The ABCs of SEO and What You Need to Know About Google Ads

So you’ve done a little research on Paid Ads and are bombarded with acronyms and technical jargon. It’s completely overwhelming at first. That’s why Lafayette Louisiana Website has created this simple guide explaining the ABCs of SEO. Don’t get caught off-guard by the next salesman trying to impress you with mumbo jumbo that they heard in a seminar once. We’ll teach you what you need to know about paid search marketing. In this article, we will list the main terms for Pay-Per-Click advertising.

Pay-Per-Click or PPC

PPC, pay-per-click, is a type of search engine marketing (SEM) that follows a paid advertising model. The beauty of PPC advertising is that you are only paying when people click on your ad. This makes PPC a particularly beneficial form of online marketing.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM refers to any form of online marketing that targets Search Engines. Think of it as the umbrella under which all organic (unpaid) and paid advertising operates. Even though Google represents a large share of the search market, Yahoo, Bing, Duck Duck Go, and others can present an excellent opportunity to rank.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

CPC is the amount you would pay on each click for your search engine ad. When placing a Cost-Per-Click ad, you set the amount you are willing to pay for a single click on your ad. Naturally, you would assume that the more money you spend. The better placement you’ll get in the CPC auction. It’s more complicated though, as you are also rated based on relevancy and quality of content when bidding.

Ad Rank

Your Ad Rank is the value which decides the position your ad places in the search results page.

Quality Score

Each ad is given a Quality Score based on the clickthrough rate, quality of landing page, the relevance of keywords, and past performance. This quality score significantly impacts the amount you will pay per click.

Maximum Bid

When placing your ad, you can set the amount you are willing to spend on each ad and not to exceed. This can either be done manually, by setting the bid, or enhanced, which is adjusted by the search engines automatically. Enhanced typically changes the bid based on conversions or clicks and overall budget to spend your dollar during peak times better.

Campaign

Each search engine ad requires a Campaign. Your campaign can be comprised of multiple ads, or ad groups, which all fit a certain category or theme with a common goal in mind.

Ad Group

An Ad Group is a series of ads within the campaign that relate to specific keywords. Each Ad Group can have its own Cost Per Click assigned to it.

Keywords

Perhaps the most important part of the equation, Keywords are the targetted words or search terms. You will select which terms you are bidding for to rank whenever someone searches for them.

Ad Text

Ad text is the copy that is written in your ads to entice users to click through to your website. Keywords should be included in your ads that users are likely to search. Remember, the relevance of the keywords to the ad placement will affect your ads Quality Score.

Landing Page

The landing page is the page where users click through from the ad. It is the second half of the equation of your ad strategy. The most effective landing pages are specifically tailored to the audience you are targetting.

Focus Keyword Length and How it Can Help Your Rankings

You’ve heard of Long-tail Keywords, and you’re familiar with Short-Tail Keywords. But which should you focus on when you’re writing your website copy. It can be a delicate balancing act, but these are the reasons we believe you should focus on writing Short-Tail Keywords.

Keyword Length vs. Focus Keyword Length

Before writing your content, you should determine which Keyword you will focus on that page. While including a lot of long-tail keywords in your content can be extremely beneficial, your FOCUS keyword should remain short. Your focus keyword will likely be comprised of multiple words to rank for a specific search term. Multiple words make it more of a keyphrase than a keyword, but they act as the same.

Long-tail keyphrases are a great SEO strategy. The longer the Keyword, the more specific the audience will be. Specific audiences translate to less competition in Google rankings and a higher probability of getting on top. It’s also likely that the more accurate your audience is, the more likely they will be to convert into actual customers or subscribers.

So why does this matter if Long-tail keywords are a good thing?

What Makes a Focus Keyword Too Long

The Keyword you are focusing on might become too long when it begins to affect the quality of your content. Yes, it’s essential to include relevant search terms to what you are ranking for; however, Google also rates you on readability and sentence structure. You could also be penalized for keyword stuffing, or inserting too many of the same keywords into a paragraph to cheat the system.

Because Google will automatically pull the relevant terms from copy, it’s not essential to write your keyphrase precisely the same way each time it appears in your content.

Reducing your focus keywords, especially when using helpful plugins like Yoast or All in One can significantly improve your rankings. Using related keywords to your focus keyword will also help improve your content rankings and your search intent rankings. Search intent is what the user meant to look for vs. what they were searching.