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How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:45:15 +0000

Times have modified and these days’s shopper go on-line to appear for information on product and services they wish to purchase. Pay per click in these days’s time has become rapidly a standard look of advertising that is utilized in exploring marketing. This has become very rewarding however if it isn’t understood properly, then it can be unreasonably exclusive. With lack of time and no resources to try to to a little little bit of study, some businessmen perform their own pay per click campaign. There also are different businessmen, who hire specialised skilled professionals to handle their campaign. This process is just like conducting auctions. You rank higher in search engines results page by simply bidding for additional click. PPC advertising leads in being a boundless auction among different competitors hungry for the top spot. The PPC skilled you hire ought to be skilled and would be in a position to stay your costs low and produce precious traffic and alter guests into actual sales, thus raising your return on savings. You ought to contemplate the subsequent steps to guage your PPC expert. A smart specialist will donate to the bidding set up with the principals and will keep the campaign operational within the agreed budget. The specialist ought to offer time to time reports on the amount of clicks and other applicable information. If you become acutely aware of your advertisement been detached from the search engines or there’s a sudden fall in the traffic, your PPC skilled should provide support and cater to these issues successfully. The PPC specialist should not limit himself to monitoring keyword routine, but ought to also make the necessary adjustments in the data or statistics, like altering the geographic aim, keyword amendments, changing the ad copy etc. A sensible PPC partner submits the reports time to time which includes all the keyword data along with the mandatory statistics and tools of study that recognizes the spots for development and enhancement t make certain that investment returns are high. Before you appoint or rent an organization to work on your PPC, get the entire details of their commitments and assurances on what sort of data the corporate will give and how fast can deliver the reports. Incomparably a smart PPC service company can undoubtedly deliver a monthly report. - About the Author: Quick Recap:How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts?* PPC Experts must provide good contribute to the bidding plan. * Mounting strategies that focus on exchange into sales. * PPC Experts should give time to time reports. * Should not limit himself to monitoring keyword. Article Source

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How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts

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"

Twitter New Ad Platform – ‘promoted Tweets’

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:42:24 +0000

One could argue that prior to launching a business there needs to be some form of monetary or revenue strategy set in place prior to implementation. This would be the logical argument and to think otherwise would be bad business. But the digital world has turned this idea on it’s head. Social network companies like Facebook and Twitter build products that are both useful and addictive, generating enormous amounts of traffic and loyal users. Building a business model is not a priority for them until the tipping point of users has been reached and the risk of turning off current users with advertising is low. Understandably there has been a lot of hype around twitter and possible revenue strategies mainly because the company has been funded by investors and has yet to spread it’s legs and turn significant profit. Up until now it has relied upon its ’self serve advertisements’ to generate revenue. This has already proved appealing for some big brands and is a growing area for digital marketing spend. Twitter announced this week that on the 20th of April this year it will launch it’s ‘Promoted Tweets’ which will place ad’s on twitter via search results. Initially the ad’s will work similar to Google’s Adwords, triggering on specific key words, but will have the capablitiy to change depended on consumer behaviour. The potential for viral marketing is enormous via Re tweets. Companies announcing specials and deals will reap enormous benefits from the web’s answer to traditional word of mouth. You can find out more here: www.focussearch.com.au - About the Author: Article Source

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Twitter New Ad Platform – 'promoted Tweets'

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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Top Benefits Of Ppc Marketing

