A new Web Marketing ROI Calculator - Part 1

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In the beginning, search engine marketers were onlyconcerned about top 10 rankings.
Do you remember thosedays? Then, as things progressed and we began to work"smarter," we began to take note of how th... In the beginning, search engine marketers were onlyconcerned about top 10 rankings.
Do you remember thosedays? Then, as things progressed and we began to work"smarter," we began to take note of how those top 10's wereactually converting to traffic and sales.After all, in any marketing campaign, the true bottom lineshould be your ROI, the return on your investment. That'show you'll know if your marketing efforts are reallyworking, or if you need to go back to the drawing board andtry something new.Recently, I was introduced to a new ROI calculating servicecalled KeywordTool.
It covers both pay-per-click enginesand regular engine results.To write the article, I interviewed Chris Genge ofKeywordTool (http://www.keywordtool.net), and he took me ona tour of the service itself.Question:Please explain what KeywordTool is and what it really does.Chris:"Deciding which keywords best suit each Web site andwhich ones specifically will generatesales/conversions is perhaps the toughest job in SEO.Tools like Word Tracker are a great help in narrowingdown keyword selection, but then what?"In the past, decisions were not based on facts butmostly speculation. This gave people no alternativebut to promote or bid on larger keyword groups.
Weused a shotgun approach in hopes of increasing sales,with no way of telling which keywords were adding toour bottom line!"A common saying in advertising is: `In any goodcampaign, 50% of all advertising dollars are wasted,but which 50%?' KeywordTool can answer this questionfor keyword promotion campaigns."KeywordTool's tracking service tracks the conversionor sales performance of keywords on search and pay-per-click engines, showing which keyword phrases areactually converting into customers and from whichsearch engines. It is not a visitor tracker; instead,it determines keyword performance."With this keyword referral/conversion rateinformation, one can then fine tune their keywordchoices and streamline promotion and bidding expensesto increase efficiency, sales, and profits, or inother words...the bottom line."KeywordTool is an online service that gathersinformation about your Web site referrals andsales/conversions.
Using your private user name andpassword, you can then access the stats so you canreview the information and make informed decisionsabout how to continue your online promotion."KeywordTool is designed for use with SEO and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. It's well suited for both."Question:Is there a way that we can see a demo of how the servicereally works?Chris:"Go to http://www.keywordtool.net At the top of thepage, you will see the log in.
Use the username of"keywordtool" and password of "demo" to access thedemo."The first page is the list of search engines thathave sent referrals to the specific Web site you wishto have monitored. Only search engines that have senta referral will appear on the listed sites.
New searchengines will appear as referrals are sent."The `Create details' or `Edit details' in the firstcolumn is where you would click to configure yoursearch engine settings. This is where you tellKeywordTool what your average cost per click is foreach search engine you want to calculate.
This can befilled out after some data has been gathered."The search engine column is the list of only thosesearch engines that have referred visitors to your Website. You will notice that KeywordTool will alsodifferentiate between regions for those search enginesthat are regionalized."The Column marked "Clicks" tells you the total numberof referrals sent by each SE."PPC is the average price per click you have set foryourself.
For those using this for SEO, this can beleft blank. The PPC can be changed or added at anytime, allowing you to re-calculate your PPC using newinformation."CONV is the number of conversions you have receivedfrom that particular search engine.
The details aboutthe number of conversions are at the next level."You can define what a conversion is:-A "SALE"-A subscription-Downloading a file-Filling out a form-Or anything you consider to be an acquisition"The CONV% is where KeywordTool calculates thepercentage of conversions based on the number ofreferrals received from that search engine. It'sreally just a performance guide of the search enginefor the keywords you have listings for."PPA is the `price per acquisition.' It tells you howmuch each new customer costs you for that particularsearch engine.
The number indicated is rounded to theclosest dollar."ROI is your potential return on investment. It'sbased on the information provided and the referralsand conversion rates recorded."Some of the rows don't have information, because wehaven't defined the cost per click or estimated profiton that particular search engine.
This can be added orupdated at any time."Start the next section by clicking on the columnmarked `Clicks' to sort the SE's from highestreferrals to lowest. Yahoo US has the highest numberof referrals, so it comes to the top of the list."Click on `Yahoo.US.' It will then take you to thenext screen where there are 2 sections marked `searchwords' and `categories.' Search words are referralsfrom SE', and categories are from directories.
Yahoodisplays both so KeywordTool separates the results."Click on `Search Words.' The next screen will displaythe exact results and performance for each keywordphrase. Click on CONV to sort to the highestconversion keywords in this section.
This is thesection where you can start seeing which keywords areworking well for you and which ones are not."The keywords that work well are ones that you canfocus on to ensure they are also listed on the othersearch engines. You can quickly see which of yourinitial chosen keywords are working well and which youmight want to consider dropping or reviewing.
You canthen work to get improved listings on other searchengines for a small select group of keywords that youare confident will give you the highest ROI. Thenumbers provided in KeywordTool's reports could beused to make better, informed decisions."If a keyword phrase is not working well, it mighteither be the wrong keyword for the product offered orthe sales presentation is not working well on thatpage.
Knowing that this keyword is not working well,you can then start to make changes to improveperformance. For anyone who has tried tweaking yourGoogle AdWords Select based on your copy and clickperformance, this works in much the same way.
WithKeywordTool, it's fairly easy to know which keywordphrases to work on and which ones are working well foryou already."The information KeywordTool provides will tell youhow much potential a keyword phrase has, allowing youto know how much to invest in SEO or PPC."All the information in KeywordTool sections can beexported to Excel easily so you can manipulate thedata and quickly determine what your strategy shouldbe for getting better returns from your work. If younotice the Expert to Excel link at the top right ofthe page, it's a very handy little tool."(Continued in Part 2) Article Tags: Search Engine, Which Keywords, Working Well Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .