PPC’s most expensive keywords
Something that has always staggered me is the amount of money that businesses spend in advertising their services with Google, spending as much as £30 per click to generate traffic, surely this cannot be a cost effective method of generating business?
Don’t get me wrong, when used effectively, PPC is a fantastic way of generating very targetted traffic, which when paired with the right website will convert, but I simply cannot see how it can generate a good ROI for the websites advertising on the most expensive terms, maybe I’m wrong though!
This got me thinking and I’ve done a little research into some of the most expensive keywords to bid against within Google Adwords in the UK, the list below isnt exhaustive but I think it will be an eye opener to most as to some of the amounts that businesses are paying for just 1 visitor to their website – have they never heard of SEO? 
The Most Expensive PPC Keywords (source Google – 25/06/09)
- “serviced offices west london” - £29.39
- “no win no fee insurance” – £27.06
- “bad credit remortgages” – £25.32
- “fast car insurance quotes” – £23.38
- “secured loans” – £23.12
- “life insurance over 50s” – £19.39
- “spread betting information” – £19.22
- “self build conservatories” – £14.58
- “web design marketing” – £6.05 (it seems even the people in the know arent immune to the Google frenzy, or are the people paying this per click not in the know?)
As I previously said, this is a flavour of some of the most expensive keywords to target within Google Adwords, I’d love to hear from anyone who knows of more expensive terms.
Twitter: here today gone tomorrow?
From Barack Obama to Paris Hilton everyone is at it, Twitter has taken the digital world by storm, the human urge to know what other people are doing is fuelling the growth of the website (we are a nosy bunch!) but does it have a long term future?
A recent Nielson report called ‘Twitters or Quitters’ identifies that while the uptake in new Twitter accounts is monumental the drop out rate of users beyond the first month of usage is around 60%, on this basis the future may well look bleak unless Twitter are able to reduce this number considerably, getting members = no problem, keeping them = problem!
So why is it that so many people join the Twitter bandwagon and then decide it isn’t for them after just 30 days? Well we’ve got our thinking hats on in the office and come up with a few thoughts as to why this might be:
Facebook or Twitter – I think a great deal of web users are weighing up whether to dedicate their ‘web time’ to either facebook or twitter, which each vying for a large proportion of our time we feel that the majority of standard web users are making a choice of one or the other, and Facebook with it’s extensive functionality seems to be winning the way, albeit they are very different websites with different pro’s and con’s, but that’s another post!
Too much work – To begin with, twitter is great, you search and follow people with similar interests/views and can pleasure in reading their thoughts and what they are up to (the nosey side of us again!) However, very quickly as the numbers of followers and following increase, managing your twitter account can become a very time consuming and arduous task, there are a number of tools on the interner designed to help you manage your twitter account, Tweetdeck is one of them, a great app to help you organise your tweets, replies and direct messages, there are litterally hundreds more a selection of which can be found here.
Boredom – Ultimately everything has its shelf life and whilst knowing the ins and outs of everyones business is attractive to a lot of people it soon wears thin. Unless people have an underlying reason to use twitter i.e. personal gain, brand building/management for businesses I believe that their interest in twitter will quickly dwindle, not coming close to the long term attractiveness of sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.
Anyone for some doom & gloom? Not us.
Everyone else is talking about it, so in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, we’re jumping on our very own recession soap box and venting our economic spleen. However, contrary to the media and their continual doom and gloom mongering, we’re relatively upbeat about things and for good reason too. A small part of this is about being good old-fashioned Brits, stiffening the upper lip and staring downturn in the face but the larger part of it is the fact that the online marketing industry is in good shape.
All of the marketing industry rags and analysts are predicting that the axe will fall hardest on the traditional side of the marketing mix. PR, press advertising, exhibitions, direct mail are all cited as beginning to feel the pinch and this is predicted to continue. It’s quite clear why this is the case: it basically boils down to measurement and how much bang you can get for your marketing buck. PR and press advertising can be incredibly effective at building brand awareness and blanketing a market sector but they’re not cheap exercises. When purse strings have been tightened, marketers have to look at activities that they can genuinely quantify, measure and justify back to the business. Simple stuff really , such as if I spend £1 how much will I make in return?
The answer to this question is far more attainable with online marketing than traditional. The analytics coupled with much better economies of scale make activities such as e-mail marketing, website development and search engine optimisation/PPC far more attractive to businesses. That is why the online advertising and email marketing industry are still posting big growth figures and by all accounts, recession or not, this will continue throughout 2009.
It’s very hard not to get embroiled in conversations regarding the economy at the moment because the media make it unavoidable, it plays on a continual loop 24 x 7, newspapers, radio, television and online. However through talking with our clients we’ve found that, in the main, the mood is cautionary as opposed to panic stations. I think everyone understand that things may get worse before they get better, but as long as we’re all sensible then the cogs will keep turning and there is still good business to be made – in fact many would argue that a period of downturn is the best time to market your wares!
James Smee, Director of Optimism