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

SEO with Feeds & XML

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:46:26 +0000

Much of the search engine optimization advice found online at at conferences centers around keywords and links. A lot of the spotlight on internet marketing has focused on content and social media. There’s no question that Online Marketing has been a strong proponent of these tactics, sharing many, many posts on SEO topics Content and link based SEO relies on the search engine crawlers to find web pages and digital assets on their own. Search engines are far from perfect at this, so the opportunity to provide search engines with structured lists of content via feed, can provide some companies with a competitive advantage. At SES New York I moderated a session on Pushing Feeds and XML with Brian Ussery , Amanda Watlington and Daron Babin . Much of what we share on SEO is focused on content and links so I thought I’d share some of the rich insights shared in this very useful session with you by asking the panel a few follow up questions. How much of an advantage can supplying a XML feed offer a site for indexing and search visibility? Brian: It’s really difficult to quantify in terms of a percentage but, I’d say the larger your site and more images you have the better it is to provide an XML Sitemap. How important is it for a new site to supply (or make available) a XML sitemap for search engines? Brian: Sitemaps are one of the best ways I can think of to let engines know about your new pages and images. Amanda: A new site has no inbound links hence there is no way for a search engine to find the site. A Sitemap not only provide a point of departure for the crawling of a new site, by putting one together a site owner can include the most important pages. This is particularly useful if the site is quite large. The Sitemap can cue to spider to pages that in fact link much deeper into the site. This jump starts the indexing process. Would you ever advise a company NOT to use sitemaps? Amanda: There are very rare occasions where I would not use a Sitemap. Those instances are when the contents of the site are very problematic. When there are lots of duplicate content issues that are in the process of being resolved, it makes little sense to urge the search engines to grab a Sitemap that will only bring them to the site’s woes even faster. Once the issues are settled then the Sitemap becomes an important weapon in the SEO’s arsenal. Brian: If you have pages that you don’t want indexed, it’s probably best not to include those URLs in your XML Sitemap. Other than those kinds of situations though, I’d say Sitemaps are the way to go. I would suggest however, not including XML meta data in Sitemaps unless it’s accurate, correct and up to date. It was interesting to learn during our session, the variety of feed types that could be used from those associated with web pages to news to video and I recall one for NASA? Do you have any examples that have called for unusual solutions or use of feeds? Amanda: Structured data such as the Sitemap is fascinating in that it provides so many opportunities to communicate data information in a machine-readable format. There are two feed types that we did not discuss during the session. First, there are product feeds, such as those used by Google Base and other comparative shopping search engines. These allow merchants to draw product information quickly and efficiently from their databases and submit it to a shopping engine. Once formatted, a site owner can submit thousands of products with little or no intervention. The second type of feed was just announced this past week. It is now possible to submit image information (to Google). This has been long awaited. I’ve not yet had a chance to use this, but I have been eagerly awaiting image Sitemaps. Brian: While this kind of XML isn’t my forte, it’s my understanding that the code below is used by NASA to “move” telescopes. This is just one example of the cool stuff you can you can do with XML… Either way, it’s kind of interesting to see! You can find out more at NASA . How important is the protocol Pubsubhubbub being promoted by Google? Does it replace the need for autodiscovery? Brian: Great question Lee, Pubsubhubbub, PuSH or hubbub for short, in case you haven’t heard is an open protocol for turning atom or RSS feeds into streams. Because it requires real feed URLs, autodiscovery isn’t really necessary. So, I don’t see Pubsubhubbub as a replacement for autodiscovery per se, but rather as a more efficient method. Some folks I’m sure will continue to use autodiscovery for their feeds but I think PuSH provides additional advantages that will be favored by most. Is there a threshold for how many pages/items should be included in a sitemap feed or how often data is updated to determine whether providing a sitemap is worth it? Amanda: It is difficult to give an across the board threshold for when and how much to include. With retailers, we clearly must look at their seasonality and time the Sitemap submissions to be sure that any new products or category level pages have been spidered and indexed prior to the season’s start. How much to submit is really tied to how complete is the site’s current indexing. I personally believe that it is possible to strategically manage the process making sure that key pages which direct to deeper pages are included. As I mentioned in the session, Sitemaps are not a blunt object, a club, to be used to batter one’s way into the index, rather they provide a method for strategically informing the search engines of what you want found. I love to fish, salt or fresh water, and I think of Sitemaps with a fishing metaphor. They are bait. Whether you submit a Sitemap or not, it is important to have a Webmaster Tools account. The Google team that is responsible for developing this resource continues to make it a much richer and more informative. Today, I consider it a powerful resource for knowing just what the most powerful engine is seeing in a site. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | SEO with Feeds & XML | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Max Kalehoff on Social Media Advertising, Blogging & the Future of Paid Search

BlogPostman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:18:21 +0000

One of the most insightful voices in the online marketing industry when it comes to advertising is Max Kalehoff of Clickable . I was introduced to Max at a Search Insider Summit conference several years ago with very high regard by David Berkowitz , another intelligent voice in the industry, so I knew immediately he was someone to pay attention to. Max’s company recently announced the addition of Facebook Advertising to their PPC management platform and he was very kind to take the time to answer several detailed questions about social media advertising on the Clickable platform, the future of the online advertising industry, slimy SEO middlemen, how he stays current and blogging about his Weber grill. 1. You have impressive credentials in the interactive marketing industry with your experience working at Jupiter, comScore and Nielsen. How did you come to work with Clickable? It’s mostly luck. I’ve been fortunate to work with a series of successful startup teams and entrepreneurs that played a key role in shaping the Internet. I came to Clickable from Nielsen , which bought our last startup, BuzzMetrics, the pioneer in social media measurement and research. I admire Nielsen and have many close friends there, but I wanted to build things and innovate again in a startup environment. Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures, a Clickable investor, introduced me to David Kidder and Munish Gandhi, Clickable’s co-founders. I shared their vision for helping businesses succeed by simplifying online advertising. We quickly became friends and colleagues and the rest is history. What’s behind your passion for building early stage companies? Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been passionate about building things, solving creative problems and exploring new territory. I’ve always tried to live out those passions through education, work, hobbies and family life. With work, entrepreneurial ventures are the best outlets for those passions. When I was in college, I started two summer businesses. The first was sailboat charter business, and the second was a Web development consultancy. Post college, I spent a few years in the marketing agency business but soon threw myself into technology and Web startup life. There’s nothing more invigorating than working closely with a group of like-minded, passionate people trying to change the world. Big companies have their purpose, but nimble upstarts attract smart people who crave abstract problems, peer-to-peer learning, mastery, self-imposed discipline and persistence. Upstarts also require a lot of risk-taking, serendipity and authentic discovery. To me, that’s the only way to live. And given the mess our world is in, we need more of these minds and ventures to invent our way to a better future. For the uninitiated, what is Clickable and what types of companies should be using it? Clickable is a software-as-a-service platform that makes online advertising simple, instant and profitable. Our tools empower beginners to professionals, and companies of all sizes, to maximize their advertising investment. We have three core products: Our flagship Pro tool is a simple dashboard that empowers marketers to manage online advertising with transformational return on investment. Clickable Pro activates instantly with an intuitive experience that makes it easy to manage performance across all major advertising networks, like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and, now, Facebook. Clickable Pro is complemented by Clickable Assist, a managed service that delivers agile assistance to maximize online advertising success. Finally, Clickable Platform is a white-label solution for big services companies to rapidly deploy large-scale online advertising programs to their local business customers under their own brands. We have a simple purpose that ties everything together: to help businesses survive and thrive by simplifying online advertising success. We pursue that purpose by living up to three core values that comprise our DNA: 7:1 – The 7:1 ratio of good to bad acknowledges we’re not perfect. This is a powerful admission that enables us to listen better and constantly improve. This underlies transparency, trust and collaboration with each other and our customers. Simplicity – Our complex world is desperate for simplicity. Simplicity is difficult, yet it creates value, differentiation and opportunity. That’s why we make everything simple and beautiful. And – We are multidimensional. We innovate constantly to perfect our product-to-market fit … And we are a competitive sales culture that closes business. We celebrate both. Recently the Clickable ad management platform announced the incorporation of Facebook ads. Being able to track Facebook and search marketing PPC programs side by side seems a significant opportunity for all. What should advertisers, especially small and medium sized businesses that you serve, expect from social media advertising? What kind of advice do you give to temper expectations? Or do you even need to? We first removed the complexity that prevented marketers from expanding into search networks besides Google AdWords, by introducing a simple interface that marketers could use to manage all of their search marketing campaigns. It’s become clear that the next place where marketers want a simple, effective solution is on the world’s largest social network: Facebook. With over 400 million members, Facebook introduces a new way to advertise that complements search marketing. Using extensive demographic targeting criteria, advertisers on Facebook can get out ahead of their customers and create demand that they can later capture with their search campaigns. Marketers can also use Facebook to promote their brands and drive direct sales. Indeed, this is new territory for everyone. We look forward to experimenting with our advertisers to surface best practices and customer profiles that achieve success. In the course of doing business with many SMBs in conjunction with TopRankSMB , a surprising number of marketers mention having “tried PPC and it didn’t work”. In most cases it’s due to a lack of knowledge, tools and time to gain the knowledge to run a successful search marketing ad campaign. What advice do you find yourself or your company giving SMBs most often in regard to online advertising? What tips can you give to those just starting out? Indeed, we found that up to 50% of SMBs that try online advertising don’t succeed, primarily because of complexity. Similarly, a recent study we conducted on SMBs indicated that roughly half don’t properly track conversions. Knowing conversions is the first step in how an advertiser defines success, whether it’s generating a lead, having someone fill in a form or making a sale. Tracking conversions is important in directing your ad investment to the keywords that will drive the greatest return on investment. There’s a lot of talk about efficiency of click-throughs and cost-per-click, but in the end what really matters is the return on your ad spend, and the profitability of your business. Our most common advice? First, make sure you are tracking your results, and don’t do anything until your analytics are effectively in place. Second, embrace “goal-based advertising” — that is, make investments only toward very specific and realistic business goals. That requires determining the monetary value of your goals, and figuring out which of your services and products have enough potential to justify spend. Finally, invest the time to get educated in PPC and do it right, or hire sometime to do it for you. Otherwise, you will quickly become another statistic in the “tried PPC and it didn’t work” category. That’s a disadvantageous outcome for most businesses. You really hit a nerve with, Brands: Beware Of Slimy SEO Middlemen Meddling Through Social Media . The behavior of the SEO account exec you interacted with is strikingly similar to how many media relations people and start-up business owners behave when they pitch us to write about them on Online Marketing Blog. It’s often a bucket of fake suck-uppiness wrapped around a pitch for a single, short term outcome. It’s sad because something far more significant could be achieved if they looked past the one “placement”. Client demands drive a lot of this behavior and agencies of all types (SEO and PR) often comply. What’s your advice on creating a more meaningful connection with bloggers? My advice for creating a more meaningful connection with bloggers is the same as my advice for success in life: Give more value than you take. If you provide unselfish value, then people will become attracted to you and they will advocate you. Advocacy may result in links, testimonials, business referrals, constructive feedback, partnership, loyalty and friendship. But calculating relationships purely based on SEO objectives can quickly become a risk to your brand. It’s that simple. I like that you can switch from “ My New Weber Grill ” to “ Social and Search Advertising “. As an accomplished and long time blogger, what advice do you have for other interactive and marketing types for blogging over the long haul? How has your own blog affected your career and work? How satisfied are you with your corporate blogging efforts? It’s important to acknowledge that despite all the experts and gurus, the Social Media and Interactive bible is far from completion. We’re only in the beginning of the first chapter, and we’re all students. With that in mind, I think more successful blogging and social media efforts have a defined purpose, goals and room for lots of experimentation. My personal blog is very much me, reflecting the perpetual blur between my professional and home life. They are impossible to separate, and the tension between the two is what makes life interesting. My blog has created an online presence that’s delivered myriad opportunities. It’s led to new business, new friendships, introspection and (in some cases) breaktrhough ideas. I also believe a personal blog is the best laboratory to become fluent and personally vested in interactive technologies. The learning I gained from my personal blogging endeavors directly contributed to some of our more successful interactive marketing strategies at Clickable. I know we’re already into Q2 but what predictions can you offer on the future of paid search for the rest of 2010? What are your thoughts on: Microsoft and Yahoo, Mobile PPC, sponsored social content or what’s next for Google and it’s array of advertising opportunities? Our Q1 2010 analysis of search spending among advertisers on the Clickable Platform reveals that budgets are significantly higher in Q1 versus year-ago, suggesting an economic and advertising rebound. We have seen 75% of our advertisers increase their budgets versus year-ago, while 25% maintained flat or slightly decreased budgets. Based on Q1, we forecast that 2010 full-year search budgets will increase anywhere between 10% and 30% versus 2009. Meanwhile, search budgets are diversifying in terms of network distribution. Microsoft/Bing seems to be gaining ground on Yahoo and Google. Last year, only 5% of customers were using Microsoft/Bing, while currently this percentage is at 9%. We believe one of the big stories in 2010 will be gains in social-network advertising, particularly Facebook. Inefficiencies and behavioral friction have prevented serious experimental dollars to shift, especially among PPC marketers. Social advertising will grow dramatically in 2010 as the major social networks surface in third-party management tools, as well as improve their own self-serve dashboards. A lot of advertisers are highly interested in seizing new opportunities to connect with customers. Mobile advertising is picking up speed, but won’t be terribly relevant for most advertisers in 2010. You blog and write for MediaPost which I recommend people read. How do you stay current yourself? Do you have a short list of industry conferences, blogs, newsletters, Twitter handles or books that you’d recommend? I read a mix of news aggregators and thinkers in strategy, venture capital, tech and media, including: TechMeme , John Hagel , Fred Wilson , Umaire Haque , Jeff Jarvis , All Things Digital , TechCrunch , BusinessInsider , NYTimes Bits and (of course) TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog . While I write a weekly opinion column for MediaPost , I believe it’s one of the most thorough and ubiquitous sources of hard news in the interactive advertising industry. I’m also blessed with a quirky list of friends whom I pay close attention to on Twitter , and they reward me with serendipity, personal tips and reading recommendations. I’ve not read any good business books in years, so I’ve abandoned them for fiction, history and poetry. The market is saturated with conferences and good ones are becoming rare; the best ones tend to be grass roots, niche and local, like many Meetups. We co-founded the New York SEMPO Search Meetup , which now has a passionate following of more than 1,000 members. We also founded and run Interesting Cafe, a discussion series that features some of the greatest living innovators in tech, media, culture and science. Small, passionate gatherings like these have the most profound and positive impact. Thanks Max! Max Kalehoff is vice president of marketing for Clickable , a platform that makes online advertising simple, instant and profitable. He also authors AttentionMax . © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Max Kalehoff on Social Media Advertising, Blogging & the Future of Paid Search | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Max Kalehoff on Social Media Advertising, Blogging & the Future of Paid Search

