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Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising In Relationship To Search Engine Optimization Marketing Strategy

BlogPostman — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:15:27 +0000

One of the most important steps to your search engine marketing success is to optimize per pay click (PPC) advertising campaigns. The thought that PPC advertising and search engine optimization are marketing strategies designed exclusively for the online marketing gurus is totally misplaced. However, it is imperative to realize that these two internet marketing campaign strategies work hand in hand. Search engine marketing usually can take a long time, sometimes up to one whole year before you begin getting high ranking. It is for this main reason that online expert marketers advice you optimize pay per click advertising campaigns. This is a critical step because it will enable you to get immediate traffic thus gauge the competitiveness of your keyword phrases. In addition, the responses you will receive from your visitors will help you to know whether your products will move or they will need to be improved on. Look at this scenario; you spend all your time getting inbound links from reputable websites. You even go to an extent of submitting articles with your specific keyword phrases, then you one day wake up to find your website on the first page of Google search results. But on close observation you realize that you are generating high volume traffic but very few sales leads. It is specifically for this reason that case studies on attracting business leads advocate for an optimize pay per click advertising campaign before embarking on SEO marketing strategy. Google has a great platform known as Adword where you can accurately test and thus optimize pay per click advertising campaigns. The approach is simple, test your intended keyword phases and see how much targeted traffic it will generate. If it attracts traffic that can convert to customers then you can confidently begin your search engine optimization marketing campaigns. Click the links below and harness more insightful information regarding SEO Marketing Strategies and Pay per Click Advertising Campaigns. - About the Author: Stephen writes rich content on Pay Per Click Advertising . His webpage is on Money Making Ideas and Generating Targeted Traffic. Visit his informative and insightful website at:- Money Making Secrets and learn more… Article Source

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Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising In Relationship To Search Engine Optimization Marketing Strategy

How I Started Blogging. What’s Your Story?

BlogPostman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:48:35 +0000

While today’s online media are abuzz with the latest and greatest social media tactics and tools, for many of us that have been around a little while, it was blogging that started our social media careers. It’s funny to think that in 2002 a type of site called “blog” came up on my radar as a possible marketing tool. At the time, many blogs were personal diaries posted anonymously or by people with a little tech savvy and plenty of opinion. Writing personal thoughts on a public web site was absolutely the last thing I would ever consider doing. However, it was a curious thing and I started a few blogs anonymously to see what it was like. Unfortunately, the excercise was so foreign, poorly executed and without feedback, that I deleted them. In mid 2003 I began looking for online content outside of forums and started reading several SEO blogs including Search Engine Blog (Peter Da Vanzo), Search Blog (John Battelle) and Search Engine Lowdown (Andy Beal). Interestingly, only Search Blog remains what it was. In December 2003 after using Blogger.com as a group blog software for a few collaboration projects I finally decided to start a blog under the blogspot.com domain for TopRank Online Marketing , which by then, had been in business about 2 years. As you can see from my “ Hello World ” post in Dec 2003, I had humble goals to post news and information related to online marketing. We had a web site that pulled in a lot of search traffic, why would we need a blog? The reason was simply to see what blogging could do to get the word out about our expertise and to share information. Blogging was very new territory and there wasn’t anyone to demonstrate best practices, so I set out to find what those were while sharing links, news and resources. I suspect there are a good number of companies that treat other social media services the same way, whether it’s Twitter, Foursquare or building a social mobile app. It’s new territory and they want to find out whether those applications or sites would make sense in their marketing mix. The problem with that perspective is that it’s about the most inefficient and unproductive way to go about finding the right online marketing channels for a business. The biggest mistake I made 6 plus years ago when I started blogging was not creating a strategy. As a marketer, I knew better than to chase a tactic, but I had no idea at the time how much of an impact blogging would have on our business. In other words, despite a lack of strategy, we were able to use our marketing savvy, curiosity and interest in connecting with the online marketing community to achieve many of the goals we set out to reach in our business. It just took a lot longer without that strategic plan. Companies starting down the path of becoming more social in their culture to better connect with customers and to realize the marketing, PR, and customer service benefits from social media participation don’t need to waste that time. Doing the homework of researching customers, setting goals and developing a strategy are essential steps towards a successful social media marketing experience. Back to why I started blogging. The SEO community was a lot smaller in 2003 and 2004. Writing a post about anything to do with search engine optimization would be noticed and commented on by the small number of SEO bloggers. There were plenty of cross links and “hat tips” (whatever happened to those?) and openly shared opinions. Blogging even made a number of SEOs very popular, very quickly. Blogging to get popular is the goal for some people and there certainly is some relationship between notoriety, awareness and credibility with the ability to attract sales. The key (for me at least) is that creating awareness of oneself is simply a proxy to gaining visibility for your business. It’s not a goal in itself. As a result, Ive been open about using visibility to help others and make connections. The turning point for me in blogging was due in part to learning to liveblog at conferences. Steve Hall of AdRants provided my first opportunity to liveblog at a ad:tech event - an absolutely humbling experience for anyone that isn’t a natural writer. I met people like Frank Gruber and David Berkowitz at that event in 2004. I did some liveblogging for Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Roundtable after that which also provided great exposure and connections. Matt McGowan brought even more exposure opportunity by having Online Marketing Blog as a media sponsor for SES conferences . There’s a huge list of people that have been very helpful over the years, especially our longtime readers. Since then we’ve published a lot of content and provided a lot of insight into holistic SEO and online marketing topics. During that time I think the most important thing I’ve learned is to find your voice and stick to it. Don’t try to be what you’re not. It simply doesn’t resonate with readers or with the goals you’ve likely set. Whether it’s blogging or other types of content and networking, I think the real value from online publishing in a social context is of course, being social. Blogging has been a great experience in terms of developing relationships with people I would have never connected with otherwise. It has definitely served as a platform for making connections in the industry that have led directly and indirectly, to a lot of new business. I started blogging personally as an experiment and found a process and strategy along the way that has helped grow our business and the online marketing/sales performance of many of our clients. Long time blogging provides ample opportunity to make and learn from mistakes. Blogging also allows us to continue to be a resource while sharing our expertise with potential customers, partners and employees. We’ll be going through yet another evolution with Online Marketing Blog in the next month or two and I wonder about the experiences of our readers that also blog: If you’re a blogger, why did you start? What’s your blogging story? Did you start as an experiment? Did you start with a strategy? What was your biggest mistake? What have you learned? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | How I Started Blogging. What’s Your Story? | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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How I Started Blogging. What’s Your Story?

