Cheap Hosting - You Get What You Pay For

Cheap hosting is no place for your website. Let's face it, you're trying to do business on the Internet. The last place you want to try and cut corners is with your hosting. If your website is unavailable, if your web pages load slowly, if your website is hacked and someone installs a nasty little virus that brides get on their computer when they visit your website... (oh yes, it happens and Google will penalize you and block people from getting to your website - see the graphic below), you just lost ANOTHER sale... because of trying to save $400/year - or about $30/month.

You can get high-quality hosting for $30 to $60/month, depending on your needs. High quality hosting delivers performance AND security.

There isn't a faster way to lose a sale, if you ask me. There are a lot of reasons a bride will leave your website. Cheap hosting is just one.

Google Adwords - Minimum Bid To Show Up on Page One

I really like Google Adwords as a source of high-quality traffic. It's not perfect, but then no source of traffic on the Internet is.

Think about it for a minute. A bride goes to Google, types in a search, a keyword search of three to four words (most likely), and then sees your ad.

If you bid high enough you show up at the top before the organic search engine results. If you're not a top three bid you probably show up on the narrow, right column.

She sees it (20% of the people who search at Google click on Sponsored Ads)

She likes it (it has the words in it that "connect" with her head in it's current state!)

She clicks on it (she's on her way to your website's home page or maybe a landing page).

The chances are at least 50-50 she's a good prospect for an inquiry. That is, if you're website converts well. If you have traffic but aren't getting inquiries you have a conversion problem.

Recently, I discovered a little weirdness with Google Adwords while bidding on keywords. Specifically, new keywords and their bids that would get me on the first page of Sponsored Listings.

Google Adwords, Keyword Bids, and the "Minimum Bid" to Show Up on the First Page

Google Explains Click Fraud

Here's a great video that talks about click fraud at Google Adwords. If you're concerned about click fraud on your campaign this video discusses what Google is doing about it.

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable Google is doing the right thing and keeping tabs on this. Adwords is their "golden goose" and I'm sure they want to carefully protect it.

http://videos.webpronews.com/2008/12/16/ses-chicago-google-explains-click-fraud/