Comments on: Ask Kirsty – My PPC Landing Page Isn’t Converting – What’s Wrong?

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:35:11 +0000

Hello Mark, well to be honest I don’t give a project time I give the merchants traffic. If by the time I’ve sent a merchant 1,000 clicks things aren’t working out its time to either trial a new merchant or accept that I’ve just not gotten the niche right.

However, do bear in mind that the niche that’s not going well this month might suddenly perform during another season so its always worth trying to work out if you’re doing the wrong thing or the right thing at the wrong time!!

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:17:24 +0000

Hi Kirsty,

Some good answers here so I hope to pick your brain again.

How long do you give an idea/website to make a profit before stopping?

I know this is a very hard question to answer but any indications would help. I seem to be going too long with a website not converting well enough but I don’t want to give up too early either.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:03:40 +0000

Awright Zane! Good to see you commenting on here.

Usually I can come up with a list of 1,000 keywords in about an hour. It’s all about knowing which keywords relating to a merchant will provide good volume and then seeking to expand them by adding in subtle variations around them.

For example: -

“sanyo stereo” can become: -

buy sanyo stero
cheap sanyo stereo
sanyo stereo online
sanya stereo store

etc, etc, etc depending on what keyword variations I know from experience will work 1. generally and 2. in specific sectors.

Make sense?

By: Xaine

Xaine — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:57:41 +0000

Hi Kirsty,

Excellent post as usual and very helpful for us not as savvy with PPC.

I did have one question though. How does one gain a list of 1000 or more effectively? Is it a case of starting with a base list and expanding upon it with a find/replace tool or does this large list also include “exact match” derivatives and the like. I have sometimes struggled to get more than 250 but I suppose spending a couple of hours or half a day on a quality list is something you don’t want to rush.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:56:18 +0000

@Mark – It does depend on sector but if you know what you’re doing there’s a whole heap of traffic out there that no keyword generation tool knows about. I’d probably put up 1,000 to see where the traffic was and then pare them back to help keep them manageable.

I don’t think I can be more specific than that really, keywords are something you learn about as you go along via trial and error. I’ve now just got an instinct about what I shoud do to generate good traffic!

By: remoteinsider

remoteinsider — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:02:29 +0000

Good advice here and i definitly agree that the cosmetics and placements of items of the page help make a impact on your audience!

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:40:57 +0000

Great Article Kirsty – I was wondering about one point you make about keywords…I understand you should get terms related to brands etc but how do you generate enough traffic when searching on such specific things?

When I try this the traffic goes so slow it would take days/weeks to see if it is working.

So how many keywords would you start with for testing out this phone website for example? Are we saying 100 or 1000?