You wouldn’t think that poker and SEO had a lot in common, but you’d be wrong. As enthusiastic poker players, the specialists at Agile SEO Brisbane put together our top 5 poker lessons that you should apply to your SEO efforts.

1. Don’t Play Every Hand

It’s supposed to be one of the biggest mistakes that rookie players make in poker, but it’s pretty common in AdWords, too. When setting up your AdWords account, don’t just click on every keyword option that Google gives you. Do your research, select 10 – 25 keywords per ad group and then weed out peripheral keywords to focus on action keywords so you don’t lose money.

2. Don’t Stay In A Hand Just Because You’re Already In It

To paraphrase the great man, you gotta know when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, when to walk away and when to run.  Competitive keywords can take 6 months of consistent SEO efforts to start showing results, but by 6 months, you should be seeing something for your money. If your site still doesn’t have robots.txt or a site map, or you still can’t find your site on the first 5 pages for common search terms for your business or industry, it might just be time to walk away from your current SEO provider. If, on the other hand, your SEO company has gotten you 1000 back links from Uzbekistan, it’s definitely time to run.

3. Do Pay Attention To Other Players

When you play poker, one of the single best things you can do is watch your competition, the same applies in business and SEO. Your SEO company should be able to provide you with data on what your competition is up to online, from where their links are originating to what keywords they’re ranking for. Rather than spend hours doing your own research to arrive at the same conclusion, check they’re on the right path then piggyback off their efforts and gain the benefits.

4. Work Out Your Odds

When deciding how much you’re prepared to pay for a click in AdWords, calculate your odds – what are the chances of that click becoming a sale? And if it does become a sale, how much is that sale worth to you? If you’re selling a product that retails for $20 and it costs you $10, you’re not going to want to pay $10 for a click. But if a sale is worth $500 to you and you know it’s going to cost you $20 for a click, odds are, that’s worth it.

5. Don’t Expect To Win Every Hand You Play

Unless you’re holding a royal flush, there is always the chance that someone else at the table has a better hand. In SEO and AdWords, there’s always someone with a bigger budget, a better quality score or who is further along the path of onsite optimisation. That’s reality. So work smarter, not harder. Target action keywords and use negative keywords to make sure that your AdWords campaign is being shown to people most likely to click and convert to sale.  Use Google Analytics to get to know your audience then write thoughtful, relevant articles that can be shared with 1 click through plugins like AddThis.

Want to know more about peripheral keywords, action keywords, onsite optimisation, competitor analysis and more? Contact us today to find out how Agile SEO Brisbane can help you play it right.

The post Agile SEO Brisbane: Lessons From Poker first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

Ensuring that Marketing spend is optimised, and wastage minimised, are key benefits of hiring experts in GoogleAdWords Management.

Research suggests that a common mistake made by businesses is to assume that free AdWords marketing services deliver the same outcomes as Expert GoogleAdWords Management companies like Agile SEO. In reality, they are not comparable in quality or value for money. “Saving” money on an initial outlay or committing to the management of ad words using a free “do it yourself” service or methodology can be a false economy by actually wasting valuable time, effort and Marketing budget.

Businesses in all industries, especially those in competitive markets, need focused and targeted strategies to get the most out of their marketing investment. More and more consumers and prospects are searching online for products and services while more and more companies understand the importance of a strong online presence.

It is good business sense to ensure that all the time involved and financial investment required to launch an online presence is not wasted. To this end, the Technology experts at Agile SEO recommend that the advertising of a business and protection of that online investment – through Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and overall AdWords Management – should be managed by expert specialised SEO Companies.

So what are some of the key reasons companies should hire GoogleAdWords Management experts’ verses “do it yourself” service options….

• Ad Words Management and Keyword Research Is A Technical Discipline
• Understanding PPC Terminology Is Required For Success
• Product and Technology Innovation Analysis and Time Investment
• Low Conversion Rates Can Be The Result Of Poor Online Content
• Technical Expertise Reporting Services Are Services Offered With Expert Ad Words Management
• Landing Page Strategies & Click Fraud Analysis Experience

GoogleAdWords Management and Keyword Research Is A Technical Discipline 

Expert analysis of Ad Words & PPC Management has determined that using poor quality keywords can quickly exhaust an advertising budget and result in campaigns with poor quality returns.

“Do it yourself” free tools and one time only pay per use tools can be used to support advertising campaigns, however these require understanding of the technical disciplines associated in researching key words. Many SEO companies will offer Ad Words Management and keyword research in packages, using multiple data strategies and methods to form a comprehensive picture of the business opportunities available.

Understanding PPC Terminology Is Required For Success

Understanding PPC terminology is what businesses pay the experts for, therefore ensuring that they can get on with the business of doing business.

Impressions, Views, Hits, CPM, CPC, CPA these terms are important in the management of your campaigns. Unless businesses are familiar with the meaning and importance then the recommendation is that “do it yourself” SEO and Keywords management isn’t for you.

Product and Technology Innovation Analysis and Time Investment

Outsourcing Ad Word and Keyword management also ensures that trend and innovation research is completed on behalf of your business. Time investment is key – can a business afford to “do business” and manage keyword management? If not, the experts can deliver.

