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I agree with Kevin here, as web users get more search savvy, long-tail keywords conversions are dramatically higher than of the shorter competitive keywords, and I experience that every day, However, I don't see what value Hittail.com provides you more then good ole Google Webmaster Tools. Just as hittail, WT tracks your visitors and provides you with a huge list of long tail search queries that brought users to your site and I'd say its safe to say that 80% of it is from all sorts of long tail keyword combinations.

After conducting keyword research around the content on the homepage, the reasons those keywords are in the title tag is because these keywords are high traffic keywords, or at least when the SEO kicks in they will be. However, in response to the suggestion of  'personal injury lawyers'. If you visit the page http://www.acompensationclaim.com/personal-injury-claim.php you'll see that I'm targeting the generic personal injury keywords, those being "personal injury claims" and "accident claims". Judging from the content on the homepage, it is better to be more specific with the terms to the content on the page. Having the two high volume personal injury terms on the personal injury page is more relevant to the content on that page and therefore more likely to increase quality score search results. So I guess i'm saying, I don't see the logic in having personal injury type keywords in the title tag for the homepage on the homepage. It is only a 2 month old site but its got to be better for SEO in the long run too. Additionally, although time consuming I'm going to create a page relevant to each accident type with (taking Whiplash as an example) What is whiplash What are the symptoms What is the average payout How long for a whiplash claim to be processed How to claim I think by giving the searcher more information in this way and maybe backed up with some video, this should keep more users on the page for longer and bring hopefully bring down the bounce rate and increase conversions. I main lesson is give the user what they want.

Hi Hardik, I've conducted some research for a similar company and I found that potential customers were searching for terms like: business websites website for business app design ...as well as terms such as web design, web development etc. A good starting point might be to ask potential customers how they might describe what the company does - or better yet, what they would enter into Google if they were looking for the services that the company offers. Good luck!

I agree with David, find a reputable and experienced PPC company that is experienced with your situation, and pay for their expertise. Even if you are spending $1,500 per month on their services. Chances are they will also do MUCH MUCH better than you would in terms of your bottom line. Let's just ignore the time savings from hiring out a good PPC company and focus on your return. Then it just comes down to a number game, and that should help you decide on how much you can invest on hiring a PPC company. Here's an example: Let's say your budget is $4K a month on non-brand campaigns, and you're averaging 40 conversions, so your CPA is $100. If the PPC company does 100% better, you're getting 80 conversions for $5.5K a month ($4K + 1.5K service), and now your CPA is about $67. So what's better? You managing $4K and getting 40 conversions, or spending $5.5K and getting 80? And we haven't even factored in the possibility of an increase in average revenue per conversion yet! If the company can increase that too, well then... you get the picture. Now, let's just focus on just the TIME savings, and let's say you can't go above $4K in total. So the PPC company eats $1.5K, and the rest goes towards your spend. Then the PPC company would only need to do 38% better to achieve the same results and number of conversions. Hope all that made sense.

This question is kind of old, but I have been researching because I had the same problem. Turns out GA doens't track visitors with javascript and cookies disabled. This could also account for a part of the non registered visits by GA. I suggest you check the server logs. You'll probably find the data match there More resources here: http://cse-sea.blogspot.com/2009/09/troubleshooting-discrepancies-between.html http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/analytics/cotsK2GNh_w Hope this helps someone else with the same problem.

David's recommendation is good. I am not aware of any simple, quality AdWords guide like the Beginner's Guide to SEO. A few other great resources: -http://www.google.com/ads/agency/toolkit.html official adwords blog not a beginner's book but still awesome: Brad Geddes Advanced Google AdWords Google Engage Basic Training (AdWords for agencies) Free AdWords book from O'Reilly Probably the best way to go is download the free book and go from there.

Hi Jasmine Thought I had already replied yesterday - obviously not. Thanks for the advice about optimizing for clicks and when to change to optimizie for conversions. All taken on board! We are still in the negotiation period with the client but i'm definitely a lot more confident that we will do a good job for our client taking on the advice received here. Thanks again All the best Anthony

Hi I watched the video and it made some sense however both of my keywords have a similar CTR and I use dynamic keyword insertion to make my ads more relevant. Just seems a bit hit and miss to me. Thanks for the advice anyway.