Are Seo Packages A Good Investment?

BlogPostman — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:56:13 +0000

When you own a website, your primary focus is to attract a constant flow of new (organic) traffic. You will likely have a set of established, returning visitors whom you can count on to make purchases, but the success of any company is marked by its growth. When you are seeking to make your website bigger, better, or more popular, the simple fact is that you need more visitors. While Pay Per Click advertising is a common method of attempting this, the development of bots and companies that would click just to generate income or make your numbers look higher than they really are caused this market to largely decline. Ultimately, without visitors to your page you have no sales. Furthermore, if your page hits are being generated by ad clicks, then the people visiting your page likely don’t understand or have interest in what it is that you are actually offering. SEO packages are different that they offer a chance for you to get organic, unpaid traffic flowing to your website. With these packages, you are able to commission a steady stream of articles that provide important and relevant content, ensuring that readers know exactly what you have to offer and that they visit your site because they are genuinely interested. Not to mention how happy it makes the search engines to feed them on a regular basis. When it comes down to it, quality SEO packages are an investment in your company. Article marketing takes a bit longer than standard click based advertising to really show its full potential, but ultimately it is the best option for your site. When paid clicks lead people to your site, they are apt to simply click away when they realize they are not where they thought they would be. Article marketing, however, ensures that every click and every follow through is from someone who is looking specifically for your page. This greatly increases the chances that the visitor will purchase your products or services. SEO packages also offer the distinct benefit of remaining available to readers for as long as the directory is active. This means that an article can continue to generate new readers and new business for many years to come. For only a single investment, you can easily provide yourself with long term organic traffic and other benefits, while pay per click advertising brings in traffic only as long as you are still paying for your ads to remain active. Another thing that makes an SEO package a true investment is that it enables you to commission a large number of expert written articles that will be submitted over time. This spacing ensures that readers are always being offered new content and new answers. It also offers the chance to present your company as an expert in the field, using your expertise on your product matter to help answer common questions or solve common problems. At the end of the day, SEO packages are simply the smarter way to go. They work far more efficiently than standard pay per click advertising, and offer readers much more benefit than the keyword stuffed articles that flooded the market only a few years in the past. Search Engine Optimization today is about providing necessary content that solves a problem and that provides information relevant to the keywords and topics chosen. If your website is in need of a long term boost in traffic and you are seeking a way to bring in organic traffic and interested parties, an SEO package makes a great choice. More visitors certainly equates more sales, especially when they are going to your site because they are already interested in your content. - About the Author: Words You Want is your one stop resource for all of your writing needs. Words You Want offers a variety of services including SEO packages , article directory submission, SEO article writing , ghostwriting, eBook writing, travel writing, equine writing and more. Article Source

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Are Seo Packages A Good Investment?

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?