Low Conversion Rates Can Be The Result Of Poor Online Content

Experts in GoogleAdWords and PPC perform competitive research of online content and study the types of content that bring success to businesses. This service is one of the key strengths associated with expert SEO companies and is exactly the type of service that requires technical expertise.

The “right” online content can elevate your campaigns successful click-through rate and net more conversions, while ‘bad’ copy may convey the wrong message about a site (and its content), resulting in low conversion.

The difference between Expert Ad Words Management services and “Doing It Yourself” opportunities is that the experts already have an understanding of the components that make good versus “bad” content.

Technical Expertise Reporting Services Are Services Offered With Expert Ad Words Management

Good reporting analysis is the key to all good PPC campaigns, these reporting services include not only analysing sales volumes, but where those sales were initiated from. This reporting analysis allows insight into the keywords that are likely to bring the highest number of conversions, therefore saving time, money and energy.

Landing Page Strategies

Content and style relevance is not just an important SEO term, and it’s also key in PPC marketing, too. The less relevant that landing pages are, the more money is spent on conversions. PPC and GoogleAdWords Management experts not only  understand the principles of landing page design, but how to test the principles to optimise a site and support it being found online quickly.

Click Fraud Analysis Experience

Pass on the task of analysing click fraud to the experts. What is click fraud? How is it investigated? How often does it need to be monitored? All questions that an expert will manage on your behalf if hiring an Ad Word Expert.

Overall….

The recommendation is that hiring a PPC expert can deliver expertise; terminology understanding; innovation and trend analysis; reporting and perhaps most importantly, design strategies and fraud risk mitigation services so you don’t have to.

Agile SEO are experts in GoogleAdWords Management. With Set Up fees currently waived* and prices starting at $99 / month, our AdWords Management Package includes the following services:

• No lock-in contracts
• Account setup
• Installation of Google analytics
• AdWords landing page optimisation
• Ad copy writing and testing
• Sales & lead conversion tracking
• Conversion optimisation advice
• Split testing of ads
• Analytics analysis
• Mobile ads targeting

AdWords training to ensure that you understand why we do what we do!

Contact us today to discover more!

*as at November 2015

The post Investing in GoogleAdWords Management Versus “DIY” first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO and PPC are both powerful methods of growing your online business. However, that’s where the similarity ends.

Let’s Talk SEO

SEO is the difference between being on the first page of search results or one of the others (which no one ever ventures to) and can make or break a business. SEO is about creating organic, long term and sustainable traffic to your website, increasing your brand awareness and delivering ongoing returns.

Be warned – SEO can be a frustrating business. Inevitably, as soon as you fully optimise your site and content, one or more of the major search engines will change their algorithms. If you’re not properly prepared, all of a sudden you’re back on the second page or worse!

While it’s not a great feeling, sliding back to the second page isn’t impossible for you to reverse without professional assistance, it will just take some time. You’ll need to spend time researching what the changes were and figuring out how they impacted your site. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to work through how to update your site and content in order to compensate for those changes.

Potential impacts of algorithm changes and the time you’ll need to invest to adjust and respond to them is something to be aware of if you choose to do your SEO yourself. No matter how frustrating it may become, don’t ever abandon it entirely – do it yourself or pay someone else to do it if you can afford it but SEO is vital to any business, large or small, in this digital age.

Let’s Talk PPC

PPC is about getting on the first page of Google, NOW. Of course, there’s a price for doing so and it can be quite hefty, especially if your campaign isn’t tightly focused. PPC can be used for several different strategies but for the purposes of this article, let’s look at a sales based campaign where the ultimate or desired result is an increase in sales.

Keywords are tricky things and while Ad Words has some great tools within it, if you are new to online marketing, you can make simple mistakes that can cost you dearly. If improved sales are your goal, then with PPC you need to make sure you’re paying for the right keywords and that the people who click on your ads are ready to buy straight away. If you’ve paid for ‘researching’ style keywords rather than ‘buying’ style keywords, you could end up paying a lot of money for no reason.

As an example, if I’m thinking about buying a pair of ladies sneakers, I might google ‘Ladies sneakers, size 7’ while I’m in my researching phase. During this time, I’m going to go to multiple sites and have a look around while I make a decision as to what kind of sneakers I want and how much I’m prepared to pay. On the other hand, when I’m ready to buy, I’ll be more specific, perhaps searching for ‘Nike Ladies Sneakers, Size 7’.

Now if you’re a sports store running a PPC campaign and you paid for me to visit your site when I was researching, there’s a good chance that you wasted your marketing money. However the person who paid for the ad I saw when I was ready to buy is going to get my money, making their PPC campaign more successful. This shows you why having the right PPC ad words management is essential to getting the most ‘bang for your buck’.

Great PPC management can create great ROI, it’s just a matter of experience.

So… Which One Is Best For Me?

Ultimately, both. A comprehensive online marketing strategy should have SEO as standard and either include targeted PPC campaigns or have the flexibility to add PPC campaigns as required. If you can’t afford to pay someone to manage your SEO or your PPC Ad Words campaign for you, be prepared to do a lot of learning. If you plan to manage your own digital campaigns, we suggest you try reading Hanan Kattan’s acclaimed digital marketing book ‘Grow Your Profits’ for expert advice to help you avoid some of the pitfalls.

For more information on SEO and or PPC, contact us today to find out how Agile SEO can make it easy for you to grow your business online.

The post SEO vs PPC Ad Words first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.