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AdWords Escalating Costs Force Advertisers to Yahoo

With the cost of Google AdWords for some markets and business escalating since the AdWords September 15th update, Yahoo is looking better all the time.

Here’s just one example of the many changes that we have seen happen this week since the September 15th AdWords update:

1. For bed bug extermination and bed bug related keywords in 2006 we paid around $1.25 per click, now to be competitive in the New York City market we are over $4.00 a click. Yahoo is still serving quality converting clicks for this account at about $1.65.

2. Here’s another example of the competition on AdWords since the update. For a dentist in the Washington DC metro area, Google states their account control panel that to appear in the firs page of search results they should now pay $57 per click for the phrase family dental care. Mind you, this is not to be in position one, but rather in position 11. What I don’t understand is that this same client has been getting clicks with Google showing the average ad position to be over 6 in the data and he is paying around $7 or so per click – so why the $57 note in the control panel?

3. Some accounts that we manage are totally being hammered with the update. One client who typically gets 70 to 80 conversions from Google each month is down to 20 so far month to date and we upped his cost per click twice since September 15th! Yahoo has brought in 16 conversions for him so far this month and at a significantly lower cost.

Yahoo is looking better all the time. In fact if you are not seriously contemplating advertising in Yahoo and trimming back your advertising in Google AdWords while this shakedown is occurring, it may be a good time to give it very serious consideration. I think that Google may have gotten too greedy in this last change and will be chasing out advertisers with these new cost per click figures to retain their desired average ad position.

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Getting on the Blog Band Wagon

If you have a website and do not have a blog, it is time for you to get on the blog band wagon. Savvy search engine optimization experts have been recommending blogs for the past year, but we know that a blog does a lot more for you than help with search engines.

Here’s why at McCord Web Services, we’re so bullish on blogs:

1. Blogs bring and build website traffic.

2. Blogs increase the stickiness of your website.

3. Blogs add new fresh content to your website – if your blog is posted under your domain.

4. Blogs build contextual authority on your topic for your website in the eyes of all top three search engines.

5. Blogs build topical entry pages that are keyword dense and on one topic that readers can use to find you and your services.

6. Blogs build interest with readers and can operate as a point of interaction between you and prospects.

7. Blog comments can build controversy and discussion on your selected topics where an open exchange is allowed.

8. Blog interaction, comments, and traffic let you know clearly the topics that your audience is interested in knowing more about allowing you to shape your services and products to your visitors needs.

9. Blogging is a very effective way to become different from your competition.

10. Blogging allows you to put a personal face on your business and to connect with others in a productive and interesting way.

You can review our white paper called “The Tangible Benefits of Blogging” or more really in-depth information.

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Peachtree Complete Accounting 2009 – A Winner

I have been using Peachtree Pro 2008 since April. I love the software and find it easy to use. By implementing an automated accounting and billing product I have streamlined my operations and have gained much more time to grow my business.

Just this week, I upgraded to Peachtree Complete 2009. I opted to upgrade to 2009 so that I would have the ability to run reports from any year range that I wanted instead of only a two year period. I opted to upgrade from Pro to Complete because with the $140 discount I got from Staples on the Complete version I was within dollars of just upgrading to Peachtree Pro 2009.

The reason for this post is to let you know what a time saver for me one of the features that Peachtree Complete has that Pro does not – Time Billing. Now I can track, notate, document, and bill my time without using a timer, a log sheet, or even creating a new invoice. I can do it all from the Time Billing interface.

I have to tell you that for my business web services – which is built around billing customers for time I expend on projects, this is a huge time saving improvement. I believe that I will be able to even increase my profitability by accurately logging my time on phone calls and email correspondence for clients with the integrate timer. But it is the integrated time logging and then customer billing that really has me going. Wow, I just cannot begin to state how effective this will be for again streamlining my business billing processes.

If you are like me, the majority of your income comes from time you bill clients, you need to automate this very important part of your business. As for me implementing Peachtree Accounting software was one of the very best things that I did this year. Not only do I have a better handle on my business and its profitability, but I have been able to minimize the time I spend on accounting and paperwork to run my business to doing the things I love which are selling and providing my services.

One quick note, I am not being paid for this review in fact Peachtree doesn’t even know I am writing it. I just wanted to share with you one of the great features that I have found and why I am so glad that I upgraded from Peachtree Pro to Peachtree Complete 2009.

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Are You Still Hung Up On Web Hits?

This blog post from the Microsoft adCenter blog says it best – web hits are nonsense when it comes to measuring web traffic.

Some website owners are still hung up on the big numbers that web hits convey, but in reality a hit is simply the number of images, files, and component items that a single page contains and not a measure of a real person visiting your website. One page can create hundreds of hits in your statistical results if it contains a lot of graphics as the browser downloads the components.

A much better measure of real success is to measure not page views, but unique visitors. Google Analytics and Urchin Web Site Statistics provide these important statistics. By measuring the number of unique visitors you can get a real view of how popular your website really is. Sure the number will be way less than hits but it will be an accurate measurement. On top of that measuring unique visitors is a web standard and one that professional webmasters talk about, dissect, and try to improve.

So don’t think that by saying you got 1 million hits on your website that it means anything, it simply shows unfortunately, your own ignorance of what is really important when it comes to measuring success on the Web.