April 2019 | The Web Authority

April 29, 2019April 25, 2019

Google Ads Unmanaged is a Recipe for Disaster

McCord Web Services is a Google Partner and a Certified Google Ads Professional

Don’t have a Google Ads account manager? Trying to go it alone to save money on management fees? Unless you are trained and work daily in Google Ads you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Google Ads is not a set it and forget it program especially if your ad spend is over $2,000 per month for clicks. As Google Ads is a pay per click platform that operates as an auction you may be missing out on valuable activity that could generate leads for your account.

I have personally found that at an absolute minimum, there should be a weekly or more frequent review of your Google Ads account to optimize for performance.

When we do our review, we look for anomalies, areas where the ad spend is not fruitful – such as by device. We look for emerging new keywords and negative keywords to keep an account targeted. In addition familiarity with account performance metrics is key to squeezing the most out of Google Ads for your business’ benefit.

As Google Ads is incredibly powerful and yet supremely complicated, I just do not recommend going it alone when it comes to account management. Without tight controls from an experienced account manager, you can spend big on Google Ads without a measurable return.

I invite you to visit our website to learn more about who we are and what we do. We manage over $3 million in ad spend yearly for clients, find out how we can bring your account to success too.

April 24, 2019January 28, 2019

Domain Name Management Tips

Here's What to Know About Domain Names — Here’s What to Know About Domain Names

Whether you have a new online business or an existing one you’ll want to review my tips on domain name management.

Review
Periodically review the domain names you own. If you don’t need one or are not pursuing that aspect of your business, save money and don’t renew a domain name you won’t need in the future.

Secure
When you start your business, secure domain name variations of your company name to protect your brand. Consider buying the .us variation in addition to the .com if you are a U.S. based business and other country extensions if you have a presence there.

Save Money
You don’t need to buy hosting for every domain name you own. You can use domain forwarding to point domains you own to your main desired domain where your website resides.

Select
New or old, periodically it makes sense to review the domain names you do own. For those you are using for your website and online presence, set your renewal in five year increments. For those you may let go in the future consider one year or two year renewals.

Need help with our domain name management? Contact www.McCordWeb.com today.

April 22, 2019January 28, 2019

What to Consider When Thinking About Using Facebook Advertising

Put Facebook to Work Using Their Pay Per Click Advertising

Here are my tips as to when you may want to consider advertising your business and services on Facebook.

One, if you have a relatively low ad budget and want to test if pay per click might be a good option to grow your business, Facebook pay per click advertising is a good match.

Two, if you have customer demographics that fit with the older Facebook user, Facebook advertising may be a good fit for your needs. If your audience is in their 20’s and 30’s consider Instagram instead of Facebook.

I have had clients have success advertising products and services on Facebook. Here are some additional considerations if you decide that you would like to try it out.

One, make sure you are monitoring comments. Readers will post comments to your ads and if you are not watching competitors may even post their own links in the comments. You can delete any comments you find offensive or not business enhancing. It is not uncommon for trolls to post negative things on your ads, so it is crucial that you be monitoring ad comments.

Two, I do not typically encourage driving Facebook pay per click traffic to your Facebook page but rather to your website so your message is shaped to put you in the best light.

If you need help on strategies or evaluation of Google Ads as an option, make sure to visit our website for more information and pricing.

April 17, 2019January 28, 2019

Contact Form Solutions

Occasionally we have a client who is using a low-end web host or who is self-hosting and does not have a cgi-bin or scripting enabled in order for us to install a contact form processing script. Sometimes this has lead to expensive programming charges. We do not offer programming and so we have to contract out this portion of a project adding to expenses.

We have found a service that will process the script for you on their servers and so far it looks like a clean and elegant solution to a thorny problem for some clients. You will want to click our post title to review the site MyContactForm.com. With a premium account for $24.99 per year, now any client can have a professional seamless contact form installed on their site without complex programming initiatives. I think that it is a very smart solution.