Hi Ian, Thanks for this - that makes a lot of sense. Have been trying to contact the person who put them up but am yet to hear back (I'm forever hopeful though!). Unfortunately the links are pointing at the homepage, I have already decided to write off a few pages which are suffering from a set of different bad links. The new link building approach will definitely be good links - the website is for a business selling a quality product so there is no reason we can't build it up using normal marketing and avoid the spam! Thanks for your help.

It's not bad necessarily.  You want to keep your ad text and landing page relevant to the keywords in each ad group.  So if you have a keyword in which you want a very specific ad to show up, that's fine.  Otherwise, if you're ok with the same ad text and landing page showing up for a set of keywords, you can put all of those keywords in the same ad group. Note that you can control max CPC bids on keywords, so if one isn't converting as well, or one is doing really well, you can change the bids at the keyword level.

Thanks Joel. I have a laptop and at times, the distinction between google adwords and organic seems faint. Nevertheless... I think you're right. To the unsophisticated, not sure they make note of the differences, when they don't know there's a difference in results. I agree... there's good synergy when you can get ppc and organic working...as they say in real estate...location, location, location... when you see those results repeatedly on the same page... it has impact. Thanks.

I'd play with your ad copy - are you running multiple ad versions for this keyword? One of these ads may produce a higher CTR but also a higher bounce rate. Generally I find my ppc bounces at a lower rate than my organic traffic, but as you illustrated here that's a generalization and must be looked at page by page. Thanks, Denver

Whilst I know you said you aren't looking for software, others who find this thread might be, so for them, there's a tool I recently saw tweeted about which, on face value, appears to be an "SEOmoz of PPC" (of sorts). https://www.syracusa.com/ I wouldn't normally post about a tool I haven't tried, but it's been put together by a respected agency, Forward, so has potential to be really rather good. Would love to know if anyone has given it a try.

Awesome, thanks David, exactly what I was looking for. Cheers, Jez

Interesting, have you checked out there backlink profile? Can you find any others?

A few things that might answer your question: Regardless of the number of competitors there is still a minimum bid requirement. I have tried to find how Google determines the minimum bid to no avail, but there is some secret sauce for this too If you are bidding on phrase, modified broad or broad match keywords, indeed your dropping the bid is probably accounting for your lack of impressions. You should look at increasing your bids for these. Quality Score. You didn't mention if any of these keywords suffer from a low quality score. If they do then this will also attribute to your ads not being shown as frequently. You mention in a comment you want to find an equilibrium to pay as little to show as much. The "Bid Simulator" often shows a nice curve where you can sometimes see a point of inflection. It somewhat follows the law of diminishing returns. I like to target an 80% acquisition with 20% lost to low CPC for impression share. I think that is the happy equilibrium you are looking for.

Why don't you just apply a new coupon code since it's a new account? There are so many of them floating around on the internet. And if you have an MCC, and are signed up for Google Engage, they constantly give you new ones.

The true power of Press Release submission is not in spammy press releases but in having a real issue to write a press release about and then making sure it gets printed and posted online by a real news site. If you can do that then you will get a coveted journalistic link that google loves. What your competitor is doing is not a long term strategy. Even if it is working now, at some point google will catch them and they will spend a lot of time fixing the issue. Just continue posting legitimate content on your blog and site and every now and then do something news worthy so you can then get a media mention online, in papers, radio and on tv. Charitable giving and actions go a long way.

I would suggest 99% of directories do not offer any SEO value. Most paid directories violate Google Guidelines and can lead to a penalty. The major paid directories which comply with Google Guidelines are: Yahoo, Business.com, BOTW.org and JoeAnt.com. There may be a couple others out there. The could also be some niche directories. When evaluating a paid directory the most important thing to understand is what you are paying for. In order to comply with Google Guidelines the fee must be for a review of your site, not entry into the directory. This distinction is important. If the directory offers refunds to applicants who do not get in to the directory, they violate Google Guidelines.