Wordpress SEO Expert

Improve your Google ranking with Peter Mahoney, 20+ years SEO & Wordpress experience

3 Approaches to PPC Advertising

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3 Approaches to PPC Advertising Wordpress SEO ExpertI don’t actually offer PPC advertising services (Pay per click). I’m very specialised at what I do already, but clients do regularly ask me for advice garnered from 18 years experience across a variety of technologies.

So I do have some thoughts to share with you.

One very effective technique with PPC is to target what is known as a “spread” of search queries and phrases. That’s based on making the most of the three different “tracks” people take when planning PPC campaigns.

  1. Many people make the mistake of just targeting the most popular searches, which of course is a valid technique but places them firmly, exclusively, in a very competitive market. It also costs a lot more to run campaigns of this nature.
  2. Conversely some people will try to do the opposite, target only the less common searches to save themselves money spent on the campaign, but of course they see a lot less traffic.
  3. There is a third-road, which is trying to find searches with a statistically slightly higher popularity, but lower competition. However, the vast nature of Google Adwords and other PPC markets tends to even these “gaps” out pretty quickly, so even when they can be found the gap is very narrow.

I prefer to approach these campaigns as a spread, to include some targets from all three of these categories. That way you achieve a good mix of results, financial outlay, and it gives you greater scope to track the success of your campaigns and decide which of these might be worth higher future investment.

Basically, you get more options, more data and therefore in the long run a much more strategic and lucrative approach.

Lies

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Here’s a pretty typical advert you’ll see online when searching for SEO, “I can create 33 SEO backlink Panda Penguin safe from PR10”.

The trouble is it’s all LIES.

I know I bang on about the trouble with buying backlinks to try to help your SEO. Regular readers will be familiar with my disdain for people selling the impossible—since Google’s Panda algorithm tries very hard to find people buying links, saying any scheme like this is “Panda safe” or even worse, “Panda friendly” is a massive fib.

So at the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to say some things I’ve said before – albeit in a more concise and succinct form.

It is true that Google does like to see links to your site. But they are excellent at discerning real links (where someone liked your site or service enough to link to it) from purchased ones. Those bought ones are usually just low quality directories and profiles. When I say profiles I really mean it, user accounts get created on the Apple website that have your domain in the user description and the scam-sellers have the nerve to say that’s a PR10 link from a high quality domain. As if Google can’t tell the difference between say, a news story on the BBC and a bunch of comment-user accounts.

I generally stand against buying backlinks because of my SEO ethos. My ethos is simple by the way – Google have given us a swag of information regarding what search engines do and do not want – so I say we give them what they’re after. But on the flipside we need to be sure to avoid what they don’t want.

I have about three jobs a week come in from people who bought back links and got caught – and dropped off Google completely. When they penalise you, they really hit you hard.

Technically speaking really awesome backlinks would certainly help your SEO. But 99% of the time buying them is not awesome, and I recommend avoiding it.

I (like Google) see SEO as a long game, if done properly. But also, if done properly, it “sticks”. A site with good SEO that’s risen to the top should stay at the top.

And with that, I shall get down from my well-trodden soap-box.

What is noindex, and when to use it

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“noindex” is a simple setting you can activate for any page on your site that instructs search engines not to scan it.

Using WordPress you’ll usually find this on each page and post in the Dashboard, in the settings for whichever SEO Plugin you use (All In One SEO pack, Yoast, etc.).

Most other content management systems will have their own setting, or if your site is totally bespoke you can add this to the code in the <head> section:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow” />

Why would you want search engines to ignore a page when they come to index your site?

There are many reasons actually, but the most common is duplicate content. If you have two pages on your site that have similar content, you want to mark one as noindex so it doesn’t appear as though you’ve stuffed your site with multiple copies of the same thing.

Google and the other major engines see duplicate content as an attempt to make your site look fuller than it really is, or to have stolen content from elsewhere to try to fill your site up quickly, without much thought, and very little originality.

The other time to definitely use nofollow is if you have used a significant portion of content from another site. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason to grab content from elsewhere and publish it yourself, but you should always stop it from being indexed.

Now, before you get too excited and think “I’m fine, I’ve not got anything on my site that exists elsewhere at all”, let me ask you about your Terms and Conditions. Did you have those written from scratch? Or are they standardised, lifted from another site, or based on a template?

noindex them. Even though they’re just the legal bits, you don’t want Google to have any reason to think your site has a predilection toward duplicate content.

Buying backlinks

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a.k.a. Why it’s best to follow my advice. 🙂

I talk a lot about the importance of doing SEO properly, and not trying to cheat the search engines.

Of all the tricks out there, the most tempting by far is buying backlinks.

Google wants lots of sites to link to us, right? So let’s just get some and get moving up those rankings!

Terrible, terrible idea.

A client of mine bought some from a seller claiming to be Google safe, Panda safe, Penguin safe, PR10, quality links.

But you can’t be Google-safe. All that will ever mean is they haven’t caught you (or the system being used to generate your links) yet. But they’ve been promising for a decade that they will, and more often than not, they do.

The image above is a bit small, but I’m sure you can pinpoint when they bought the so-called “safe” links.

Their sales fell proportionately.

Queen’s “Greatest Hits”

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What do you blog about when business is slow?

Most of us get inspiration for our posts from what we’re doing professionally. Recent successes, new clients, examples of our work…but what to say when not a lot has been going on?

Dave Burnett is an Essex based wedding photographer I work with, and he sent me this excellent article this morning:
What to blog about when business is slow

Understandably, it’s about the photography business. But there are ideas in there for us all.

  • Musings
  • Our greatest hits (the best work of the year before)
  • Things we want to achieve (our dreams)
  • Explain concepts from your industry

Whatever you do, avoid the temptation to write about having nothing to write about. I enjoyed Queen’s “Greatest Hits” far more than I would have a lonely press statement saying they contractually had to release something.

Lies Cold-Callers Told Me

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At some stage in the last six months, every one of my clients has received an email or cold call from a company telling them they’re losing business because their SEO isn’t up to snuff.

Heck, I get these calls regularly myself. I enjoy challenging the people on the other end of the line, and very quickly one thing becomes clear.

They’ve no idea what they’re talking about.

SEO, sadly, isn’t a regulated industry, and because of the level of investment people put into their online presences it’s very easy to frighten them with bogus information.

The people emailing and calling are sales people; often for firms that with a bit of digging, you can find myriad horror stories about online.

My favourite examples of their spiel include, “Your site doesn’t have keyword tags” (search engines don’t actually use them) and “Your site isn’t W3 compliant” (Google has made it clear this has no effect on a site’s ranking).

The latter is particularly nefarious, because although a W3 compliant site is certainly best practice–very few sites do tick all the boxes.

It’s scaremongering at its worst.

Remember, when you get a call out of the blue, or emails that by rights should go straight to your spam folder, always check with a known professional, someone you trust. And if you are considering working with a new company, ask how many sales people they have compared to actual SEO experts on staff.

Do some checking, to make sure what they’re telling you is true.

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