per-click) is too low, your position will be greater than 10 and you will not be on the first page of search results. For the best traffic try to be in position 3-8 (on the first page of search results in Google). With this being said, it is sometimes very expensive to be on the first page and you may be forced to be in page 2. This is OK because as your Quality Score goes up, so will your positioning. Try to get on the first page, but if you cannot because of the bid price being too high, don't worry, you'll eventually get there by using our techniques to get a better Quality Score.

Many times members ask us to look at their Google accounts and we see that their average positions are 20-50! You cannot expect high traffic if you are not on the first page of search results. The more relevant your keywords are, the easier it will be to get placement on the first page of the results.


Mistake #9 - Non-Targeted Keywords

If you are advertising a service like Wealthy Affiliate online, you may be inclined to use keywords such as:

Google Adwords, Affiliate Marketing, Make Money

The problem with these keywords is that they receive a lot of traffic, which incurs a lot of advertising costs, but the traffic does not convert into sales. The reason is because the keywords are not targeted enough. For example, if you are promoting Beating Adwords using any of the above keywords, it is probable that the visitors do not know what they are looking for. They may take note of Beating Adwords, but chances are they will not be ready to buy...thus lowering your chances of conversions.

You need to make sure that your keywords are highly targeted to what you are selling. For example, "Google Adwords Help", or "Make Money Affiliate Marketing" would be better choices to replace the keywords mentioned above. The more targeted your keywords are to your product, the better the conversions will be.


Mistake #10 - Too Many Ads when Split Testing

Split testing allows you to run more than one ad for an ad group to help you find out which ad copy performs better. In other words, to identify the ad that entices searchers to click more frequently. Split testing should only be done using two ads and no more. This way you can determine which ad performs better. You want to treat split testing as a contest, or even a competition. The better performing ad gets to move on to the next round, while the lower gets replaced by a new competitor.

Limit the number of ads you are running per ad group to two ads when split testing

No comments: