How Pay Per Click Advertising Really Works

By John Rivers

Organising keywords, as far as PPC (pay per click advertising) is concerned, can be broken down into three parts.

1. Find suitable keywords 2. Use them correctly in your Google ads 3. Control the whole thing with pay per click management software

By the time we get to part three we will need software to manage our PPC campaign and there is nothing finer than the wonderful Ad Grenade.

So, stage one, let's get together a list of relevant keywords without spending a dime !

Both 'Keyword Tool External' from Google and the first class Traffic Travis are free and do a first class job.

Perhaps you are just beginning your online career or are on a budget, then I urge you to only use these free tools to begin with.

How To Compile A Large list Of Relevant Keywords - FREE

From the top of your head make up a list of keyword phrases that you are sure must be relevant - keep it 'tight' - 'Bees', 'Honey Bees', 'Bee Keeping', 'How To Keep Bees' etc. Type these into the normal search bar on the Google home page, a drop down menu will suggest more phrases.

Run all of these, one by one, through Traffic Travis, when you get to the 'send to sorter' stage, eliminate any phrases of less than 2 words or greater than 10 as well as any references to 'free' or 'freeware'. You are looking for buyers not those just after freebies. Download your this list to your Notepad or some other kind of *.txt file where you will eliminate all inappropriate phrases.

At this point we load the entire list into Google's 'Keyword Tool External' and click the 'Get Keyword Ideas button, then add any extra keywords, that Google has suggested, to the list. When you download your list to a text file you will discover that it is arranged alphabetically.

Now sort this list into little groups of very closely matching keywords. You must understand how important this is, the keywords that your ad represents must both appear on the page the ad is pointing to and reflect what the page is about.

There isn't space here to go into a lot of detail on how to use the two tools I have mentioned, however, I think the Google tool is almost self explanatory and Traffic Travis has some very good tutorials.

In other articles I will explain how I use keywords within a campaign and how to manage the campaign itself. When you get to stage three it will become all too clear why, without some kind of adwords software, this whole system would be impossible to manage.

John Rivers

About the Author:

John Rivers has lots more information about pay per click advertising, including why you need to get a hold of the top adwords keyword tool available today.

Cost Effective Recruiting

By Amy Nutt

A typical small to midsized company doesn't have much fat so watching and controlling costs is an everyday part of life. One cost under routine scrutiny is the cost of recruiting. Most of the largest costs of talent acquisition are hidden in variations in new hire performance and management time spent on trying to do it yourself. Cost effective recruiting involves attending to these real costs, not just the direct cash outlays. In this article we will help you understand what is driving your cost of recruitment and help answer the question: "Is there a better and cheaper alternative?"

The Biggest Cost: Variation in New Hire Performance

The biggest cost an organization can incur in hiring is getting a poor performer. Hiring a person is not like buying a physical asset (like a PC) because the variability in new hire performance is so much greater. You may calculate that a Dell notebook will have a lower total cost of ownership than an HP notebook or vice versa; but you won't go far wrong with either brand. The same can't be said for hiring. It's easy to go very wrong with a hire and the costs of making a sub-optimal choice dwarf all the other cash costs involved in recruiting.

The obvious wrong hire is the one you fire or who resigns after a couple of months. All the direct and indirect costs of hiring and onboarding have to be incurred a second time to replace the failed hire. However, the largest cost to your organization is not the obvious failed hire; it's the poor hire that is slow to learn the job, never performs very well, doesn't fit the culture of the company and is certainly not bench strength for the next level up. This type of person will cost your organization money month after month and most likely will become a turnover statistic.

So the CFO's number one question when looking at controlling hiring costs has to be "Are we reliably following the right hiring process to ensure that we are attracting and hiring only top performers?"

The Second Biggest Cost: Wasted Management Time The second biggest cost for organizations that don't have a specialized recruiting department is the cost of management time. Does the plant manager end up spending a couple of hours crafting a poorly written job placement ad instead of looking at ways to cut defects or improve productivity? Is the sales manager spending the afternoon sorting through 50 unqualified resumes instead of shadowing a rep on a sales call?

Recruiting is time consuming and if your managers are spending time doing work that a specialist could be doing faster and better then that is a waste of an expensive resource. It's not just the cost of a manager's salary that is of concern; it's that they are distracted from leading their department, being productive and adding value.

The CFO's second question is "Do we have the right people working with the right hiring process to ensure that we are attracting and hiring only top performers?"

The Final Set of Costs - Direct Cash Outlays

The direct cash costs of recruiting are highly visible and are mainly sourcing related (e.g. the newspaper ad, the job board ad, the cost to attend a job fair) or agency fees (if you use a search firm). From an accounting point of view what is nice about these costs is that they are easy to track but they difficult to define in term of receiving value for money spent. Value here should be defined by a great quality of candidate response not a great quantity of responses. Would you rather attract five candidates with the skills, knowledge and behaviours to be a top performer than 50 candidates who are far from qualified? Time spent implementing a poor process to attract poor quality is a wasteful and costly burden on your recruiting staff and is unproductive.

The risk is that in trying to reduce these visible costs, organizations inflate the less visible costs. If cutting back on sourcing or employment agency expenses leads to lower quality of hire, longer time to hire or more management time spent on recruiting then it is a false saving.

The Argument for Outsourcing and Agencies

As we've discussed, if you look at the income statement you won't see the two biggest costs involved in recruiting (poor quality of hire and the time your managers spend in running an inefficient recruiting process); what you may see is the cost of using a recruitment process outsourcer (RPO) or employment search agency. Is this a cost to be avoided?

The argument for using third party service providers in recruiting is the same as for any other aspect of the business: very often a specialized third party has the expertise, a finely honed process, an investment in technology and the economies of scale to do the work better, cheaper and faster than you can do in-house.

One shouldn't underestimate the value a third party can bring to recruiting. A good search firm is up-to-date on the latest search tools, they have a modern applicant tracking system, and they are well trained in sourcing and selection. In particular, if they really are experts in this area then they have access to passive candidates that your firm just won't have. Passive candidates are people who are not actively looking for a job but can be lured to the right opportunity. Professional recruiters invest a lot of time in building a network of high quality passive candidates, something very few organizations can do in-house.

If a third party can deliver top quality candidates then chances are they are saving you a lot of money not costing you a lot of money.

What About Your HR Department?

As soon as we talk about recruitment outsourcing or employment agencies someone will say "Shouldn't our HR person be doing all our recruitment?" The quick answer is "No, maybe not. Let's understand why. If you talk to full-time recruiters working in a Fortune 100 company they'll take pains to explain why their job isn't anything like HR. A good recruiter has a singular, aggressive, sales like approach quite removed from the multi-disciplinary process oriented style of a great HR professional.

If your organization has a single HR generalist then they will certainly know something about recruiting, but they won't be an expert. It's also unlikely that they've been allocated sufficient time to do a thorough job of sourcing and selecting candidates. Depending on your needs an HR generalist may be able to handle most duties effectively, but for many companies it's asking too much for them to create and implement an effective recruitment process. Drawing upon the expertise and resources of outside service providers can assist to fill in the gaps in the process and produce better results. This is a far better option compared to making a bad hire and compromising your productivity, performance and profitability.

What to Do

Recruiting is a tough area for CFO's to tackle because the most visible and easily calculable costs are not the most important or even the second most important costs. The job of the CFO is to ask tough questions around "Are we confident we are getting top quality candidates who will add value to this company?", "Are we allocating recruiting work to the right people using an efficient and effective process?" and "Are we shooting ourselves in the foot with senior managers spending time recruiting at the expense of their real job?"

We can't just assume that a good HR generalist can do all the work so we need to look at the value of third party providers. The value of a search agency or RPO is assessed on the quality of people they bring to your organization. Focus on quality and the value will be there.

Now can you afford not to use an employment agency?

About the Author:

Members of the Drake International Group of Companies are global leaders in the field of human resources, productivity and performance improvement, staffing and HR consulting. Visit us online at drakeintl.com

Rainbow Club Treats Silk Shoes Like Dresses

By Keth Brocelli

Rainbow Club is one of the most popular names associated with pure silk wedding shoes. It creates the most fabulous designs for glamorous wedding shoes coated with pure elegance and style with distinction. You always find the perfect fit and cut for your dainty feet and the fantastic designs that can match your dresses for any occasion.

Dresses have different cuts, styles and designs like pleated, laced, embroidered, bejeweled and many more. These clothes that you have can find their exact match when you to the exact place for your exact needs. Rainbow Club is the exact name you should find and they will do the magic spells for all your fashion passion and personal sense of style.

Rainbow Club creates unique styles for ivory wedding shoes with all types of designs you can imagine for those awesome pair of ladys shoes. This fashion concept maker always treats its products like lovely dresses for the delicate feet of a woman. If you are the type of person who is very meticulous in every fine detail, you can find the perfect one to do the job for you to satisfy your peculiar sense of taste.

Rainbow Club has its own color studio for shoes where these pretty things are dyed to complement any outfit. It can make the perfect combination for all your dressing needs for all occasion. Rainbow Club collections are one state-of-the-art products distinctly made for customers with sensitive passion for fashionable shoes.

With its waterproofing technology, Rainbow Club can always have your shoes protected to preserve their beauty and charm. You can find the amazing sets of collections of beautifully crafted foot wears on-line if you browse. You can also have your orders shipped and delivered right time, rain or shine, any time of the day beautifully packed.

About the Author:

Rainbow Club is one of the most popular names associated with pure silk wedding shoes. It creates the most fabulous designs for glamorous wedding shoes coated with pure elegance and style. You always find the perfect fit and cut for your dainty feet and the fantastic designs that can match your dresses for any occasion at http://www.englishbridalcouture.com.

What you Need to Know About Business Cards, Yellow Page Ads, And Val-Pak Coupons

By Sven Makowal

In today's world, businesses are faced with many decisions when it comes to marketing and advertising. How do you get started? What media to use in your marketing campaigns. These are just a couple of the immediate challenges. The reality is that all of the options available will work to one degree or another. The key to your success, regardless of the medium you select, is to present yourself in a manner that appeals to your prospect. When this is understood, you can be successful regardless of your selection.

Very often people follow the generally accepted trends and styles. This happens with the clothes we wear (anyone remember Beatle Mania?), the beer we drink (what age are you) and the way we advertise in publications such as the Yellow Pages. Look in the Yellow Pages and you will see page after page of similar looking business card layouts and wording. What happens is we start to mentally purge the look-a-likes and carry on until we see something that is different.

Some of the most interesting, and different, ads that I have seen appear as public service announcements. They have headlines like: Warning! Don't Even Think of Using a Travel Agent Before Calling FREE Traveler Awareness Hotline! The copy below this ad would offer free advice on how to book the best rate for your next trip. I was scanning the travel section because I was obviously interested in taking a trip and this advertisement, because it was different, caught my eye. To make it really successful it also had an 800 number at the bottom to call for a Free Report. There was no ad sponsor so the whole presentation was non-threatening. I was given a safe way to get information I wanted without having to speak directly to a Travel Agent whose will endeavor to sell me.

This same method can be used regardless of the medium you select for your advertising. It can be Yellow Pages, Business Cards and Val-Pak Coupons. The key is to use the criteria that make it different, interesting and non-threatening. Even though the principles are basic there is a definite knack to this type of marketing.

I recently came across a company that, over the last 12 years, has developed automated systems that allow business people to incorporate any type of marketing advertising into an overall Marketing Strategy. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions or AMS. They differentiate themselves by not only providing solutions, but by educating their customers on the proper techniques to use including how to create the right message by medium being used. And it doesn't stop there. AMS provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human interaction.

The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for apathy. If you would like to hear more about Direct Response Marketing and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

About the Author:

If you would like to hear more about Robot-Marketing and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today.

What is Web Based Help Desk Software?

By David Borg

As the Internet continues to expand and grow, the nature of online business continues to change right along with it. Countless businesses have taken advantage of the online environment to break free from the confinement of a fixed location and reach millions of new, potential customers.

It doesn't matter if it's the owner of a small business looking to reach out to new locations or the restaurant owner that wants to add new convenient features for the customers, like online menus and ordering for people who don't have the time to spare for a slow meal. Either way, the Internet has added revolutionary ways for companies like these to do business.

When online, it is imperative to remember that customer service is now more important than ever. Using the internet for your business ultimately increases your competition, so the quicker you can put out fires, or respond to customer inquiries the better you can maintain your online business. Web based help desk software can really help you out with this aspect.

With web based help desk software take care of your customers become an easy task. To make things easier you can usually custom tailor a help desk package your unique circumstances, allowing your customers to search for help 24x7.

What help desk software does is create an opportunity for your customer to get the information they need when they need it. You give you customers and clients a proper avenue to reach your business to share concerns, questions, or even the occasion flattery.

The best part of the web based help desk software is that it can be formatted to the personal and unique needs of each individual business -- if you need to offer your customers email support, done; if you need to organize any and all customer service experiences, done; or you may simply want the ability to for your customer service employees to communicate with each other in order to save valuable time by re-solving a customer problem, this, too can be accomplished using web based help desk software.

On top of that, web based help desk software is easy to integrate with any existing programs or websites you may be using. This software also runs smoothly on a Windows based intranet server, which makes it easy to deploy and maintain.

Web based help desk software is becoming a very popular option for companies looking to take advantage of the opportunities and features that the Internet provides. If you're ready to take your company to the next level and provide the support and service your customers expect, this may be the answer for you.

About the Author:

If you are growing your business on the web and want to improve your ability and customer service, consider web based help desk software. See the benefits of online software for you company.