Predicting ROAS and Launching Better PPC Campaigns

Return on Ad-Spend, or ROAS, is a metric calculated by dividing the revenue generated from an ad campaign, by the cost of that campaign. It can be applied to any sales situation that has an advertising spend, even a bake sale:

Lets say your mother gave you a pan of brownies to sell at the bake sale, but it costs $50 to get your booth and marketing materials set (we’ll call $50 your ad-spend).

If your brownies manage to produce a total revenue of $50, you’ve broken even, or gotten a full return on your ad-spend.

If you had made the brownies yourself, and they’d cost you $50 to make (we’re talking primo brownies here), then your total investment is actually $100, but ROAS only takes into account ad-spend. So in the same situation you’re still getting a full return on your ad-spend, just not a full return on your investment.

A handy exercise to go through with new clients before you launch a PPC campaign is to calculate the potential ROAS of the keywords you’re targeting. ReadMore..

Exclusive Interview with Googler: Kaspar Szymanski

I work at Google within the Search Quality Team. I focus on preventing spam from coming up in the SERPs, so our users will not be affected by it. This is my main objective. However, communication with webmasters in particular in Europe is also an important part of my scope of work. You can read Udi Mamber’s recent post if you want to learn more about our work. In terms of webmaster communication I would like to share a few more details about mine and my colleagues efforts.

For about two years now, the Search Quality Team in Dublin reinforces Google’s efforts to engage in a dialogue with webmasters in their native languages. Currently, me and my team support a number of communication channels in sixteen languages. I mentioned the Google Help Groups, which me and my colleagues monitor. We also run a Google Webmaster Blog in German and contribute to country blogs in Polish, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Turkish.

Recently, we have also started pushing educational videos for webmasters. My friends Rebecca and Alvar came up with the initial one in Spanish. So far, the feedback from the webmaster community was very positive

The part of my communication work I’m really excited about, is meeting webmasters personally at events like conferences or Google Days. On occasions like the SMX or the SES conferences we learn a lot about what is currently on people’s minds and where we need to improve upon the information we provide webmasters. I like this channel best because I enjoy the experience of talking to webmasters and having an instant interaction. So far, unfortunately we did not get a chance to participate in the event in Poland. However, I am optimistic on catching up on this before the end of the year. Read More..

You Don’t Need SEO to Rank in Google

I’m sure you’ve no doubt heard that getting indexed and ranked well in Google is all about Pagerank and links.

While Google search engineer Matt Cutts may have confirmed that statement almost three years ago, it doesn’t mean things never change and/or that Pagerank and on page signals (aka SEO) are the only factors that matter when it comes to ranking in today’s search engines, especially Google.
It’s not all about SEO anymore. SEO is simply the process of optimizing your site to get the most benefit out of the rankings you earn via marketing and traffic development and is not necessarily required to achieve the rankings themselves. SEO is still valuable. SEO is still important. But it doesn’t run the show.

A look at what pure traffic can do

A few weeks back we launched a little site called Tweetwasters. It wasn’t a “serious effort” or anything we planned to monetize. It was a quick dip into the world of Twitter applications. But it also gave me some actual hard data back up what I had known in my gut to be true for a long while… traffic can have a direct impact on your indexing and rankings.

How can I be so sure? Because within a matter of two hours, Tweetwasters had achieved the following: ReadMore..

The SEO geeks guide to information retrieval

A while back I was ranting on Twitter (and elsewhere) about how not too many SEO peeps actually study some of the more technical aspects of how search engines work and IR, (NLP,ML etc..) concepts. You see, it seems logical that those working with (marketing to) search engines might want to know a thing or two about how they work.

The goal of today’s ride isn’t as much to provide you with a framework for learning as it is to start you in a direction. As always, learning how to catch fish is more important than a free lunch. These are simply some interesting directions for SEO technicians looking to dig deeper into the world of knowledge management.

This thing of ours

To me this thing of ours is an art form.  The pragmatic can argue the semantics of what is art, regardless, to me it is such. And a dimensionally singular SEO is one that is limited in that art. Much like a traditional artist progresses from still life and pencil to painting and sculpting, from brushes to chisels, an SEO should seek out other elements related to the discipline. We should learn knowledge management and algorithms with the same verve we apply to playing in social media.

The goal of this adventure is to hopefully spark the imagination of SEOs by finding out just how interesting the task of indexing the world’s information is. Many times the goodies listed here aren’t a direct line to ranking glory, but great for identifying future trends and having a feel for modern implementations…

And so today we head down the path leading to SEO geek nirvana…. Mount up and let’s ride!! Continue Reading

If You Want To Make Money Online Then You Cant Just Follow

One thing I am very adamant about is that no matter what system or strategy you are using to try and generate revenue; if you do not make it “Yours” it is never going to effectively achieve the results you are after.

For example, in the Web2Mayhem, I provide a very detailed three phase traffic system that walks members from start to finish on not only how to use the tools but more important then that is how to GENERATE TRAFFIC.

The training is made up of detailed checklists, videos and flowcharts and is designed with one purpose in mind… to get more traffic!

There is a HUGE risk though… and this is why I hate making such detailed strategies sometimes.

The person becomes a robot and does not think for him or herself.

No matter what, the most important thing you have to do, no matter the strategy that you are following, you have to make it your plan.

What Does That Mean?

First of all let me say that this does not just relate to my Web2Mayhem training, but it relates to any system or membership (even ebook) that you purchase with hopes of success. You need to figure out how to make the system fit in with what you are currently doing and figure out how to make it work for you.

That might sound super obvious… but it is not… NOT AT ALL.

What works for me is by no means what works best for you. We each have different strengths and ways of thinking and as a result what might flow and seem logical to one person, might be not be optimal for another.

You need to own what it is you are doing, you want to ensure you don’t simply stop what you are currently doing and you need to tweak and test and do what works for you.

A huge thing I see a lot of people doing is they start trying some seo strategy and then a mailing comes out for a new cpa course and they stop what they were doing and start trying that, then a new social media course comes out and they stop again and start over with that… and the cycle continues.

As made famous in the 80’s… STOP THE INSANITY

The fact is lots of money can be made with SEO, PPC, PPV, Media Buys, Social Media and more… Yes they ALL work. But anyone I know that is doing really well did not focus on all those, they picked one… got good and profitable with it and are expanding to another. In fact most of them stick with one or two only, cause they are good at it and can manage it. Continue Reading

Bill Gates TRAFFIC GENIUS? Watch this video

We just uploaded a new video that I know you’ll want to see.

You’ve probably *never* heard the name Bill Gates and traffic genius in the same sentence before, right?

Well, Chairman Bill knows something about getting alot of traffic that you don’t.

Yes, I’m talking about using software to slingshot your traffic and grab top search engine rankings.

You might be thinking…

SOFTWARE?!?!?

Doesn’t that cost like $20K to produce?

Well… using my secret *sneaky* (but totally legal) technique you DON’T need any software at all.

Watch our latest video and it will explain the entire process to you: Click Here to Watch Now

I know you are going to love this.

Best part… this can be done using completely free tools.

I’ll give you all the info and resources you need right here in this video:

Click Here to Watch Now

Once you watch the video and apply the strategy I give you, get ready for some ‘heavy’ backlinks and serious traffic. It works great.

Enjoy!