Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Better Your Biz

From MSNBC's Your Business:

Colleen Debaise, The Wall Street Journal small business editor and author of the book, The Wall Street Journal Complete Small Business Guidebook, and investment adviser and author of the book, Payback Time, Phil Town share some ways you can better your business.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/video/better-your-biz-3

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Google Rips Rip Off Report From The Search Results

We live in a culture where it is far more profitable to solve symptoms than it is to solve problems. As such, the disappearance of ripoffreport.com from Google's index probably has retainer-based reputation management firms like reputation.com singing the blues.

Ed Magedson, the owner of Rip Off Report, has been charged with RICO in the past and managed to come through unscathed, but he has never tackled an opponent as media savvy or powerful as Google.

He is pretty savvy with the legal system & the media, so it will be fun to watch how he responds to this one, as his business model relies relied on top Google rankings:

Attorney: So what I've gathered from all of your testimony, Dickson, is that Ed Magedson has indirectly told you that he is responsible for making posts about companies. He will make these posts.

Mr. Woodard: Yes.

Attorney: And then he will manipulate the search engines; is that true?

Mr. Woodard: No question about the search engines. That's where the money is made.

A new take on Will it Blend: can a vampire suck blood from another vampire?

Vampires have often found it advantageous to maintain a hidden presence in humanity?s most powerful institutions. In the 1600s, it was the Catholic church, and today, as you all know, it?s Google, Fox News.

Update: adding intrigue to the situation, it looks like the site was removed due to a request inside Google Webmaster Tools, but the folks from ROR claimed they didn't make the removal request: "Ripoff Report did not intentionally request Google to delist the website, and we are still investigating what occured."

Update 2: Looks like they are back ranking in Google again. Perhaps someone found yet another loophole with Google's URL removal feature.

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Source: http://www.seobook.com/google-rips-rip-report-search-results

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Google Brand Bias Reinvigorates Parastic Hosting Strategy

Yet another problem with Google's brand first approach to search: parasitic hosting.

The .co.cc subdomain was removed from the Google index due to excessive malware and spam. Since .co.cc wasn't a brand the spam on the domain was too much. But as Google keeps dialing up the "brand" piece of the algorithm there is a lot of stuff on sites like Facebook or even my.Opera that is really flat out junk.

And it is dominating the search results category after category. Spun text remixed together with pages uploaded by the thousand (or million, depending on your scale). Throw a couple links at the pages and watch the rankings take off!

Here is where it gets tricky for Google though...Youtube is auto-generating garbage pages & getting that junk indexed in Google.

While under regulatory review for abuse of power, how exactly does Google go after Facebook for pumping Google's index with spam when Google is pumping Google's index with spam? With a lot of the spam on Facebook at least Facebook could claim they didn't know about it, whereas Google can't claim innocence on the Youtube stuff. They are intentionally poisoning the well.

There is no economic incentive for Facebook to demote the spammers as they are boosting user account stats, visits, pageviews, repeat visits, ad views, inbound link authority, brand awareness & exposure, etc. Basically anything that can juice momentum and share value is reflected in the spam. And since spammers tend to target lucrative keywords, this is a great way for Facebook to arbitrage Google's high-value search traffic at no expense. And since it pollutes Google's search results, it is no different than Google's Panda-hit sites that still rank well in Bing. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. ;)

Even if Facebook wanted to stop the spam, it isn't particularly easy to block all of it. eBay has numerous layers of data they collect about users in their marketplace, they charge for listings, & yet stuff like this sometimes slides through.

And then there are even warning listings that warn against the scams as an angle to sell information

But even some of that is suspect, as you can't really "fix" fake Flash memory to make the stick larger than it actually is. It doesn't matter what the bootleg packaging states...its what is on the inside that counts. ;)

When people can buy Facebook followers for next to nothing & generate tons of accounts on the fly there isn't much Facebook could do to stop them (even if they actually wanted to). Further, anything that makes the sign up process more cumbersome slows growth & risks a collapse in share prices. If the stock loses momentum then their ability to attract talent also drops.

Since some of these social services have turned to mass emailing their users to increase engagement, their URLs are being used to get around email spam filters

Stage 2 of this parasitic hosting problem is when the large platforms move away from turning a blind eye to the parasitic hosting & to engage in it directly themselves. In fact, some of them have already started.

According to Compete.com, Youtube referrals from Google were up over 18% in May & over 30% in July! And Facebook is beginning to follow suit.

Categories: 

Source: http://www.seobook.com/parastic-hosting

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What to Do When Your AdWords CPCs Are Too High

An issue that is becoming more common as PPC gets increasingly competitive is escalating costs per click (CPCs) in niches that had previously been relatively uncompetitive. The problem here is that PPC campaigns that had once been profitable or that may have been viable become untenable for advertisers. If a conversion becomes profitable for you at $75 and you’re paying $15 a click, it’s very difficult to run a profitable campaign.

In this post, we’ll look at five things you can do to try to push down those AdWords costs per click.

1. Focus on Improving Quality Scores

We usually like to start here, as a focus on Quality Score affords you an opportunity to compete in the auctions you want to be in for a reduced rate without shifting your keyword or network targeting. Many times if you’re taking over a new campaign, re-organizing the highest volume campaigns to focus on click-through rate as well as conversion and creating more relevant groups can greatly improve your Quality Scores and lower your costs.

Obviously regular readers of the blog know Quality Score is a frequent topic at WordStream, and our Quality Score toolkit is a great collection of resources on how to increase your Quality Score.

2. Find Alternative Keywords to Target

Many times, despite your best efforts to improve Quality Scores, an auction may still just seem too competitive and expensive for it to make sense for your product or service. In these instances, you may just be targeting the wrong terms. You can expand your keyword list in either of two ways in these instances:

  • Wider – Target a new niche. By identifying a tangential keyword vertical to the one you’ve been attempting to drive traffic around you might find a less competitive, more cost-efficient means of driving qualified traffic.
  • Deeper – By getting more specific and targeting longer-tail, more granular variations of your core keywords, you can often find highly qualified traffic for significantly less money.

3. Allocate More Spend to the Content Network

If you’ve attempted to lower your Quality Scores and have exhausted alternative keyword targeting strategies, you might try to find more volume from the content network (or get started with a display campaign or AdWords retargeting campaign). Often times even when competition is high and CPCs are sky-rocketing on the search network, the content network can offer less competition and lower costs per click, and might actually convert well and generate acceptable costs per acquisition for you.

4. Allocate Some of Your Budget to Another Network Altogether

Similarly to focusing more of your budget on the content network, trying out platforms such as adCenter, Facebook, and LinkedIn that generally have fewer advertisers vying for clicks than AdWords can often allow you to get similar quality traffic for lower CPCs. Obviously if your content network campaigns are also handicapping you on AdWords, networks like Facebook and LinkedIn might be problematic as well, and you might want to revisit the fundamentals of your display targeting and ads. Similarly, if your campaigns aren’t well-optimized for Quality Scores and conversion on AdWords, moving to adCenter likely won’t solve your issue, but if competition is the main factor driving up CPCs, any of these networks may allow you to find more volume for lower costs.

