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Ppc Budget, "how Much Should I Spend"

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:52:41 +0000

Deciding on a pay per click (PPC) budget can be a daunting task for a business new to the Search Marketing world and rightly so. Spend too much with little return on investment (ROI) and it wont be long before you feel a little jaded towards PPC advertising. Don’t spend enough on the other hand and many search consultancies will not have a product to sell you. It is a marketing tool that requires careful budget consideration. One cannot simply pull a figure out of the air and hope for the best. There are many ways to come to an educated decision on a PPC budget Here are three easy steps applying the “estimated cost per click, key word approach”. (1) Identify the more general key words or phrases within your campaign, these are typically those key words that are only one or two words in length and have the highest volume of searches within the search engines. These key words will typically be the most expensive to impress on the search engines and as a result eat up your budget. (2) The next step is to obtain an estimated cost per click on these key words. As an example you can obtain this using Google’s Key Word Tool from here: Key Word Tool (3) Finally based on the above figures, you can make a informed decision on how much you will need to spend to obtain the desired clicks. Keeping in mind that this is a estimation and you will still need to allocate a portion of your budget to lower volume key words. You can find more Search Engine Marketing (SEM) related material here, www.focussearch.com.au - About the Author: Article Source

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Ppc Budget, "how Much Should I Spend"

Reader Poll: Help Make Online Marketing Blog Even Better!

BlogPostman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:00:19 +0000

Thanks to readers like you, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has experienced a long and rich blogging life over the past 6+ years with 2,300+ posts, hundreds of thousands of unsolicited links from powerful industry web sites and content that has helped thousands of readers become smarter online marketers. We watch what our readers say in comments on and off the site as well as looking at referring keywords in web analytics and site search keywords to get an idea of what our valued community is interested in. With over 30,000 RSS subscribers and well over 100,000 unique visitors, we appreciate your attention a great deal and want to do our best to be a helpful resource. To help us further refine the content we offer you, please complete the following poll on what types of posts you like best. If you have more to say, such as what topics you would like to see more of, or any other insights, please make suggestions in the comments. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Thank you for participating in this poll and if you ‘ve made a comment, thank you even more for sharing your insight! If it wasn’t for you, TopRank Online Marketing Blog wouldn’t have become one of the most popular marketing blogs on the web. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Reader Poll: Help Make Online Marketing Blog Even Better! | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Top Benefits Of Ppc Marketing

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:16:44 +0000

PPC is one of the most valuable marketing tools available today for web business owners. It is a great way for them to generate traffic and sales quickly to their site. It has proven to be very beneficial to all web business owners no matter what the size of their business is. There are also other great benefits to running a PPC marketing campaign. First of all there is the benefit of financial planning. With PPC marketing you have the ability to set up a daily budget for the amount of money you would like to spend on advertising in any given day. If your marketing campaign seems to be making you huge revenue then you can increase it any time you feel you are ready.There is no set limit on the amount that you are able to spend• PPC marketing is a well planned targeted campaign that you create. You will have the choice of what keywords you would like to use on your site. These keywords will also ensure you to get specific traffic to your site based on your product. There needs to be careful planning in this stage of the game though to ensure that it takes off successfully. • PPC Marketing also has campaign flexibility. PPC will help you accent your products brand name as well as its quality. At any time you can add or remove keywords to your ad campaign to drive even more traffic and sales to your site. You also will have the ability to introduce any new components to your advertising campaign at any time. This will help you increase your ranks on the search engines. • Another benefit of PPC marketing is that you pay for what you get. Remember with PPC marketing you only pay for the number of clicks that you receive on your site. Unlike some of the other marketing tools that are available on the internet today you will pay for only genuine people that visit your site. These people are actually looking for your product which is why they clicked on your advertisements. These genuine people are usually the ones that are generating your revenue for you. • There is also testing potential that is available with your PPC marketing campaign. If you have launched a new product and would like to know how it will do with the general product you have the ability to do a test run. The number of clicks that you receive on the product will help you know if the product will generate revenue for you or not. • A final benefit of PPC marketing is that you are able to see instant results. A very well planned and researched PPC campaign can show you instant results. As you can see there are a lot of different benefits as to why you should choose PPC marketing for your advertising needs. - About the Author: If you are looking for high quality Blogging and Marketing eBooks with Master Resell Rights then visit our website www.cheapresalerights.com Article Source

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Key Questions to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:45:01 +0000

I’ve been thinking about how entering the content marketing space is not for the faint of heart. It can be a signifcant undertaking both in terms of resources and a change in an organization’s approach to marketing and sales. Obviously, content marketing is better for some companies and industries than others. Outside help also makes a difference. While increasing numbers of companies are realizing they must provide more than product information to satisfy customers, many of those same companies fail by implementing random tactics and missing out on benefits like better search visibility. In order to take full advantage of the significant gains in search traffic that are available with a content focused marketing effort, it’s essential to answer some key questions: What do you really know about your customers? I put customers first before company goals because a social media and content focused marketing effort must emphasize the needs of those you’re trying to reach in order to meet your own. Think of it as, “Give to get”. Who are you trying to reach? Have you developed Buyer Personas ? How well do you understand your customers’ goals? What are your customers preferences when it comes to content discovery, consumption and sharing? What keywords do they associate with your products or services? Who are they influenced by? In what communities do they spend their time on the social web? What business objectives are you trying to achieve? What are your goals? What is your social media strategy ? What must happen for your customers before you meet your business objectives? What are teh key performance indicators that will help you measure the buyer persona’s path towards conversion? Do you have the measurement tools in place to properly monitor and measure for research and to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts? What does the competitive SERPs landscape look like? What does the search engine results page look like for the keyword phrases you’re after? The SERPs page is a big part of the competitive landscape for SEO. What types of web sites appear in first page results? Who is linking to them and not linking to you? What type of Universal results are triggered? (News, Blogs, Real-time, Books, Products, Local) What types of media are included in the SERPs for your target phrases? (Images, Video). Will the new Google design have any impact on the SERPs landscape for your target keyword phrases? What other types of search engines should you focus on besides Google.com, Yahoo.com and Bing.com? What resources will you need to succeed? Most companies are not in the publishing business. In order to achieve longevity for an optimized content marketing effort, it’s important to outline the resources available to implement including: content, people, processes. Content . What content do you currently have available for optimization? What content will you need to create according to your keyword glossary and customer needs? Know what digital assets you have available for publishing online and indentify what new media you may need to create, and who will be creating/promoting it. People . Who will create that content in your organization? What in-house content development resources do you normally use? What new content resources, including other departments, could you leverage for SEO? What other groups in your organization will you need to coordinate with in order to execute on promotions? Processes . what is the current content creation and promotion process? Identify how can you make optimization a baked-in part of established content publishing processes. Determin whether manual keyword glossary sharing is applicable or if the content management system can be modified to dynamically pull in keyword options when adding new content. Can SEO be made part of the corporate identity standards and incorporated into the style guide? What is the right tactical mix to help you reach your goals? Based on customer preferences, your goals, the SERPs and resources, what channels will you optimize? What mix of content creation will be used? Web pages, press releases, white papers, case studies, online newsroom with press releases, articles, video, images, audio, rich media, sharing content on social sharing web sites. How will you get the content creators within and external to your organization trained on content optimization? What oversight and monitoring methods will you use to ensure quality and avoid unfortunate overwrites? Also, what link building tactics will be emphasized? How can you leverage existing communications and relationships to increase relevant links? Can you tap into existing dealer networks, affiliates, branch office web sites and marketing partners for quality links? Can you get public relations on board with using links that are more likely to be included in placements? Can links be better optimized for SEO within other online documents such as press releases? How will you measure success and what tools will you use? Measurement is the most critical piece of an optimized content marketing program. Measurement with social media monitoring tools up front can be essential in defining the social conversations driving content creation, sharing and consumption that are consistent with your marketing goals. Once a program is implemented, analytics will help measure key performance indicators (KPIs), conversions and anything in between. There’s a lot you can measure so here are a few examples for SEO, Social Media and Online PR. SEO related measurement often includes search referrals and keywords that drive traffic to the web site, what search engines send traffic and what the visitors do once they visit. Relative measures of rankings and links can be useful as well. Ultimately, conversions are an idea measurement for SEO, whether it’s a white paper download, webinar signup or an actual product/service sale. Social media measurement often includes engagement metrics such as fans/friends/followers, comments, brand mentions & sentiment, referred traffic and links. Tracking buzzing topics on the social web can create opportunities for real time content creation/optimization and promotion. Online PR measurement often depends on determining the effectiveness of press releases distributed via email directly to a short list of journalists or to a newswire service for broader exposure online. Blog and publication mentions (unsolicited) as well as links and sentiment are also important. Do no underestimate the value and importance of using social monitoring and web analytics to help inform the ongoing content marketing opportunities and the creation of specific types of content in order to attract trending search traffic. Social conversations fuel search traffic. Understand the keywords most often used in social conversations and you may get a leg up on your competition by creating, optimizing and promoting content that’s being discussed and popular. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Key Questions to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Top 5 Search Terms at Online Marketing Blog – Including Pirates

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:00:15 +0000

Here on Online Marketing Blog , we post a tremendous amount of insight on organic search optimization and content marketing related topics each month. But how about the site search tool on our own blog? Who’s searching for what, and why? And what are they finding? Mining the site search report from Google Analytics can be very useful since it’s an indication of what our visitors want to read more of. Here are the six most popular site search terms for Online Marketing Blog including our favorite, “pirates”. 1. Facebook With Facebook taking off as a top channel for social media marketing, it’s no wonder that them comes up as our leading search query. Just consider the recent numbers : Facebook boasts more than 400 million active users 50% of Facebook users log on during any given day More than 20 million Facebook users become fans of pages every day A quick Online Marketing Blog site search for “Facebook” yields recent posts on tools for sharing microcontent , insight on social media advertising and how to leverage channels like Facebook to take advantage of real-time search . 2. Twitter Speaking of popular social media marketing channels, Twitter takes to No. 2 spot for most common site searched on Online Marketing blog. Twitter may only have less than 106 million users compared with Facebook’s 400 million. But consider how quickly Twitter is growing and how active its users are: New users sign up at the rate of 300,000 per day 180 million unique visitors visit the site every month Users post an average of 55 million tweets a day So what can you get with a search for Twitter on Online Marketing Blog? Learn more about the role of news in blended search or find ways to electrify your social network . 3. Books Who says print is dead? “Books” turns up as our fourth most popular search term. Here on the Online Marketing Blog, we’ve posted reviews of some of latest most intriguing marketing online marketing books like “The Art of SEO.” Plus, we’ve conducted exclusive interview with some of the hottest marketing authors out there, such as David Meerman Scott , author of “The New Rules of Marketing.” We’ve even polled our readers on the best available books on SEO . 4. Social Media These days, social media isn’t just a hot topic for B2C marketers looking to connect with consumers on sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Social media is equally as relevant in the B2B world. In fact, 91% of business buyers read blogs, watch user generated video and participate in other social media, according to Forrester Research. A “social media” search on Online Marketing blog pulls up posts on setting and measuring goals for business blogging , which social media sites are the biggest time wasters and the risks of sponsored blog posts . 5. Email Marketing Contrary to predictions, RSS never did replace Email. Social media and network use and status updates or microblogging haven’t “killed” the popularity of email either. In fact, there have been reports that Email use is actually up. So it certainly makes sense that our readers are looking for more information on email marketing. A search for “email marketing” reveals some insight posts including, “ 5 Top Email Marketing Tactics for 2010 “, 5 Tips for Effective Email Copywriting ” and “ How Social Media & Email Marketing Boost Customer Reach “. And Finally: Pirates! Few things seem less relevant to Online Marketing Blog than pirates. Yet somehow it’s one of the most searched terms on the blog. So what do pirates have to do with Internet marketing and Web 2.0? There is an answer in this social media marketing post, we promise. Hint: It has to do with Dave McClure. Are you analyzing the top search phrases on your web site? Are you using that insight to guide your site content? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Top 5 Search Terms at Online Marketing Blog – Including Pirates | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Comment Management Tools You Should Know

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:43:59 +0000

What is Comment Management? Virtually all blog software offers commenting functionality, so why would you need a 3rd party comment management service? Many of the comments and “reactions” to content posted on a blog never make it to the blog itself – the source of the conversation. Comment Management tools provide all the expected features and also pull in mentions & citations of the post as well. That way when someone reads a post on your blog, they can see comments made directly on the post as well as mentions made of of the post on other sites like Twitter. Should you add a comment manager tool to your blog? It depends how much of your social engagement is happening off your blog and also whether you feel it will add to the user experience to see a collected list of on and off site interactions. For many blogs, citing comment and reaction counts is simply a matter of social proofing and popularity. For others, it’s an attempt to harvest all the conversation about a post at the source. To help you decide, here are the three main comment management tools to consider: ECHO from JS-Kit offers a wide array of features. It can be embedded on a blog or static web site and pull in comments from Twitter, Digg, comments from other blogs, FriendFeed and several others. Commenters can choose to promote their comments simultaneously to Twitter, Facebook or Google Friends. Sites like Technorati and Guy Kawasaki use ECHO. We tried JS-Kit but didn’t like not being able to show comments on top of the off site citations under each post. JS-Kit ECHO Live is $12/year and ECHO Live white label is $48/year. There is also a PRO version with many other controls and features with costs according to page views ranging from $195 to $1995 per year. Disqus , as you may have noticed, is the commenting system we are currently using on Online Marketing Blog . Disqus lets readers choose their identity, via: Facebook Connect, OpenID, or Twitter Sign-in, when they leave a comment. Comments can be threaded and the moderation dashboard is easy to use. Off site references to your content on Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, and YouTube are pulled in as “Reactions”. You can sort comments as we do, on top, then show the reactions below. Readers can choose to cross post their comment to other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can edit comment content but not the names of commenters, which is frustrating because some spammers write really useful comment content but spam them hell out of their names and links. The base version of Disqus is free. Disqus VIP offers much hand holding support and analytics. Cost is not disclosed on the site so it must be very expensive. IntenseDebate was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress and therefore, can be easily added to WordPress blogs as well as TypePad, Tumblr or Blogger blogs. There’s comment threading, notification by email, commenter profiles and points, moderation, cross posting to Twitter and several other features. IntenseDebate is free. Which comment management tool is right for you? It depends on your use. If you have a static web site and you’d like to add comment features, then ECHO might be a fit. If you want something that offers all the basics and works natively with WordPress then maybe IntenseDebate is your pick. If you want more features and also don’t want to pay anything, then it’s possible Disqus is the choice for you. The great thing about these tools is that they are easy to install and test out. Here are other reviews you might find useful on these comment management systems. Blog Comment System Shootout: Disqus vs. Intense Debate vs. JS-Kit Echo – 40 Tech 3rd Party Comment System Roundup – Dave Mosher’s Blog Although I pinged Facebook and Twitter connections for examples of other 3rd party comment management tools that pull in off-site citations, I didn’t hear about any. I didn’t find much on Google either. There are other comment management services, tools and plug-ins, just not any (that I’ve found) that automatically pull in 3rd party mentions of your content. If you know of other comment management systems that pull in comments from other social media sites, please share in the comments. Do you use any of the the tools mentioned above? What has your experience been? What features would you like to see added? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Comment Management Tools You Should Know | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Setting and Measuring Goals for Business Blogging

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:39:41 +0000

As companies that realize the value of online marketing understand the need to publish engaging content, one of the most common considerations is a company blog. Blog software is fundamentally one of the easiest content management software systems to install and use. Of course the software isn’t magic. The content and ability to reach and engage with customers is a big part of what makes a business blog successful. For those companies that are thinking of starting a blog or reinvesting resources into a company blogging effort that has gone stale, some of the most important questions to ask are: Have you identified specific goals for the blog? How will you measure success? In sports you can’t score if there isn’t a goal and it’s no different with business blogging. There are a variety of reasons why publishing ongoing communications that allow readers to interact adds value to a business. Add to that the distribution via RSS that extends the reach of your message and it’s easy to see why so many companies start blogging. The failure for many business blogs is centered around not making a connection between business goals, blog specific objectives and most importantly, how meeting customer needs leads to the first two. Here are three key questions to consider as you design your plan for business blogging success: Why start a business blog? What end goals or outcomes can you reasonably expect? There are many good reasons to start a blog. But are those reasons good enough to start and stay blogging for the long haul? Our survey on blogging and SEO showed 90% citing blogging as important, significantly important or a primary SEO tactic. 94% of bloggers reported seeing measurable SEO benefits from blogging within 12 months. Initiate and foster customer engagement Improve coverage by media and bloggers Improve search engine visibility Increase mentions on other blogs, social networking, news, bookmarking and media sites Build thought leadership Provide an informative communication channel Recognize employees, clients, marketing partners and especially brand evangelists How will you know your blogging efforts are successful according to those goals? How are you measuring blogging success? We ran a poll last year with our readers that ranked their most important measures of blogging success. Here is the distribution: Engagement: comments, links 36% Improved brand recognition 31% Build thought leadership 31% Search engine rankings 31% Better communicate with customers 30% Traffic to the blog 27% Coverage by media and other blogs 18% Traffic to the corporate web site 16% Sales leads 16% Industry Recognition 13% Sell products 2% Improved customer satisfaction 11% Page views 9% Time on Site 6% Ad revenue on the blog 5% What tools are you using to measure blog performance? Goals for business and the blog are great but it’s essential to have the right tools in place for analytics. One of the biggest mistakes is to rely on things like Google Alerts. Web analytics (Google Analytics, Woopra, Clicky, etc) Feedburner Social media monitoring tools Link analysis tools Comment tracking tools Clipping services Forum conversation tracking tools It’s fundamental, this notion of setting goals, understanding outcomes and the tools needed to measure. But you know the saying, “Common sense is the least common thing on Earth.” Companies can achieve great return on investment with the right plan and leadership in a blogging effort. The key is to do the baseline work to build a foundation upon which it can grow and succeed. Stay the course and leverage both listening and engagement tools to guide content. Develop networks and distribution channels to grow readership and reach. Take the time to really understand the impact of data provided by reporting tools and create reports for executives that highlight business goals. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced with setting, measuring and reaching business goals through corporate blogging? Have you started a business blog only to shut it down? Have your company blogging efforts been successful beyond expectations? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Setting and Measuring Goals for Business Blogging | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Advertise On Bing?