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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Reader Poll: Help Make Online Marketing Blog Even Better!

Stickers Are Exceptionally Remarkable Products

BlogPostman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:02:15 +0000

Stickers have become the most fashionable printing products these days. They are commonly used for plenteous purposes such as marketing, advertisement, fundraising, leisure, social, economics, cultural, political, religious, and many other reasons. One of the most significant aspects about custom size stickers is their good looks and magnetism. Why do full color printed stickers look attention-grabbing and impressive? The truth of the matter is that they look gorgeous and eye-catching owing to their fashionable designs, unmatched prints, captivating concepts, and inimitable contents. First customized stickers look attractive and shining on account of their tidy and memorable designs. Here a key thing to bring up is that they are created by remarkably talented graphic designers, and these artistic designers make use of latest tools and technologies in order to create a conspicuous masterpiece. They are more often than not comprised of Coral Draw, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. Additionally, they perk up you with the facility of customization. Online sticker printing company presents striking sticker printing designs to its valued customers worldwide. When it comes to custom size sticker printing, it typically involves the use of full color CMYK/PMS (Pantone Matching System) printing process. By and large, the prints of custom stickers are of matchless quality on account of their four color printing containing cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Here one of the most exciting things is that they look attention-grabbing and splendid owing to their gloss and matte finish techniques. Company offers full color stickers printing to its charming customers both in UK as well as worldwide. Thirdly the concepts of stickers printing are generally consisted of exciting events and activities involving fund raising campaigns, business advertising, cultural festivals, wedding ceremonies, birthday parties and the list goes on. Online printing company is bound to provide you custom size vinyl banner printing worldwide in a thoroughly professional and dedicated manner. In addition, it offers cheap folder printing to its valued customers with custom carbonless forms printing including full color cd jackets printing. Next most striking feature of customized stickers is their wonderful contents that are essentially produced by ingenious search engine optimized writers. One of the most enthralling aspects about them is that they are comprised of succinct citations, and messages, as well as slogans. One thing is sure that they are truly the core part of stickers and cheap vinyl banners printing worldwide. However one definitely needs to remember the actual theme and significance of sticker printing in order to accomplish his/her organizational goals successfully. Online sticker printing company provides cheap sticker printing services to its valued customers worldwide in a versatile manner. In addition, it offers free online design support, free lamination, and free shipment to its lovable buyers worldwide. Also it makes available custom print banner to its respected customers both in UK and worldwide. So if you need any assistance regarding your printing products, please feel free to contact us. We will provide you the best sticker printing worldwide in a thoroughly professional manner. - About the Author: sticker printing | cheap vinyl banners | custom sticker Article Source

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Stickers Are Exceptionally Remarkable Products

DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise

BlogPostman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:25:25 +0000

The buzz on geolocation marketing is hot. Recently Lawrence Coburn released the beta version of DoubleDutch, a platform for creating your own geolocation check-in app, ala Foursquare. I connected with Lawrence to ask more questions about DoubleDutch and to get tips for marketers that want to incorporate geolocation and review services into their online marketing. First, can you share a bit about yourself and your company RateItAll? We spoke on a panel several years ago at Pubcon and I remember that you have a great story about how your company started and really exploded with media attention. Sure, RateItAll is a story of endurance. I ran it out of a coffee shop for years (along with a number of other niche sites). By 2007 it had started to grow to a point that I couldn’t handle it by myself. It was making decent money, but I was struggling to keep the servers up. Mathew Spolin, our CTO joined us in 2008 and we were able to go out get a little funding for it. We now have a team of seven based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Congratulations on launching your new project, the iPhone App: DoubleDutch. I appreciate getting a pre pre alpha view of it and now you’re really added some great features – especially the ability to white label it. What prompted you to create DoubleDutch and how is it different than Foursquare and Gowalla? Lee, you were actually one of the first people to see DoubleDutch in the wild. We’re really excited about it – it has been called “Foursquare for the Enterprise” and “Ning for Mobile Social Networks.” We’re OK with both of those descriptions. We had been eying location based services for a long time. I was an obsessive user of Dodgeball (the SMS precursor to Foursquare). By the time 2009 SXSW rolled around, Mathew and I were determined to do something with location. We approached Foursquare to team up on a reviews + check-ins combo, but weren’t able to get their attention. So we set out to build the thing ourselves, leveraging RateItAll’s massive database of geo tagged data. Over the years we had signed a number of geo data partnerships, giving us a big advantage in entering the location fray. Our goal was to put together a collection of mobile, social components that could be remixed and customized by white label partners. In addition to the check-in functionality, some of our features include game dynamics (leaderboards, achievement stickers, and “Rockstardom,”), ratings and reviews, photo uploads, Facebook / Twitter integration, and many more. This app was in development for more than 6 months and we’re quite happy with how it turned out. Our big difference from Foursquare and Gowalla is in our emphasis on reviews. We think there is an endemic relationship between a social check-in and a review of a local business. Just as Amazon has been able to leverage sales data to convert more reviews than anyone else, we think that check-ins are the first step towards posting a review. We also believe strongly in the concept of “The community IS the social graph.” What I mean by this is that on public networks like Foursquare or Gowalla, you need to recreate your social graph for the apps to get any value from the service. Not so on a private network like DoubleDutch. You can imagine an app white labeled for a conference like Pubcon, in which every attendee could see the check in activity of other attendees. Think about what a boon this would be for networking – no more just heading to the lobby bar and hoping for the best. And because everyone was there for Pubcon, no friending would be required. Are widgets still sexy ? Of course! Just not as sexy as geo at the moment. In fact, I’m not posting much on Sexy Widget any more. I started a blog called Location Meme a few months ago with a friend. The folks at The Next Web took notice, and invited me to be an editor at that network’s Location blog , and that’s where I’m doing most of my writing now. Back to DoubleDutch. Not only is this a (another) geolocation iPhone app, but you’re offering companies or organizations the opportunity white label the DoubleDutch platform to create their own location-based iPhone app. Who is your target and how do you see them using it? What are your plans to make it competitive with the other apps out there that are already well entrenched? Our three target verticals right now are Conferences, Hotels, and Universities. We think that almost any community that is tied to a location could benefit from a location and knowledge sharing service, but we needed to narrow the universe down a bit. Conferences and Hotels are interesting because they typically are communities of people who are converging on a new city looking for recommendations and interaction. DoubleDutch helps on both counts. Universities are interesting because of their tie to a specific geography, and the demographic. You can check out some sample use cases on DoubleDutch.me. How does the Double Dutch app tie in to your main business, RateItAll? Great question. We are seeing signs that DoubleDutch has the potential to become our main business, with RateItAll taking a supporting role. RateItAll provides a tremendous foundation for the service, with its massive amount of geo tagged data, and its 4M+ reviews. Our server infrastructure is key as well as it allows us offer SLAs to our clients. Also, all check in, ratings, reviews, and photo activity is aggregated on RateItAll.com, making DoubleDutch another content collection channel. You were at SXSW, who won the geolocation prize there? Gowalla or Foursquare? I guess that’s a loaded question. What did they do right? Did you see any big mistakes? I think geolocation won the geolocation prize. Both those services got a big boost, but I think the whole space benefited from all the attention. At DoubleDutch, we are huge fanboys / fangirls of both services and wish them only the best. If you believe that Enterprise trails Consumer by two years (which we do), the faster that those services blaze the trail, the faster that DoubleDutch will grow. Please share 3-4 best practices and tips for companies that want to use geolocation based mobile apps to market their businesses? I think it really depends what kind of business you are. If you are a local business, you don’t really have to do much other than ensure that your address info is up to date on the mobile services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and of course, RateItAll. If you are a bit more savvy / experimental, you can try offering discounts / giveaways to Foursquare Mayors, and try and incentivize your customers to check-in and push to Twitter / FB. If you are a big brand, perhaps it makes sense to try and cut a deal with Foursquare or Gowalla to sponsor some Badges. Lots of companies are cutting these sorts of deals, and it’s a good way to drop your brand into the experience of those apps in the context of the location game. But if you are a big community, it might make sense to use a service like DoubleDutch to create a more pervasive connection with your customers / members / employees and extend your community out into the real world. Social check in apps are not only fun, but they can be productive. We’re talking to companies with some pretty innovative ideas for putting geo to work – for example, a real estate company wants to put this app in the hands of their agents to encourage more property visits, and help those agents capture photos and thoughts about each property. We have been amazed at how creative some of these companies are. What about tips for marketing within the consumer reviews marketplace overall? How important is it for companies to be active, whether it’s editorially, through advertising or offline promotion with services like Yelp, Epinions or even RateItAll? I strongly recommend that businesses be active on the big review properties. Being active does not mean being confrontational and bullying – it means engaging thoughtfully with customers, even the insane and / or angry ones. If you suspect cheating, don’t call out the customer – go to the host site. Most of these services allow commenting and messaging – on RateItAll, which is the 9th biggest review site, we see a number of big brands on the site every day making use of the free tools like commenting and messaging to engage their customers. Some of those folks pay us for access to a few more tools, but you don’t need to have a budget engage your customers. One question I like to ask smart and busy entrepreneurs like yourself is: How do you stay current with technology and marketing? Do you have favorite events, books, blogs, networks or some kind of crystal RateItAll ball to keep you on top of what’s important for the future of your business? I read and write as much as I possibly can. Writing makes me smarter about a topic, because I don’t want to come off as a moron. It takes a lot of research to write a post. Sexy Widget was born out of my desire to get smart about widgets, and my role as Editor at the Next Web was born out my desire to get smart about geo. In terms of reading, I hit Techmeme and Hacker News all the time, and also get a lot of good links from Twitter. My two favorite blogs are AVC and CDixon.org . Living in San Francisco, I have access to a number of technology meetup type events – I try and hit a couple per month. There’s nothing better than talking to entrepreneurs, because for them, predicting the next big wave is life or death. I tend to listen to folks running companies more than I listen to journalists. Thanks Lawrence. You can download the Double Dutch app here. RWW did a great overview with screenshots here. Lawrence Coburn is the founder and CEO of RateItAll and co-founder of the white label geolocation app, DoubleDutch . In his spare time, he is an editor of The Next Web’s Location blog . Lawrence is also a mentor at Ventures.io , a San Francisco based technology incubator. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise

Internet Marketing & Seo Tips: 2 Ways To Effectively Target Your Audience Online

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:44:57 +0000

It’s far from a secret that the internet is the place to be seen as an advertiser these days. The worldwide web is absolutely awash with pop up ads and branded content, rightly so given the millions of consumers surfing, searching or sharing on this platform at any given time. As a marketer, therefore, it has become vitally important to not only know your audience, but to reach them successfully. Every advertising dollar counts, and they must be invested in the places where your target consumers can be found. As such, this article will address two targeting techniques for improving the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts: day-part targeting and events-triggered targeting. Day-Part Targeting involves marketing to consumers at certain times of the day. Having identified your target customer, it is important to build up an idea of their online habits. Specifically, this involves determining exactly when can they be found online. If they work full time, it is perhaps not the best idea to send them emails about your latest product offers at 9am, especially on a Monday. A shrewder choice might be to send these types of messages at lunchtime on a Wednesday, when your targeted audience would be more likely to be on a break. It is also important to think of what your consumer may want at a specific time when they are online. For example, a 24 hour deli should post paid search ads that appear after midnight looking to attract hungry students after a night out. The concept is very simple: consider who your target is and when they might be online in order to maximize conversion. Events-triggered Targeting is a method that seeks to take advantage of different events in the world, from birthdays to Valentine’s Day, from rainy afternoons to political crises. These events can be divided into scheduled and non-scheduled. Scheduled events such as birthdays present an opportunity to engage with your consumer; it provides an opportunity for a marketer to sell the companies’ latest promotions without being invasive. Unscheduled events should be quickly acted on whenever they occur. Utilize cold weather in your advertisements even if your company does not sell heaters. ‘Beat the freeze with these hot new deals’ could be a slogan for any company, but it becomes more relevant given an appropriate climate. The advantage with unscheduled events is the opportunity to leverage current events and use them to drive traffic toy your conversion pages. Online ads can be created and published within minutes; a feat that few other media can rival. The key factor with each of these approaches is presenting an opportunity to your audience at the optimum point at which they are most likely to buy. If a marketer can identify the moments when consumers will be most likely to make a purchase or seek more information – and create touchpoints that correlate with those moments - their online conversion rates will almost certainly increase. - About the Author: Tim Kennedy writes on behalf of inSegment, Boston’s leader in search engine marketing , internet marketing , and the home of Boston SEO . Article Source

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Internet Marketing & Seo Tips: 2 Ways To Effectively Target Your Audience Online

Widen Your Visibility With Ppc

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:48:46 +0000

The internet is a tool that has immensely positive potential. Simply by entering the scene and throwing their hat into the ring, advertisers can increase their visibility exponentially. Advertising to the known Using PPC, advertisers will be able to put their message out to the people they know they already want: their target audience. Knowing the websites frequented by a particular population will help widen visibility among that particular demographic. Through this sort of targeted approach to PPC advertising, advertisers are able to widen their visibility among the known. Advertising to the unknown PPC has the ability to defy demographics. For advertisers who may either be seeking to diversify their consumer population or seek out other possible markets, PPC is a gift. By selecting publishers that tend to attract traffic of a less predictable or more diverse nature, advertisers are able to advertise to the unknown. This practice could return many dividends, especially for businesses or enterprises looking to keep themselves relevant in an ever-changing world. Advertising without paying PPC only calculates an advertiser’s cost by the click. However, the ad may appear in a rotation of other ads with frequency negotiated between the advertiser and the publisher. This set-up means that an ad may appear countless times to potential consumers without ever being formally selected. However, by becoming a repetitive presence, advertisers can benefit from the passive effects of being seen. Online seekers who are repeatedly exposed to the ad will be more likely to select that ad when they need the offering listed. By using the power of the internet and PPC, advertisers are able to widen their visibility. This visibility could potentially translate to higher dividends for the wise advertiser. - About the Author: Joe Praveen Sequeira ~ is an award winning, best-selling author, speaker, educator and professional Internet Marketing Consultant focused on helping businesses of all sizes, increase their online sales, boost web site traffic and strengthen their overall brand through established online marketing strategies. He has overseen hundreds of Internet marketing campaigns for fortune 500 companies and is the Founder & CEO of The eMarketing Pro , a thriving Internet marketing and eBusiness consulting firm. Article Source

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Widen Your Visibility With Ppc

Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:54:05 +0000

Tim Ash is a marketing machine. He writes a blog, contributes to Search Engine Watch, hosts a weekly show on WebmasterRadio.fm, is author of the book “Landing Page Optimization”, speaks at numerous conferences and is the chair of the upcoming Conversion Conference in May. Oh, and he also runs SiteTuners , a successful landing page optimization consulting business and has launched a new tool called AttentionWizard that offers eye tracking “without the eyes”. Tim has worked with American Express, Sony Music, American Honda, Coach, COMP USA and many other major brands. “Landing page testing is the best accelerator of your business that you have available.” Tim is a very smart and very nice guy who took a few rare moments of time to answer a few questions about measuring social media ROI, budgets for testing, common mistakes, tips, tools and how he stays current in such a fast paced and changing field. Please tell us about your background, your business, and the book? I am a recovering technologist. I almost got my PhD in computer science, but dropped out to start my first Internet consulting business. Over the years we have focused on driving traffic. But after a while it became clear that the bigger problem (and business opportunity for us) was to improve the efficiency of that traffic once it landed on the website or landing page. That’s how SiteTuners was born. We offer a range of consulting services to improve conversion, full-service landing page tests in which we guarantee performance improvement, and software such as out cutting-edge TuningEngine testing software, and the AttentionWizard visual attention prediction tool. We work with some of the biggest companies in the Internet universe, as well as scrappy smaller companies. I wrote the Landing Page Optimization book a couple of years ago and it has been very well received. Wiley Press has asked me to write a second edition that I am co-authoring with Rich Page and Maura Ginty. It will be out early next year and will have over 150 pages of completely new content. There’s a lot of speculation about social media and measuring ROI . Do you have examples where conversions were improved from content on a social network or other social media site as a result of a/b or multivariate testing? What is significantly different about measuring social media marketing efforts versus search marketing where the goals are conversions? The fundamental principles are the same – you should be trying to increase the efficiency of conversion actions that have a measurable impact on your business. The only difference is that the conversion actions might not be sales, but rather “micro conversions” such as re-tweets, fan page sign-ups, or visits to blog or content pages that you are trying to promote. So if you can lower your cost-per-acquisition for any of those actions, that is good. What makes testing a bit more tricky to conduct in a social media setting is that you need steady traffic sources over an extended period of time. Unfortunately much of social media happens very quickly and results in one-time traffic spikes that go away. The type of social media marketing executed by many SEOs does seem to behave according to the “go hot” principle where content gets voted on and attracts spikes in traffic. However, many companies are building networks on social channels and community participation often drives more steady streams of traffic according to the content publishing schedule of the brand. When it comes to measuring social ROI, are you seeing more social media marketing efforts fall in the first situation versus the second? Many social media programs are based on “go hot” kinds of activities. The content is often “perishable” and time-sensitive. But there is also long-term “content farming” activities which continue to add to a pool of general company awareness through creation of new content pages on the website, whitepapers, blog posts, and media placements. This takes a more disciplined approach and a long-term commitment of resources, so in our experience is more rare. This is one of those “it depends” questions but let’s give it a shot. Is it your experience that most marketers allocate budget for testing as part of overall web analytics? What percentage of that budget should go towards ongoing testing for say, an ecommerce site? What advice do you have for getting more approved? Landing page or conversion rate optimization is not a part of Web analytics. It is a top-line revenue-growing activity. How much would you pay for a 5% increase in volume? 10%? 50%? Landing page testing is the best accelerator of your business that you have available. It should not have a fixed budget. The economically rational thing to do with any marketing activity is to keep spending money on it as long as it produces a positive ROI. Setting fixed budgets is the same kind of silly logic that some companies use when driving traffic. If you have a fixed pay-per-click budget and you could buy more profitable traffic above that threshold, you are just throwing profits away. It’s interesting that you say that when it comes to budget allocation, since both concern measuring and improving web site performance. Of course there are many things that make sense to a consultant or service provider that don’t necessarily fit with the reality of how companies forecast their marketing budgets. Have you been successful at winning more budget with the “keep spending money on it as long as it produces a positive ROI” argument or do you only work with companies that have more flexibility with where they spend? Technically landing page testing is part of measurement and Web analytics should always be actionable. Unfortunately often it is just looking in the rear-view mirror at things that have happened in the past. My friend Jim Sterne insists that all Web analytics should be forward looking and actionable, otherwise it is useless. But in practice most analysts spend more time on data mining and not on landing page testing. If you have a testing mindset, then the question you continually ask is “Where can I make the biggest impact on our business by tweaking a mission-critical step in our value creation chain?” If you do that, the resulting improvements should make the business a big pile of money and will create psychological momentum inside of your company for further testing and experimentation. Once an organization gets excited and buys into this continual-improvement mentality, the testing budget question often goes away. What are some of the most common mistakes experienced search marketers make when it comes to landing pages? Top 5? That’s easy – I can give you more than 5. If you have heard my “ Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design ” presentation, you know that there are seven common types of mistakes on all landing pages: unclear calls-to-action, too many choices, asking for too much information early in the process, too much text, not maintaining continuity with the expectations that were set upstream of the actual landing page, visual clutter and distraction, and lack of trust and credibility. What tools do you recommend (in addition to Google Website Optimizer and those at SiteTuners like AttentionWizard) for corporate marketers that are still fairly new to conversion rate improvement? Advanced tools? There are a number of tools that have come out in just the last couple of years that make it much easier to diagnose and correct conversion issues. These include ClickTale.com , CrazyEgg.com , UserTesting.com , and CrossBrowserTesting.com . How do you stay current with practices? Do you have favorite conferences, books, blogs, newsletters or other resources that you rely on? Wow – that’s tough. There is an explosion of resources around landing page optimization. I pay attention to Bryan Eisenberg , Avinash Kaushik , Anne Holland , and try to look for interesting resources through Twitter tags like #lpo, #cro, and #measure. Conferences like Search Engine Strategies, eMetrics, and PubCon always feature solid content on the topic. Conversion Conference is coming up soon (May 4-5 in San Jose) with some big names in the conversion and testing space including Bryan Eisenberg, Jakob Nielsen, and yourself. Who is the conference for and why should they come? What prompted you to start it? I created the new ConversionConference.com series to give conversion improvement it’s own home. Until now, conversion has been a side topic at conferences that focused on driving traffic. The first event will be in San Jose next month, and then in Washington DC in the fall. There is also a German show in Hamburg, and other international shows on the drawing boards. The San Jose show will feature three dynamic keynotes that you mentioned. There will also be twenty six fast-paced sessions over two days covering all aspects of conversion. The presenters are all top notch. The show is held in parallel with eMetrics and will share the expo hall, lunches, networking events and the Conversion Bash party put on by WebmasterRadio.fm. The top conversion tools and services companies will also be there. If you want to turbocharge your online marketing you should be there. By the way, your readers can use an exclusive promo-code “ CCW562 ” for an additional $100 off of the early bird rate if they register by April 15th. Thanks Tim. You can connect with Tim Ash on the social web at: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Blog © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash

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

Develop Your Ppc Plan

BlogPostman — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 18:47:46 +0000

No good business happens without a good plan. No good PPC marketing campaign can happen without an effective PPC plan . Know your resources The possibilities are endless (quite literally) once you enter the world of the internet. Before you even press the power button on your computer, you need to assess your resources. Set your own budget, know the time limits of your advertisements, decide if you are able to handle the influx of attention from PPC. Once you know your resources, you will know which venues are best suited to you and which you will prefer. Know the players There are the “big three” that are very trustworthy, tried-and-true. These PPC publishers are good options for nervous first-time advertisers. However, these venues carry heavier traffic and, therefore, heavier competition. Smaller publishers abound endlessly, but they carry a higher risk in terms of exposure, but also fraud. Knowing who is out there and their track record can mean a lot later in the planning phase. Know your goals Deciding what you want to get out of the PPC advertising experience is important to maximizing PPC effectiveness. Knowing who you want to reach, what you want to say to them and what you want them to see about you will help determine your ad and ad placements. Goals and budget must be reconciled with each other, but can unite to create a very successful PPC experience. The most important thing when forming a PPC plan is to educate yourself at every step. Knowing the industry norms will help you maintain status as a savvy advertiser. Setting high expectations within the realm of what is considered normal will acclimate you to the industry and promote a tradition of positive PPC experiences. No matter what you do, however, planning is the key. – About the Author: Joe Praveen Sequeira ~ is an award winning, best-selling author, speaker, educator and professional Internet Marketing Consultant focused on helping businesses of all sizes, increase their online sales, boost web site traffic and strengthen their overall brand through established online marketing strategies. He has overseen hundreds of Internet marketing campaigns for fortune 500 companies and is the Founder & CEO of The eMarketing Pro , a thriving Internet marketing and eBusiness consulting firm. Article Source

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Develop Your Ppc Plan