5. Revisit Your Conversion Flow

Finally, if all else fails, you may simply have to revisit your conversion flow – from your ad copy all the way through to goal completion. It may be that the only way to make the economics of your pay-per-click campaign work is to focus your efforts on landing page optimization and convert more of that expensive traffic you’re driving.  If you’re aiming for $75 conversions and are paying $15 a click, rather than lowering your CPCs, you might be able to nudge your conversion rate up to 30% and make your campaign profitable that way. Check out this list of 20 great conversion rate optimization resources for more ideas on how to improve conversion.

Ultimately, even though paid search is becoming highly competitive because of the targeted nature of the channel and the great results many advertisers are seeing, you can still find ways around high CPCs to create profitable campaigns in many crowded niches.

About the Author

Tom Demers is co-founder and managing partner at Measured SEM search engine marketing consulting, a boutique search marketing agency offering search engine marketing services ranging from pay-per-click account management to search engine optimization and content marketing and link building services such as guest posting services and blog consulting.

You can learn more about how Measured SEM can help or get in touch with Tom directly via email at tom at measuredsem.com or by following him on Twitter.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/07/18/adwords-cost-per-click-too-high

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Still on the Fence? Here Are 3 Reasons to Start Doing PPC

On the Fence

Are you still not doing PPC?! Silly business owners! There are many reasons to explore paid search marketing as a lead generation channel. Here are just three good reasons to get you started.

1. PPC Ads Won't Poach Your Organic Traffic

AdWords recently released the results of a study designed to answer a question that many advertisers ask: Will running pay-per-click ads cannibalize my organic search traffic? To address this concern, statisticians at Google built a statistical model to make predictions about click volume based on ad spend. According to Google:

This model generates estimates for the incremental clicks attributable to search ads or, in other words, the percentage of paid clicks that are not made up for by organic clicks when search ads are paused.

Google found that 89% of traffic generated by PPC ads is not recovered by organic traffic when those ads are paused. Which is to say, you can't expect to make up the difference in traffic through organic search if you're not doing PPC. Time for a new excuse!

Learn more about the study below:

2. PPC Delivers Faster Results than SEO

I would never advocate against using SEO as means of driving sustained traffic. But the reality is, SEO is hard and it takes a long time to build an authoritative site with aged URLs that earn consistent rankings. When you need immediate results, PPC is a great alternative. You can get placement on the first page for relevant searches almost immediately, provided you're following some basic best practices and bidding appropriately. This means you can start seeing traffic and conversion in days versus weeks or months.

Google, of course, wants to make it super-easy for businesses to get started with PPC. For example, AdWords Express is a new offering that helps you quickly set up a local PPC campaign on a low budget.

3. PPC Is Ultra-Measurable

SEO often feels like a big guessing game. Organic traffic goes up, organic traffic goes down, but it's not always obvious what factors contribute to the dips and spikes. Even if you A/B test every change you make to your website (yeah, right), there are variables that are out of your control – has Google made algorithm changes? Have your competitors made changes that pushed them up in the results, pushing you down? Has the search volume for certain phrases dropped or gone up?

With PPC marketing, it's generally easier to measure and analyze what's working and what isn't. It's very easy to test multiple ads at the same time – Google will handle the testing for you, running the versions concurrently and choosing a winner (you can choose whether to optimize for clicks or conversions). (Here are some good ideas for coming up with ad variations to split-test.)

There are lots of other metrics to analyze too. For example, Google assigns each of your keywords a Quality Score – a low Quality Score tells you that Google's system doesn't think your keyword, ad and landing page are relevant. It's more difficult to get a reading from Google on the quality of a regular web page.

So what are you waiting for? What are your other concerns? Let us know in the comments.

Image via Hash Milhan

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/08/16/reasons-to-do-ppc

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American Business: Salty Story

From MSNBC's Your Business:

Many of us probably take a product like salt for granted because it's available everywhere and it's cheap. Therefore, most of us would never even think of creating a high-end food and gift business based on salt. One business has actually found success in doing so however. That's because the owners managed to market themselves by properly seasoning their story.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/video/american-business-salty-story

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How 4 Companies Used Yelp To Woo Customers

From TJ McCue:

Life for retailers, particularly restaurant owners, used to be simpler. That was the life without customer review sites, whereas now, every citizen can poke holes in your customer service efforts. This post looks at successful approaches business owners can use to make Yelp into a marketing and sales tool, as opposed to letting it work against them.

Restaurant reviews seem to be the most popular on Yelp, but the service covers many other categories. It used to be that a restaurant would only get an official newspaper review every so often, but with mobile applications and social media, restaurants are under a constant deluge of “citizen reviewers.” In fact, nearly every business faces this same sort of scrutiny and opportunity.

Some will scoff when told it is an opportunity to be reviewed. In every customer interaction, there is a lesson and a chance to shine. Review sites up the game, for sure, but if you provide honest, good service, you can thrive online and in real life.

Here are four success stories to learn from:

Bagelheads

Bagelheads, located in Tallahassee, Florida, has 14 reviews. When the owner, Ben Giles, wasn’t as active online in 2009, there were a few not so favorable remarks. He told me that he likes those reviews, learns from them, and believes that customers can see his progression. Now that is a great attitude.

He likes that you can respond to posts directly and get a chance to give a personal feel to the customer. It shows that you care, and is useful in addressing problem areas. His advice is to use some sort of checkin reward that is visible to the customer when they see you on Yelp. They also created a scannable QR code for the website to give customers more info on their social media efforts, which include Yelp.

Findwell

Findwell is a real estate brokerage in Seattle. CEO Kevin Lisota told me that it is important to hit the basics on these sites: Make sure that your business is not only listed, but that the information is accurate and completely filled out. Consumer trust increases when they can find a photo, website, e-mail address and sometimes special discount offers, rather than just a generic listing.

Their reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Lisota said that negative reviews can be more beneficial than a great review. It teaches him and his staff new lessons and shows consumers how his business behaves when things go wrong, which is super important today.

In a Pickle

In a Pickle is a small restaurant in Waltham, Massachusetts that credits a ton of their business success to their activity and outreach to customers and fans on social media. With 173 reviews and a 4.5 star rating, owner Tim Burke is doing something right. He estimates that 30-40 percent of new business is generated through Yelp. Out of all of his activity on social media channels, he has made it a priority to make sure they have a high rating on the site. He openly says how not having a high rating on Yelp would be disastrous to his business.

Tim knows that customers who are already following him on social media are fans of his food—they wouldn't have liked his Facebook page or followed his Twitter handle if they weren't—so he leverages all of his social channels to encourage customers to review the restaurant themselves. He even sent me this tweet, where he thanked a customer.

