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It has been known for many months that if you have a Google account, google can track your web history and sites visited (see Search Engine Land for a brief overview). This can be a rather interesting phenomena as Google has been using it to tailor organic search results to particular users’ tastes. For example, I have done keyword searches on my laptop and then done identical searches on the computer at my local library and the University of Utah library. I noted that the search engine results were different. My website appeared higher on the list when I searched for it on my home computer. It was lower when I searched on the library computers. I have repeated the search process of several months and it replicated each time.

However, I recently noticed something even more interesting - Google appears to be using my searches to serve ads on unrelated searchs. I had heard they were doing this, but I only noticed it recently. I was doing a brief SEO/SEM site analysis on a company called, “Checks In the Mail” Checks in the mail is a lovely example of company that successfully moved from direct mail and phone ordering to internet-based ordering.

As I was going through and checking some of their product lines and rankings, I typed in “Spiderman Checks” on Google. Next, I was interrupted by a phone call and then did a search on another topic. Lo and behold - There in the paid placement (i.e. PPC ads) was an ad related to my previous search on checks. Fascinating! I am going to keep my eyes open for other examples of this.

Have you noticed something similar? Post a comment and let me know.

I have also noticed that a PPC ad that I clicked on the New York Times website several weeks ago keeps appearing on the website. However, they may simply be doing site specific advertising.

I have had several conversations recently with managers in E-commerce departments who want to lower their Google pay-per-click costs and increase the ROI on their campaigns. I have a simple but often overlooked answer:

Do search engine optimization on your sales pages and segment your PPC campaigns so that each keyword group goes to a webpage that is optimized for that group.

Why SEO lowers Google PPC costs

Google prides itself, and in fact, bases it’s search business on the idea that relevance matters. They want you to keep returning to their search engine because it gives you the most relevant results for your keyword search. And they do their best to clearly label “organic” or natural search results from “paid” or PPC results. Go to a search engine that mixes up paid and search results or doesn’t let you know what is paid and what is not. How does it make you feel when you search? Annoyed? Don’t know if you can trust the results? Google tries to avoid that at all costs.

And that leads to a key factor in lowering pay-per-click costs: Google’s desire for serving relevant results also applies to their paid results.

Let’s say that you are bidding on the keyword “back pain.” If you send your visitors to a page that talks about sciatica and chiropractic care you will pay more per click than if you sent them directly to a page that speaks about back pain.

Do you see why? Google wants you to send people to pages immediately and directly relevant to keywords that the person is searching. And even without the lower price you would be doing better. Why? When you give a searcher what they want, they are more likely to buy and stay on your website. The take home message is simple: Do SEO for the keyword that you are targeting.

Keyword Segmentation for Lowering PPC costs

Understanding keyword relevance and its relation to buyer motivation is another way to lower pay-per-click costs. Segment your campaigns into related keyword groups and send people to a web page optimized for that keyword. For example, a person searching for “lower back pain relief” is likely to have different motivation and wants than someone searching for “kidney back pain relief.” If you send each person to a page relevant to the keyword searched, google will reward you with a lower pay-per-click charge. And again - you will be sending someone to a page that is more likely to give them what they want and thus be more likely to gain a customer.

Also note that a more inclusive term like “back pain” is harder to optimize for buyer motivation. Yes, you can optimize for back pain and save some money on click costs, but what in the world is the person trying to find with the keyword? Relief? Medical Advice? An exercise device? Information for a term paper? You don’t really know and you are likely to pay for tons of irrelevant clicks.

I hope that was useful. Bye for now - Ryan

Many people are of the opinion that making comments on other people’s blog posts is a good tool for gaining traffic and incoming links to your own websites. There are dissenting opinions of course, including those that mention the dreaded “nofollow” tag that many blogging platforms add to URLs in comments. Regardless, if you do track and measure your traffic via Google Analytics or some other tool, you will find that making blog comments can drive a certain amount of traffic to your websites.

Not convinced? Try it for two weeks. Every day for the next 14 days, do a Google search for blog topics related to your website. Go to the blog, read the post and make a thoughtful, intelligent comment, making sure to fill in your website URL in the comment form. Do not add a direct link within the text of your comment as you are likely to get banned and your comment will not show up.

Wait another two weeks or so and check your analytics traffic. Depending on the popularity of the blog on which you posted and the popularity of your comment, you should see some incoming traffic. People will click on the link associated with your comment and come take a look at your website.

You may also want to use a tool like Yahoo’s free site explorer to see if the incoming links are listed: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

I am surprised by how motivating it is to have a PayPal debit card attached to my PayPal account.

It’s great being able to buy a cup of coffee, or a meal, or gas, with money that comes directly from my passive income streams. Someone in France, the U.K, the U.S or god knows where else - buys a download. Then the money goes automatically into my PayPal account, where I can access it instantly through the debit card.

Previously, I would have to transfer the money to my bank account before having access to it. Somehow the immediacy of the debit card makes the income more real and more emotionally satisfying.

And a brief note about Google Checkout. I mentioned in a previous ecommerce post, that I added Google Checkout as a payment option to my e-junkie shopping cart. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but there has been a substantial increase in sales. I’d estimate it at 20%.

Last week, I mentioned a client who lost her Google Adsense privileges and decided to use Adbrite. After a short week with Adbrite, I can tell you that she is ready to get back to Google ASAP. Adbrite did what it said it would - putting banner ads and text ads on her website that pay per 1000 impressions and per click.

However, they seem to have a limited number of advertisers and they cannot always put relevant ads on her website.

To give you an example, one of my clients’ websites is in the the category of “alternative health.” As of this moment, the ads that adbrite has on her website are 1) Personal Injury Attorney, 2) Buy Property Abroad, 3) Earn Income Now and 4) Massage. The last one, “massage” is potentially relevant, but the actual website to which it goes, is a shopping website that has nothing to do with massage nor alternative health. In short, Adbrite has put 4 ads on her site, none of which is contextually relevant to her content.

Most damning is the income. As a percentage, I would say that for every $100 that she would have earned with Google Adsense, she is earning $15 with Adbrite. That’s a huge decrease.

She is going to get ride of Adbrite, but not completely. One of her websites, a consumer-review of electronics products, seems to be getting a fair return on the Adbrite advertising, so she will keep the ads there.

Take home message? You do the math: Keep Google happy at all costs, and don’t do anything stupid or inadvertent that disables your adsense account! There is an upside if you are an advertiser - You may be able to get advertising at a much cheaper rate than you would get on Google.

I will keep looking for Google Adsense alternatives. Let me know if you see a network worth considering.

cheers - Ryan