How To Overcome A Google Slap And Free Traffic! – July 2009
Hello and welcome to the July 2009 APD newsletter.
Wow, what a hectic and amazing month June was! I can’t believe we are already in July and a couple of days late with the newsletter!
However, it has all been worthwhile with our first major launch the Instant Social Traffic Formula.
I’ll be the first to admit we had a few teething problems, but being a first launch I guess that was to be expected! The main issue was the flow through the sign up process…and if you did have problems trying to get signed up, the entire process is ironed out now.
The new sign up process is very smooth, so if you tried and got slightly befuddled, do have another go! And, just to make it truly worth your while, we have added some extra goodies in the free members area. Lee reckons we have something like $497 worth of free social traffic pulling PDF’s and videos in there!
That’s good value in anyone’s book! Here’s what you can look forward to in your free membership area…
7 Easy Ways to Profit from Social Bookmarking
- A list of every social bookmarking site to use right away
- The Power of Social Networking and how you can profit from it
- A list of every Social networking site so you can get started NOW!
- Easy Blogging techniques and how you can apply them for profit
- Why You *MUST* get involved in Video sharing if you want to build an online business
- A list of every video sharing site…and you thought it was just YouTube!
- Insider “Profit from Stumble Upon” video revealing little known money-making strategies
After all, PPC is getting expensive…although I’ll be looking at how you can help reduce your PPC costs in this month’s newsletter.
So, without further ado, let’s get on with it!
You are probably aware that in Adwords your Quality Score (QS) is of vital importance. Get a poor QS and you will pay through the nose for your clicks.
I’m sure, just like me, you have been a victim of the famous “Google slap”! I mean, you just haven’t earned your Internet marketing spurs until you’ve been slapped around by Google a few times!
You know the sketch, when you get that nasty red message and are suddenly “asked” to pay $1.50, $5 or even $10 to make your keywords active again.
But, get a good QS and you can safely sit in position one of the paid results and pay far less than people below you.
So, what’s the hot news from Google then?
Quite simply this. Google has announced that it has decided to change the way QS is calculated (again)! As I’m sure you also know, being in such a dominant position, Google is want to change their view of the world at a moments notice. They do so regularly and without due (any) regard for how it might effect people plying their trade online.
So, in their infinite wisdom, Google has decided that landing page load time is now a very major factor in the calculation of your Quality Score.
What does this mean for you? Well, if your landing page loads more slowly than others competing on your keyword, your QS will drop and you will pay more per click to compete.
That cheap hosting now doesn’t look anywhere near as cost effective all of a sudden!
The bottom line is that Google wants people to use the best and fastest, most reliable hosting companies, so…they penalize poor load times.
And, if you don’t like it, I’m afraid it’s tough. It’s Google’s ball and indeed for the most part their game…and they’ll simply take the game away from you if you don’t play by their rules.
I know some people who find this hard to take and try and fight it, but it’s the nature of the game and…if you do play by the rules you can win big time. It’s simply a case knowing how to do that!
So, make sure you have quality hosting. If you’re on one of the $5 per month hosting plans you are sharing your server with hundreds of other people. If you can afford it a dedicated server is around $170-200 per month. It’s worth it if that falls in your price range.
If not make sure you are on a decent plan with a provider like Hostgator or Hosting Bay (these are the two services I use and I have had no problems).
Secondly, get your webpage / site code cleaned up and optimised for quick loading. If you’re not sure how to do that, just hire someone from eLance, Rent-a-Coder or Odesk. You should be able to get this done for a few bucks.
I’ve had great success using Odesk and have found a few trusted service providers who I turn to whenever there is something Lee or I don’t have the time (or inclination) to do :>)
Finally look into Managed DNS. If your provider gives you a dedicated IP address (if they can’t, change provider!) you can utilise a managed DNS service.
Without going into great technical detail, this spreads your load across 5 different DNS servers all on different backbones. This will effectively give you a significant decrease in your load time as well as a marked increase in reliability.
So, what should you do in the event that you do attract a much-feared slap?
Thankfully there are some easy remedial actions you can take to rectify the problem.
First up do make sure you know what your QS actually is, and with the new Adwords interface, it is much easier to track!
Firstly make sure your landing page is relevant to your ad. They keyword (or phrase) should be in the ad title, in the body of the ad and ideally in the URL.
The landing page should have the keyword in a density of between 3-6%, depending on what is needed to make the page read properly.
On the landing page you should have the keyword phrase in your meta description, meta keyword tags and in the title.
Now this is a hugely important point. You will need multiple landing pages! Sorry, but you do need to put the work in here. You simply cannot optimize the same page for two different keywords or phrases. Therefore logic dictates you have to have separate landing pages each optimized for the relevant phrase or keyword.
Check out the Hub I wrote on this subject as I give actual examples – click the link below.
If you do put all of this right and your QS doesn’t come back up, there is a “shock” treatment you can apply.
Now I don’t want to be responsible for you burning hundreds of dollars in wasted Adwords costs, so listen very carefully, I will write this only once :>)
If the above doesn’t work…then raise every keyword in the ad group to the bid price the slap is suggesting. This is why I say you need to be very careful with this. To make sure you don’t burn a fortune, DECREASE your daily budget and then make SURE you monitor your spend VERY carefully. Like every 10-15 minutes!
If you apply this technique, you will normally see your QS start to rise within a few hours. Then gradually decrease your bid prices and up your budget until you are “back to normal”.
You have been warned though, this technique does require careful monitoring and I am not responsible if you mess it up!!!
If this fails and you are sure everything is right, contact Google and ask if they will review manually. If you can’t get them on the ‘phone raise a ticket. They are a bit slow to respond but generally very forgiving and do try to help.
However, you should not only rely on Google. As we have proved with the Instant Social Traffic Formula, there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat!
As at 9.30am U.K time this morning, 8th July 2009, the Instant Social Traffic Formula occupied positions 1-17 on Google for the keyword phrase “instant social traffic”, now that is true power!
All Lee, Alison and I did was apply the formula – Q.E.D!
If you have anything you’d like to say, please add your comments below or drop me a line on Derek@apd-marketing.co.uk and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.
As always…to YOUR success
Cheers now
Derek
The Instant Social Traffic Formula
If you feel someone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass the address on. If you want to use any of this information on your own site, again, please feel free, but please credit APD Marketing with the information and place a link back to us – thanks :>)