Castle Ink

Castle Ink is in the printer ink cartridge business, which is a pretty competitive industry. Bill Elward, president of the company, said that review sites like Yelp are a blessing in the industry. Yelp and similar sites help consumers weigh their options by providing honest feedback on quality. They are active on Yelp, Google, City Search and now credit 10 percent of all orders placed as having originated at one of these review sites.

Yelp is not just for restaurant owners. Most businesses can grow their sales and online presence with review sites like Yelp. From almost every business owner I heard this one bit of advice—recognize that you are going to get reviewed whether you want it or not. Online tools such as Yelp will continue to grow in prevalence, and it pays to embrace them and participate in the active online discussion with your past, current and future customers.

Please share your success story with me here in the comments.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-4-companies-used-yelp-to-woo-customers

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Optimize Your Marketing With SEO

mar·ket·ing - an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer.*

op·ti·mi·za·tion - an act, process, or methodology of making something (as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.*

mar·ket·ing op·ti·mi·za·tion - The systematic process of moving goods from producer to customer as efficiently and effectively as possible

"Marketing" can mean many things, but as my favorite definition states, marketing is fundamentally about moving goods from producers to customers. Traditionally, marketing has largely been about offering something and finding customers that wanted it. The more clever characters figured out how to offer something and make people want it (even if they didn't need it!), but the most brilliant of marketing geniuses discovered that the best way (the "optimal" way, you might say) to move goods from producers to customers was to find out what people wanted, and then offer it to them. At that point the goods literally sell themselves.

But like people, most businesses do more talking than listening, and despite the desire to talk and talk and talk (and spend and spend and spend), we need to stop talking and start listening.

Listen To The Customer

listening to your customers is of utmost importance. What, where and how they want what they want is non-negotiable. We don't have to cater to our customers wants, but if we don't, someone will. If you ask them what they want, they'll probably tell you (and be grateful that you asked!)

Listen To The Competition

Unless you're at the top of every channel, listen to your competitors. They are probably working as hard as you to capture the same audience, and if you pay close enough attention they might show their hand. Reinvent the wheel if you're a wheel inventing company, but if you're the rest of us you can learn from the successes and failures of your peers and save yourself some unnecessary hassle.

Listen To The Search Engines

Whether you like the hunt of search engine optimization or disparage it altogether, the authority of search engines like Google and Bing cannot be denied. Listening to the search engines is the first important thing - if you're not appeasing them, you don't get the chance to appeal to your customer. A professional SEO company or experienced search marketer knows how to read Webmaster tools, SERPs, Analytics - all the information to put yourself in the best possible position is available if you want it.

Listen To The Customer

So important it was worth saying twice.
 
The last 10 years have seen a dramatic shift in effective marketing. This shift has evolved mostly due to the fantastic growth of the Internet (and the portals and search engines we use to navigate it), but also to the metrics and analytics web-based marketing can provide. From ecommerce to social media, return-on-investment (ROI) is no longer a vague concept - if you don't know what the acquisition of a  lead/sale/client costs, you're not paying attention.
 
Unless you've made the conscious decision to not be found by new business, you are missing the single greatest moment of marketing opportunity - when a motivated customer has asked for what you have to offer. Being present at the moment of search offers results that border on magical. Having customers contact you and ask to take goods off your hands isn't wishful thinking - it's a sound, measurable strategy.
 
Regardless of your market, your message or your method, unless your customers live in a cave they (like the other 95% of the American population) use search engines as part of their purchasing cycle. Unless you know how they ask and what they want to hear, you're missing out by not speaking their language. Unless you know the questions, you're not likely to be the answer.

*definitions source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

 

Source: http://www.deepripples.com/blog/optimize-your-marketing-with-seo

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Another look under the hood of search

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/oUGWXmB3Fus/another-look-under-hood-of-search.html

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Marketing Malpractice and How To Avoid It

While malpractice is a concept traditionally used in the legal and medical fields, it is one that can readily be transferred to the marketing industry. While applicable to the field in general, Marketing Malpractice in New Media is of particular interest due to the constant expansion of the field, and the loose (and often non-existent) standards of professionalism that are common to cutting edge industries of new media, web development, and internet marketing.

Over the past few years I have had the opportunity (and occasionally misfortune) to collaborate with a variety of professional service providers. These individuals (and the associated organizations) each have had their unique processes for enrolling and engaging with clients, and it has been very informative to see how different companies distinguish themselves in terms of professionalism. These observations have been invaluable to the ongoing development of our professional SEO company. In some cases, partners and associates have provided a standard of excellence to which we can aspire. In others, these (short term) relationships have provided horrible examples of what NOT to do.

The majority of Marketing Malpractice comes not from maliciousness or any intent to deceive, but from a particular form of cognitive bias referred to as the Dunning-Kruger effect. The basic notion is that people frequently make poor or erroneous decisions due to incompetence, but that very incompetence robs them of the ability to realize the error (even in hindsight). The hypothesis is as followed:

  1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
  2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
  3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
  4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

The resulting studies concluded that incompetence resulted in a grossly inflated view of one's ability, and without the development of actual skill or ability, one's incompetence could not be recognized. It is my belief (and strangely, faith) that this phenomenon is where the majority of professional negligence stems from. However unintended, ignorance should be no excuse.

Understanding Malpractice

The term Malpractice is loosely defined as the failure of a professional to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty results in injury or damages to an individual or entity. While there is no professional standard of conduct in the marketing industry, that doesn't absolve marketing firms from holding themselves (and each other) to a standard of professionalism.

For the sake of conversation, lets borrow some terminology from the legal field to draw parallels.

Negligence

Negligence is not the same as carelessness, because someone might be exercising as much care as possible, but still fall sort of the competence expected of them. Negligence is when the actions of an individual fall short of what a reasonable person would do, in a similar position, to protect another individual from foreseeable harm.

Professional Negligence

Professional negligence is when one has represented him or herself as having more than average skills and abilities, but doesn't live up to even the standards of an average individual (referred to as a "reasonable person"). This is an interesting concept, as many professionals are assumed to overstate their ability so have to be held to a different standard depending on the situation. Interestingly enough, a professional who overstates their abilities to an absurd level is engaging in Puffery, making claims that a reasonable person should not take literally (also known as "its your fault for believing me").

Due Diligence

Due Diligence is the performance of an investigation of a business or person prior to signing of a contract or entering a relationship. A common example of due diligence is the process through which an employer will hire and screen applicants through investigating work history and contacting references, rather than just taking them at face value.

Loss of Chance

Loss of chance is an issue of causation where the negligence of a professional deprives a client of the opportunity to obtain a benefit or avoid a loss. In the medical field, failure to diagnose a disease resulting in a terminal illness that could have been prevented is constituted as a loss of chance. While the specifics of these issues can be a bit thorny, it seems easy to imagine how they might apply to common practices.

Examples of Marketing Malpractice

Negligence in Identity and Branding

In the medical world, when physicians operate on their patients prior to performing a thorough diagnostic, it's called malpractice. Selling a client a "logo" without any strategy to back it up is just as negligent as a surgeon who removes their patient's appendix without a CT scan or even much of a consult.

Company A spends $25,000 on a new identity and marketing plan. Excited about the project (and the paycheck) the firm responsible then develops a memorable brand, a cool logo, and a strategic marketing plan. However, there remains critical conversations regarding due diligence as it pertains to identity and strategy. Has market research been conducted to identify target customers or "personas" to assure the messages being broadcast are on target? Has there been a conversation about content development and copyright? Has the client been informed on how its identity can be protected from infringement (intentional or otherwise) in the future?

While your marketing agency is not necessarily required to provide legal advice (nor should it), not making the effort to protect the client's interest is unacceptable. Elements such as graphical mark, company name, domain name and slogan are elements that can incur litigation if the appropriate research is not conducted. As a client, you have the right to waive due diligence, but your marketing company does not have the right to neglect it. The absence of this conversation, while an understandable oversight in a pre-adolescent start-up, is unforgivable when it occurs in a seemingly mature, professional organization.

This type of negligence creates a bad name for designers, marketers and brand firms everywhere. Worse yet, it causes well-intentioned clients to form misinformed opinions that "Branding is a waste of money." Or worse yet, "Branding doesn't work."

Solid marketing strategy requires a holistic, intentional approach.

A holistic branding exercise--the kind of exercise we're advocating here--requires both the client and the branding firm to commit to a thorough diagnostic process.

The diagnosis can come in many forms. Often it's initiated by some sort of discovery process. Sometimes this process includes a series of interviews with the organization's leadership, management, internal stake-holders, clients, vendors, and sometimes even past clients. Other times it's a series of exercises with the internal marketing team, envisioning the future state of the organization, and finding which initiatives are the most advanced, and which are the most hollow. But in any case, this diagnosis almost always includes some type of audit or snapshot of everything the organization touches. It's a way of determining where the process started from, and to better determine which direction to head. In some ways, it's a type of SWOT test, pointing out the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to the brand as a whole.

And as an added benefit, when used as a part of a before and after, the brand audit can also help demonstrate ROI by showing where the branding exercise helped improve systems, and close gaps.

Negligence in Web Design & Internet Marketing

As a professional search marketing company, we believe the purpose of a website is accessibility. Whether it be current clients, prospective customers, potential partners or industry opportunities, a website is built to convey information and create connections. At its most basic level, accessibility is about meeting the customer where they are (pull marketing), rather than forcing them to come to you (push marketing).

Browser compliance is the most elemental form of web accessibility. Is your site compliant for Internet Explorer? Versions 6,7 and 8? Firefox? Chrome? What about mobile browsers? Worldwide, more people access the web from portable devices than desktop machines. Are you using Flash? Are you aware that Flash is largely inaccessible from the majority of mobile devices?

Online consumer research has provided robust evidence regarding contemporary consumer behavior.

  • Over half of consumers considering a purchase begin their purchasing cycle online
  • Most consumers use the internet at some point in the purchasing cycle
  • search engines are the primary tool consumers use to navigate the web

To begin a conversation about web development for lead generation without specifically considering the psychology of search marketing is a grossly negligent practice. For many development companies, SEO is beyond the area of expertise, and requires a search marketing firm with which to partner (which makes some agencies uncomfortable, as they may operate from a scarcity mentality). Some development companies claim to provide SEO services, but offer only internal factor optimization, which accounts for about 20% of search engine success. (It is important to note that internal optimization is a CRITICAL 20%. Internal factor optimization is an engineering practice that is far more than installing a WordPress plugin or changing some title tags.) To leave optimization out of the design process is to ignore the majority, and to handicap a client's efforts online. This is one of the most common examples of "loss of chance" in New Media today.

Conclusion

As there is no widely accepted standard of professionalism in the marketing and new media industry, holding professionals to a particular standard is challenging for both associated professionals and the general consumer. What is more reasonable to expect (or at least hope for) is for consumers and professionals to hold themselves and each other accountable through relationships and dialogue. As professionals, we should have the courage and decency to be honest with one another when less-than-professional behavior occurs, and also compassionate enough to forgive the mistakes that lead to growth and change. With our clients, we should also be honest in what we can and cannot deliver (and be held accountable for). A good attorney will tell you that the true value of a contract is shared understanding and mutual expectations between two parties, and not as a back-up weapon when things go wrong.

Source: http://www.deepripples.com/blog/marketing-malpractice-and-how-to-avoid-it

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Increase Sales By Narrowing Customer Choices

From Julie Rains:

In an ever-growing field of choices—courtesy of the long tail of inventory and loads of information—how does the customer choose? Or, rather, how do you help the customer narrow down choices and make a decision?

During a recent shopping excursion at a brick-and-mortar location, I noticed that a specialty retailer adopted what I considered an online model of filtering and refining choices for its customers.

The selling technique looks something like this:

  • Here’s what we have
  • Here’s where you can find ______ (fill-in-the-blank product category)
  • Here’s what is on sale
  • Here’s what is popular
  • Keep looking and you’ll find what you want (or leave without buying)

Such tactics are easy to implement but not helpful for time-pressed and information-overwhelmed customers. Fortunately, many traditional and online businesses offer vastly better ways of guiding customers through the purchase decision-making process.

Allow customers to specify product attributes

Product-selection navigation tools allow online shoppers to filter choices based on a hierarchy of attributes so that the list of suitable items progressively narrows to a manageable number. Very often, this technique works beautifully. The customer finds a handful of items that fit her criteria; from this list, she makes a purchase decision.

Many times, though, the buyer discovers that there is not an exact match between her requirements and the product offerings. Progressive refinement yields zero results rather than the optimal solution. So, she must reconsider. Her next steps are to prioritize requirements, predict which attributes can be found in a single product, and keep searching or, eventually, stop trying.

An even better way to narrow choices is to allow the customer to specify multiple desired attributes simultaneously and continuously select and deselect criteria without having to restart the narrowing-of-choices process over and over again. In a recent visit to Zappos.com, I discovered NavWow, a filtering method that offers a more fluid selection process, rather than a linear drill-down approach that guides customers through the navigation of choices.

The online seller has also expanded its list of attributes from standard criteria such as size and price to characteristics such as “Performance” and “Personality.” (Note that NavWow is still under development and available only to randomly selected customers).

Be flexible with recommendations

The formulaic approach of matching customer requirements with appropriate products is useful but limited in its effectiveness for customers who have difficulty defining and articulating needs.

For example, not too long ago, my husband and I were shopping for a new washing machine. We were debating the relative merits of high-efficiency performance, front-loading design and large-size capacity. As we wandered the aisles of the big-box store, sorting through our options, we overheard a sales associate mention a key benefit of the larger machines: these models could readily handle oversized bedspreads (a situation I had struggled with in the past). This nugget of information—absent from the retailer’s website and excluded from the comprehensive list of benefits associated with product features—helped us make our decision.

So, first recognize that customers need your expertise. Then, be flexible as customers share priorities and then reprioritize their requirements based on your insights.

You can guide the filtering and refining of choices using these methods:

  • Clarify what anticipated end-uses are reasonable and which are not.
  • Explain which attributes are critical and which are convenience- and fashion-oriented.
  • Present features that boost performance.
  • Gently correct false assumptions customers may have about the value of certain attributes or the likelihood of certain occurrences that may impact their decisions.
  • Share real-world experiences on practical applications.
  • Use Customer Information to Guide the Narrowing Process.

Online businesses in particular make recommendations based on several things, including:

  • Customer profiles
  • Past purchases
  • Purchases of those who bought similar items to the ones viewed or purchased
  • Decisions made by those in similar demographic pools.

These techniques can yield spot-on suggestions or irrelevant results. Netflix’s system of recommending titles based on viewing history and customer ratings can be insightful.

But things can go wrong. To give me ideas on titles to consider on a Saturday night, for example, Netflix revealed that those in my city were viewing an X-rated movie. While interesting, this information did not help me find a suitable movie for my family.

Carry the right inventory

The benefit of long-tail inventory (that is, deep and broad product offerings for niche markets) is the availability of items to suit the needs and preferences of an increasingly diverse base of customers. The downside is the difficulty in discovering the perfectly-matched product in a vast sea of inventory.

To offer the right choices to customers, do the following:

  • Decide what market segments your business serves and define each type of customer among these segments.
  • Figure out what these customers expect in terms of product design, performance, features, fashion, and cost.
  • Learn what influences the purchase decisions of your customers (which may be based on product reviews, recommendations from social and professional networks, desire to have newest innovations, etc.).
  • Stay on top of industry trends, new product offerings, value-added features, etc.
  • Merchandise your product line to resonate with your customer. That is, filter and refine choices for customers before they visit your website or brick-and-mortar store.

Offering everything can mean that your customer may never decide. Let your expertise refine choices for your customers. After all, they’re coming to you for information about what to purchase, too.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/increase-sales-by-narrowing-customer-choices

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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

How to Super Size Your Listings in Google

As Google continues to push organic search results further down the page in favour of greater ad exposure and universal search, it is important to maximise the amount of space your website receives from the search giant. The more real estate your listings have, the more likely you are to receive visitors to your website. Below are 6 ways to increase your SERP (Search Engine Result Page) real estate.

1. Dual Rankings

If more than one of your pages is relevant for a search query on any given page, Google will reward you by grouping these listings together:

For example, imagine your homepage was listed in position 2 for the keyword ?running?. On the second page of Google in position 11 you have a different URL that also ranks for the same keyword. If you build enough links to push the secondary listing to page 1, Google will automatically promote it to position 3. The marginal effort needed to push a listing from position 11 to position 10 is typically much less than moving it from say position 3 to 2. This technique can have a huge impact on the number of visitors to your website. A listing in position 11 will receive about 0.66% of all clicks compared to 6.03% in position 4. To achieve dual rankings, build both internal and external links to the lower ranking page using the anchor text of the keywords for which you wish to receive dual rankings.

2. Meta Description

The meta description is the summary that describes your website and should provide a compelling call to action to for any potential customers. I often see websites using just a few words for their meta descriptions, resulting in only a single line in the SERPs. By adding a few more words, a website can take advantage of the second line that Google allows them for describing their site. Each line of the SERPs is valuable real estate and you should make an informed decision about whether you are going to forgo any space. One creative technique that Darren Slatten uses is to incorporate ASCII art into his meta description, increasing it?s space by 250% compared to a normal listing:

3. Forums

Not only are forums an excellent tool to leverage the long tail of search but Google also rewards them with up to 4 additional listings in the SERPs. These extra listings not only take up more valuable SERP real estate, they also stand out and catch a user?s eye compared to a regular listing:

Forum listings will often also contain an additional line detailing the number of answers, as shown in the example above.

4. Rich Snippets

Rich snippets are designed for sites that contain reviews, products, business listings, recipes, or events. Depending on the type of information your site contains, rich snippets will not only enhance your rankings, making them stand out from the crowd and improve your CTRs but they will also increase the size of your listings, as shown in the examples below:

You can add Rich snippets to your website by using any of these three formats: microdata, microformats, or RDFa. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo recently announced a joint venture called Schema which provides webmasters with a shared collection of recognized rich snippets that are supported by the major search engines.

5. More Results

Google won?t usually show more than two listings for each domain on each of it?s pages. However, if your site is a good source of relevant information, Google will display an additional line under your listing:

You can increase the probability of Google showing this extra line by having a diverse set of content on your site, interlined with relevant anchor text.

6. Sitelinks

If Google believes your website is highly relevant for a keyword phrase, especially one that is navigational in nature, you may be rewarded with sitelinks:

Google generates sitelinks automatically, you can?t do anything specifically to receive them (though you can block any that you don?t want via your Google Webmasters account). To improve your chances of receiving sitelinks, you should follow the best practice of using informative, compact anchor and ALT text for any links to your site.

The techniques listed above can help increase your SERP real estate by 2 or 3 lines, doubling the amount of space a regular listing receives as well as helping your website stand out in a sea of homogenous listings.

David de Souza is the founder of MatchingDonations.org, a website that allows your charitable donations to go twice as far. He is also the SEO strategist for the International Professors Project, a non profit that encourages professors to volunteer for teaching jobs abroad.

Categories: 

Source: http://www.seobook.com/how-super-size-your-listings-google

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We love Lucy

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/ZxWcIlfzRII/we-love-lucy.html

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Online Marketing Coordinator / PETA / Los Angeles, CA

PETA/Los Angeles, CA

Position Objective:

To promote animal rights through PETA's websites and elsewhere on the Internet

Primary Responsibilities and Duties:

�?� Develop and manage all aspects of the complex and diverse online marketing projects that promote PETA's mission

�?� Write and edit animal rights�??related Web features and other online content

�?� Create and carry out marketing plans for PETA's Web content

�?� Track and analyze Web traffic and the success of online campaigns and make changes in strategy accordingly

�?� Research and explore new promotion possibilities and Internet technologies

�?� Perform any other duties assigned by the supervisor

Requirements:

�?� College degree in a related field or equivalent experience

�?� Minimum of two years of online marketing experience

�?� Demonstrated extensive knowledge of animal rights issues and PETA campaigns

�?� Proven interest in and strong working knowledge of the Internet

�?� Proven ability to conduct and analyze marketing research

�?� Sophisticated understanding of creative work

�?� Proven excellent project management, strategic thinking, and analytical skills

�?� Demonstrated exceptional written and verbal communication skills

�?� Demonstrated ability to work independently and as part of a team

�?� Proven ability to work well under pressure and within tight deadlines

�?� Support for PETA's philosophy and the ability to professionally advocate PETA's positions on issues

�?� Commitment to the objectives of the organization


Apply To Job

Source: http://jobs.searchenginejournal.com/job/online-marketing-coordinator-los-angeles-ca-peta-c0550e0b9a/?d=1&source=rss_page

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Director of Social Media / ADP / Roseland, NJ

ADP/Roseland, NJ

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADP), with about $10 billion in revenues and about 570,000 clients, is one of the world's largest providers of business outsourcing solutions. Leveraging over 60 years of experience, ADP offers a wide range of human resource, payroll, tax and benefits administration solutions from a single source. ADP's easy-to-use solutions for employers provide superior value to companies of all types and sizes. ADP is also a leading provider of integrated computing solutions to auto, truck, motorcycle, marine, recreational vehicle, heavy manufacturing, and agricultural vehicle dealers throughout the world.