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:35:28 +0000

I decided to write this article after thinking “advertise on bing?” After doing some intense research I have found that Bing is formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search and is from Microsoft. This new search engine was unveiled by Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009 and since when full on inline June 3, 2009. Since its release it has become the third largest search engine with roughly 3.6% being dwarfed by Google at 85.35% but awfully close to Yahoo at 6.15%. Some of the reasons you would want to advertise on Bing are: Daily changing of background images Enhanced view where third party site info can be seen inside Bing Some sites you can search within the website Video thumbnail that allows you to preview the video automatically Change size of length, screen size, and resolution of videos Instant stats on Sports scores, teams, leagues, and players Inquiring on stocks or finances of a company shows stock chart, price, volume, in a website that you can subscribe to Have a math calculation you need help with? It’s amazing, that’s all I can say. Flight tracking-tells you flight delays Local restaurant reviews Integrates easily with Hotmail While all these are just a few of the great features of Bing, I challenge you to find more that will be beneficial for your life! So why advertise on Bing? Bing is a very promising new player in the search engine industry that isn’t saturated with everyone “being an expert” or trying to sell you a piece of toast looking like a famous person. If you are into PPC marking on Google you know how expensive it can get with the amount of people competing with you. If you advertise on Bing, they have the same concepts based on two factors. Your monthly search campaign budget Your maximum bid per click For example, if you advertise on Bing and your budge is $10.00, and you win the bid at $.10 per click, it’s going to take 100 people clicking your advertisement. They also have small and medium budget solutions for people with a budget of $500 to $25,000 a month. A few established companies that advertise on Bing are: although this is only a few of the many: Smile Box Buyer Zone EBay Toyota Snapple Sprint Also to help drive Bing’s presence on the web they are spending $80-100 Million to promote online, TV, print, and radio advertising. I really do believe that as I have been listening to the radio for the last hour and half, I’ve heard 10 to 12 advertisements for Bing. One of largest privately owned digital communications company in the world called Waggener Edstrom has been the driving force behind their marketing and it has seen phenomenal results. They have partnered with many of the world’s leading brands like GE Healthcare, MasterCard International and T-Mobile USA to name a few. So to answer the question, “Advertise on Bing?” I would say you would be silly not to be part of the creation; in the engine, not back in the caboose trying to catch up. - About the Author: Robert David Strong www.robertstrongmarketing.org Article Source

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Advertise On Bing?

Advantages Of Pay Per Click Method In Making Money On The Internet

BlogPostman — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:40:25 +0000

One of the most popular ways in making money online is via pay per click (PPC) method, but what is this method about? Can it truly be beneficial? PPC for an Online Merchant PPC involves putting little advertisements on other people’s websites or even on the search engine results pages. You pay a pre-agreed small amount every time your ad is clicked on. There are quite a number of nice things about this method. First, you get to choose the keywords which you want your advertisements to appear under and what the exact wording of your ad should be. Also, it is your decision as to how much you are going to pay per click and how much you would be willing to spend in a day. You can also choose which regions you would like your ads to be displayed in (in the case of search engine result pages ads). PPC and SEO PPC is a great advertising technique so you can generate fast traffic to your site. Search engine optimization or SEO can not give immediate results like PPC can. If you want to get into this kind of advertising, you can check on the major services: Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Miva, and Go Click. PPC for Affiliate Marketers PPC is a great way to earn money in affiliate marketing. The affiliate can earn some passive income by simply placing an ad on his or her website. Every time a visitor clicks on the link (ad), the affiliate gets a certain amount. – About the Author: Aden Clark is an online business mentor that learns average people how to start and develop a successful online business. Join his Free, 7 day, online business course that will teach you how to copy his exact method that generates at least $100/day. - Learn how to make at least $100 per day on autopilot, – Free video tutorials that explain everything step by step, – No experience is required to make money from this method. Visit Profit-Academy.com now to get started on the Free Business Course that teaches you exactly how to Make Money Online ! If you stick to this one method then you can easily create enough income to quit your day job. Article Source

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