The Social Media Director is responsible for developing, building, and implementing a comprehensive social media strategy for ADP employer services. You will monitor, analyze and regularly engage in social media with respect to corporate issues and initiatives. This role coordinates with the internal PR, Editorial, Marketing, Legal and Product Management team to support the Company's business objectives. The position involves ensuring our social broadcasting is fully integrated with all other efforts across the Company's portfolio, as well as ensuring consistency in voice and cultivating a social media referral network.

RESPONSIBILITIES
:
- Create and implement the social media strategy, coordinating with stakeholders across the Company to ensure its effectiveness and ensure the adoption of relevant social media techniques into the corporate culture and into all of the company's products and services .
- Own the roadmap for the social media tools in use on the Company's site, directing social media tool integration
- Coordinate the planning of social media campaigns, ensuring customer acquisition and supporting monetization across the company's portfolio
- Source and manage relationships with social monitoring and platform partners to support and develop commercial opportunities
- Act as the advocate of social media integration within the Company, influencing overall site and business strategies
- Provide benchmarks and analyze data provided by the Social Media Team, to inform company-wide decision-making and commercial campaign targets are met
- Monitor and comment on trends in social media trends and application, acting as company spokesperson within the Social Media industry.
- Monitor the competition and be aware of market changes and developments
- Become an advocate of the Company in social media spaces, engaging in dialogues and answering questions where appropriate
- Manage a Blogger outreach program and build an active brand ambassador network to spread the word about the Company
- Regularly feed back insights gained from social media monitoring into the Marketing and Editorial teams, to help them evolve their strategies in a timely fashion

Qualifications Required
(Experience, Skills, Academic):

- 5-7+ years of digital marketing experience; at least 2 years in social media
- Creative, diplomatic, cool under pressure and exceptional interpersonal and presenting skills
- Strong project management and organizational skills
- Advanced knowledge and understanding of social media and networking platforms and monitoring suite suppliers
- Knowledge of blogging ecosystem relevant to the Company's industry
- Team player, with the confidence to take the lead and guide other departments when necessary
- Experience with business and strategy development
- Ability to build and leverage a strong network of peers and partners
- Strong working knowledge of principles of SEO
ADP is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer; M/F/D/V. ADP believes that diversity leads to strength.



Apply To Job

Source: http://jobs.searchenginejournal.com/job/director-of-social-media-roseland-nj-adp-b45d79000e/?d=1&source=rss_page

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How Thank You Cards Build Loyal Customers

From Ramon Ray:

Like many of you, I do a lot of social media engagement. I attend a lot of meetings. I talk too much on my cell phone. I give way too many presentations.

However, there's one thing I don't do enough of: saying "thank you."

Sure, I say thank you as it is appropriate directly to the person or persons who deserve thanks, but so often more needs to be done—and not even immediately. The solution is old fashioned thank you cards.

Last week I bought a stack of 100 thank you cards (with my logo) and have made a determination  to use them as much as I can—even for the smallest things.

Here's why am I doing these things, and why you should too.

1. Writing a thank you card breaks through the digital clutter of our lives

We receive so much mental noise through our ear phones and computer screens. A thank you card is a pleasant interruption of the digital noise around us and brings a smile to the recipient's face.

2. Thank you cards show you care

By taking the time to write a note of thanks, the recipient knows that you really value them. We are so busy running our businesses that we don't take the time to breathe, think and express thankfulness. In many cases, a hand written thank you note goes farther than a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com

3. Building relationships of trust and "like" are important in business

My fellow OPEN Forum writer John Jantsch says that marketing is getting people to know, like and trust you. Thank you cards help make this happen in a big way.

4. Don't be forgotten

A few years ago I bought some tickets to go on a trip from an online ticket service. A friend of mine who sells tickets asked me why I did not turn to him. It was nothing personal, but I simply forgot that he sold tickets at the time I was browsing around Travelocity.com. Thank you cards help people to not forget about you. Send thank you cards and send them liberally.

5. Thank you cards are great marketing tools

I was interviewing Barbara Corcoran recently about her use of Dymo labels. She said that in one mailing she put her face (as it was very recognizable) on address labels that she was sending out to customers. Sending a few thank you cards, over the course of a year is a good way to say thank you, but also market your business. Why do you think Amazon.com, Dell and others have their logo all over their boxes?

6. Sending thank you cards disciplines you to not use the computer so much

Many of us have lost the art of hand written communication. We can easily send a 140 character Tweet, but we can't clearly communicate about our business. A hand written thank you note forces us to stop typing and write (with a pen) a thoughtful message to another human.

I'm sure there are so many more reasons why using thank you cards is great for you, your business and the recipient. Whatever your reason, order a batch of thank you cards today and send them out on a regular basis.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-thank-you-cards-build-loyal-customers

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Google AdWords Remarketing Strategy: Three AdWords Remarketing Tips

Google AdWords remarketing (and really remarketing in general) is a hot trend in the world of pay-per-click marketing. Remarketing is basically a way of getting your message in front of people who have visited your site in the recent past – you’ve no doubt seen a site you recently visited “following you around” via advertisements.

And if you’re a paid search manager, you’ve likely set up a slew of remarketing campaigns in the last few months, many times at the specific request of the client, but there are still PPC advertisers who are either just getting their remarketing campaigns started or are still considering how much value there would be in a remarketing campaign.

In this post we’ll cover three important things to consider as you get your first remarketing campaigns up and running.

Are You Ready for Remarketing? Consider the Impact Your Campaign Will Have

Remarketing campaigns can be great, but the first thing you have to think about is the relative impact of a remarketing campaign. Does your site get a lot of traffic? If you’re not driving large numbers of visitors to your site, and you’re spending money inefficiently in other areas of your PPC campaigns to try to drive new visitors to your site, you might be better off prioritizing adjustments to your core campaigns first. Many times I see advertisers spend a lot of time and effort setting up a remarketing campaign only to see it fail to generate any traffic or spend, while they have campaigns they’re spending real money on that are far from optimized.

Choose the Right Offer for Remarketing

One of the most important considerations with a remarketing campaign is finding the right offer for this audience. Generally speaking, people who have already visited your site are “warmer,” so you might want to push this audience into a harder offer. Save your white papers and free downloads for the folks who are finding you on the display network and push these people further down your conversion funnel.

Choose the Right Creative for a Remarketing Campaign

Similarly, deciding on the right remarketing creative is a slightly different process from a traditional display campaign. You still want your ad to get noticed, but since this audience is already familiar with your offering, you can afford to lean more on familiarity than disruption for click-throughs. Think about the way your traffic is divided: Where are most people coming from? What pages on your site have they seen? Catch their eyes with similar but distinct imagery to what they’ve likely already seen, and drive them to a page and an offer that maps well with that creative.

About the Author

Tom Demers is co-founder and managing partner at Measured SEM search engine marketing consulting, a boutique search marketing agency offering search engine marketing services ranging from pay-per-click account management to search engine optimization and link building services such as guest posting services and content marketing.

You can learn more about how Measured SEM can help or get in touch with Tom directly via email at tom at measuredsem.com or by following him on Twitter.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/07/07/google-adwords-remarketing-tips

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SEO / PPC Specialist / Aspex Recruitment / Skelmersdale, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Aspex Recruitment/Skelmersdale, Lancashire, United Kingdom

SEO / PPC Specialist Skelmersdale Basic Salary Negotiable + Benefits

Due to expansion our client are currently seeking an experienced Search Engine Optimisation / IT Professional.

SEO / PPC / IT Technician Job Description

You will be required to manage the in-house SEO Campaigns

Utilising Content Management Systems in order to increase their web marketing presence

Have the ability to work to deadlines

Liaising with customers solving any technical issues they may have

Essential Skills

Computer Networking / Web design / Technical Project Management / Microsoft Office/ Applications / Google Analytics

Salary & Benefits

Salary Negotiable upon experience

Laptop, Mobile Phone / Blackberry

Hours of Work 40 per week

Holidays 20 per annum + Bank Holidays

Working within a modern office environment

Applications

Please click the link provided and simply send your CV in Word Format Only

Possible Searches

SEO Executive, Search Engine Sales Jobs, Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click, Executive, PPC Executive, PPC Specialist, Pay Per click Representative, SEO Executive, PPC Representative, SEO Consultant, SEO Specialist, IT Technician

Aspex Recruitment

Employment Type: Permanent
Work Hours: Full Time

Note: Applicants must be eligible to work in the specified location. No sponsorship is available unless noted in the description above.

Apply To Job

Source: http://jobs.searchenginejournal.com/job/seo-ppc-specialist-skelmersdale-aspex-recruitment-56349fdb53/?d=1&source=rss_page

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Conversion Rate Optimization: Are You Considering Page Speed as a Variable?

Every year my marketing team has an offsite planning meeting where we lay out major goals and initiatives for the coming year. Last winter, site speed made it to the top of that list. The main push for making site speed a priority came from our SEO team. They felt strongly that improving our website’s page load times would improve our organic rankings. Besides the potential SEO benefit, it just makes sense to give your visitors the best possible experience.

We are halfway through the year, and we’ve made some measurable improvements in site speed. Our IT department has revamped code, optimized images, etc. to give our webpages a diet, and we’ve seen real improvements in site speed. During this process, something interesting happened that we hadn’t really planned for or expected (although looking back we really should have).

Decreasing Page Load Time Can Drastically Increase Conversions

Right about the time we started making some major improvements in speed, we got a huge boost in overall conversion rates on our site. We have tracked our overall website’s conversion rate for years, so when we experienced a 15%+ boost in overall conversion rates we were happily surprised.

Normally, when we get a huge lift in conversion rates we get a member of the team claiming credit. Not this time. We ended up concluding that market conditions and an overall shift in our search traffic from SEO to paid search was the primary driver for our big improvement in conversion rate. (I wish we were better about using something like Google Analytics Annotations to keep track of changes to the site).

After a closer analysis, it appears that site speed was definitely a huge contributor to our conversion rate improvements. Milliseconds matter. We found that our organic pages got the bulk of the benefit. Of course, this makes total sense. We’ve been testing PPC landing pages for years (without really considering site speed), and the winning pages just kept getting thinner and faster. Most of our landing pages have limited and simple navigation, no side bar, less content, etc.

Page Load Speed Is a Variable that Matters When Testing

Now I’m questioning all of those tests in which we didn’t consider page load times when picking winners. When we first started landing page testing, back when Offermatica first came on the scene, the main website was the champion and it lost every time to our smaller faster landing pages (where were you on that one Offermatica?). Maybe it was the design, our benefits message, unique value propositions, trust factors, calls to action, etc., but site speed had to be a major contributor and should have been considered.

If we can make this mistake, I’m guessing there are other folks out there doing the same thing. Next time you do a test on your website; make sure you can measure the page load time. If you need help making your website faster you might want to take a look at Google’s new page speed service.

I’m assuming there’s a point of diminishing returns when it comes to conversion rate benefit and site speed, but I don’t think we’ve hit it quite yet, so we will continue to make all of our web pages faster. Moving forward, page load time will be tracked on every recipe in every website test. The difference between 1.5 seconds and 2 seconds could trump your awesome new headline, image, or call to action.

While we're on the subject, check out KISSmetrics' infographic on loading time (click to enlarge).

Page Load Time

About the Author

Chad SummerhillChad Summerhill is the Manager of Digital Marketing at U-Pack Moving, as well as the author of the blog PPC Prospector, provider of free PPC AdWords tools for Excel, and co-founder at both queryminer (search query mining software) and gazel (Excel Add-in for AdWords). Follow him on Twitter!

 

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/08/23/page-speed-conversion-rate-optimization

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Why Your PPC Campaigns are Like the Stock Market and Careful Management of Your 'Portfolio' Matters

by Stoney deGeyter


I've always been an SEO guy. I like getting into websites, optimizing for keywords, fixing problems and then watching the rankings climb.

Because SEO is relatively so inexpensive compared to other marketing efforts, I am often surprised by the amount of dollars companies are willing to invest into PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, while at the same time balking about a similar investment in SEO.

In my experience, SEO often translates into better ROI than PPC! But the primary difference is that PPC is far more trackable than SEO. PPC analytics can give you amazing flexibility into your campaigns and insight into your conversions that just isn't available with SEO.

wall-street-150x150.jpg

Another benefit of PPC over SEO is the immediacy of it. SEO takes time to get results and drive traffic. PPC is easy to set up and can start delivering traffic near instantaneously.

But that's also the biggest problem with PPC. Because they are so quick and easy, most PPC campaigns are simply not managed properly. I often talk with people who believe "PPC doesn't work" for them. It's not that PPC doesn't work, it's that the campaign was built to generate traffic rather than managed to generate a profit.

If you don't know the difference between the two, then it's likely you're not going to be as profitable as you should be.

PPC Marketing is Like Investing in Stocks

Investment in the stock market and PPC marketing has a host of similarities. By drawing these comparisons, I hope to shed some light on the expectations of a well-managed PPC campaign and provide some solutions to effectively managing your PPC "portfolio."

Like stocks, PPC is an investment

Before you buy a stock, you should research the company you're investing in. You're looking for growth potential, price-to-earnings ratios and a whole lot of other stuff. Using this research data, you can analyze and set realistic expectations for what your year-over-year return should be.

Researching the PPC market should include research of your keywords, your competition, your available budget and the estimated search volume and click-through rates for your keywords. But you also need to know your conversion rates, profit margins and a whole lot more. With this information you can then set realistic expectations for what your month-over-month return should be.

Both can easily be self-managed

It's as easy to set up an account with Google AdWords as it is to set up an account with TD Ameritrade and Options Express. All three make measuring performance easy, but don't mistake the ease of use as a barometer for success.

Google and Bing have made managing your ad campaigns as easy as possible. You get reports, historical data and real-time performance results. But again, easy to use does not translate into profits.

Most business owners don't know enough about PPC to manage their campaigns profitably. Effective management of your PPC campaign requires a great deal of knowledge about each system. There are a lot of cool tricks you can do but only if you know about them. Even those who do nothing more than PPC all day still have a hard time keeping up!

Both have their ups and downs

Anybody who has watched a stock for more than 30 seconds knows that the value of the stock goes up and down constantly. With each investment we hope to see our stocks rise in value, and most long-term stock investments do see gains in their investments. But even if you look at a one-year history of consistent stock growth, you're never going to see 100% upward movement.

Any PPC campaign will see similar results when looking at overall cost per conversion. Some days you'll have a really high CPC and other days it'll be much lower. There will even be spans of time when your cost per conversion is unprofitable. This, again, is normal.

The difference here between stocks and PPC is that with stocks, you rely on the market to decide the value. With PPC, you rely on your own management skills to keep your cost per conversions where they need to be to make a profit. But, just as with stocks, there are also outside factors that weigh in on profitability.

Both can bring long-term gains


A well-managed, knowledge-based stock investment can lead to solid long-term financial growth. Unless you are extraordinarily lucky, you won't get rich overnight, but you can develop a stock portfolio that provides a respectable retirement income.

The goal of stock investment is for long-term financial security. PPC can help deliver that, too, when smart management principles are applied. Looking for short-term gains with PPC often goes against your long-term business growth strategy.

Building a smart PPC "portfolio" can be a key component to your business growth. Many people look at PPC as a supplement to SEO until you get natural rankings. Instead, look at PPC as just one of your investment options. Think diversification. But smart diversification is what you need, and smart management of your PPC campaigns can ensure that this avenue of investment not only brings sales, but profits as well.

Follow at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.


Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/why-your-ppc-campaigns-are-like-the-stoc.php

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Optimizing Your Online PR Strategy for Search & Social, Part 5: Broadcasting You

by Stoney deGeyter

Moving your PR online opens up a whole world of new adventures. Not only do all the old rules apply, but many new rules are created to ensure that your content can effectively reach your audience.

So far in this series, everything we have discussed has to do with the set-up and creation of your online PR. All of the online elements need to be taken care of before you can push your story out online. Pushing it out before it's ready will lead to a colossal failure. However, how and where you push your message out is just as critical for it's success.

In this final post, we'll look at the details around how you can broadcast your message to get the most value from your audience, search engines and the social sphere.

Broadcasting Your Message

broadcasting-message.jpg

It's not enough to craft the perfect PR piece, or optimize it to the hilt using your visitors' keywords. Where you push it out to, the tools you use, and how much you allow your visitors to engage with your content are all critical to having a successful online PR campaign.

In the offline world, good PR necessitates a heavy focus on pushing content out to news sources. It also involves creating relationships and currying favor with journalists who may or may not write about your news. Online PR greatly expands the target of your efforts. On the Web, your content needs to appeal to more than just journalists; you're also trying to get the attention of current and potential customers. A submit-it-and-forget-it strategy won't work. You need to submit-it-and-engage-it!

It's Not Just News

not-news.jpg

Moving your PR online also means moving beyond the news mentality. Sure, you can get your PR piece noticed by traditional news outlets or have it hit the search engine news sites, but that's just the tip, not the bulk, of the proverbial iceberg.

A well-crafted piece of PR should be able to reach far more people than news searchers. This is where social media comes into play. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, and tools such as RSS and +1 can help you reach well beyond the traditional news borders. These tools not only reach a broader audience, but they encourage engagement, which can improve the socialization aspects of each piece.

Online PR Submissions

online-submissions.jpg

There are a number of online PR submission sites that you can use to help build, distribute and track your online PR. Each service has it's own unique features, so do your due diligence, and find the one that has the best bang for the buck.

Figure out what tools you want and need for each piece. You may find that one submission service is handy for some content and another is better for other content. Where it gets distributed can have a substantial impact on the success of each piece.

Tracking each piece is critical to following and understanding it's level of success. You may not be able to fully grasp what success means until you've had a chance to submit and track several pieces and compare the results.

Social Pushing

social-pushing.jpg

This is where engagement with your online PR becomes critical. You need to use your social media channels and connections to get more eyes on your content. Facebook, Twitter, +1, and other socialize buttons allow your visitors to promote your content into areas you have no way to reach.

The key is making sure your content is "retweetable." Or in other words, it is something worth sharing? Then leverage these options via your company social profiles, and by adding the socialization icons on the page. The idea is to make it as easy and desirable as possible to have your content socialized around the web.

You also want to make sure you engage with anybody that is talking about, asking questions about, or commenting on your content. Don't just sit and relish the tweets and retweets; talk to people, and use this as an opportunity to build relationships. You may find these relationships valuable later on.

RSS Feeds

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One of the drawbacks of active social channels is that, if your content isn't pushed out at just the right time, it will often get missed. Of course, the right time means when each person from your audience is looking at their social stream!

RSS allows you to get your content to people on their own time. If they subscribe to your RSS feed then they can get notified of new content whenever they open up their feed reader. You may be competing with hundreds of other feeds, but at least you know that your content headline will get scanned rather than completely buried.

If you are not familiar with RSS feeds, I suggest you do a little homework on this, and ask your developers how to implement an RSS feed for your content.

Bringing It Home

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Now we're at the big, "So what?" We understand that getting your online PR piece is great for making sure people see our content. But is there anything more here than just getting one piece of content after another published and read?

Well, yeah. There is a much grander purpose to online PR, and this is what makes the online aspects so great. Each piece of content, if incredibly crafted, can serve as an entry point into your website, drawing in new visitors, customers, clients and information seekers.

Your PR piece isn't just about PR. It's about building a more visible website!

Everything Flows Back To Home

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Everything you do online should serve one purpose: drive traffic and customers to your website. News for the sake of news is pointless. News with a goal of increasing readers and those engaged with your content is fabulous. News designed to increase profits is even better!

Everything you do all boils down to building, branding and marketing your website. Anything less ultimately falls short of it's potential.

See all posts in this series:

Part 1: Intro / How Print Audience Differs from Web Audience
Part 2: Goals of Online PR
Part 3: Background Research
Part 4a: Crafting the Story p1
Part 4b: Crafting the Story p2
Part 5: Broadcasting the Message / Conclusion

Follow me at @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg.

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Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/optimizing-your-online-pr-strategy-for-s-5.php

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