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The Four Secrets of Successful PPC Campaigns

October 30th, 2009

from: http://websitetips.com/articles/marketing/secrets/

Over the past decade, online marketing has become an integral part of most businesses’ marketing strategies. In particular, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) have become one of the most common channels for any business to sell its products and services. In this article, I will share some insights into successful SEM and SEO campaigns.

The attractive quality of SEM and in particular pay per click (PPC) advertising is that the results are measurable. As a strategic marketer, I have never come across any sales or marketing tool which is so transparent and cost-effective.

PPC campaigns allow you to see vital statistics on user behavior, text ads, keywords and much more. Best of all, however, is the fact that you can use PPC campaigns as “instant sales generators:” You can pause your campaign when sales are high or you can switch them on again when sales are low to get a new sales boost.

Secret 1: Have an Online Strategy in Place Before You Start!

Prior to implementing your online strategy you should consider the following:

I. Define the Purpose of Your Online Marketing Campaign

Some businesses use PPC purely as a “sales generator” tool, other businesses use it as a way to encourage new client leads and others simply for increased brand awareness.

II. Identify the Medium and Long Term Online Strategy

It is important to have realistic medium and long term expectations. Bear in mind that online campaigns deliver improved results the longer you run them.

III. Set a Realistic Monthly Budget

Always consider your budget relative to your product’s profit margin. PPC can have a massive effect on sales and lead generation, but in our experience, we often find that very few businesses develop a strategy before they start their campaign.

The alarmingly common approach of “let’s allocate some budget for 6 months and see what happens” is a recipe for disaster. Particularly for the first weeks of your PPC campaign run time, it is imperative that you dedicate a significant amount of time to fine-tuning key words and text ads.

An alternative solution is to employ an agency and ask them for a trial PPC campaign in which the results are assessed after 4 weeks. If your agency cannot deliver results within the first 2-3 weeks, chances are that they are not allocating your budget to the right key words and text ads or did not consult you properly in the first place.

Secret 2: Prepare Your Website!

Statistics show that you have got exactly 6 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site. If the visitor does not instantly find what he or she is looking for, your budget will not translate into business or leads. It is critical for your website to have the following characteristics:

Enticing images
If you offer a service, pictures of happy people will give the impression of satisfied end users. If you are offering a product, make sure that your images are clear and represent your product in a true manner.
Good web copy
Remember that less is more when it comes to web copy. Don’t clutter your site with unnecessary text. Good web copy should fit in one frame.
Call to action phrases
Tell your visitors what you want them to do. Examples of good call to action phrases are: “Call now!”, “Buy today!”, “Contact us!”.
No scroll bars
Wherever possible, fit everything into one screen or frame. The more a user has to scroll, the more chance you have in loosing the visitor.
Site design in HTML
Flash websites might look great, but are a killer for any SEM campaign. You may incorporate some flash images to enhance your site’s look and feel, however keep your site predominately HTML.

Remember: Unless your site is ready, your traffic will not convert into sales or leads.

Secret 3: Start Small – Choose One Search Engine Only

Especially if you are dipping your toe into the pay per click pool for the first time, it is more than OK to start off small. In my experience, too many companies are confronted by the variety of choice between different PPC search engines and are tricked into thinking they need to be on all these so-called “networks” immediately.

New online advertisers are often considering big players such as Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (Yahoo!7 and ninemsn in Australia), but also the smaller fish such as Sensis, Ask, MIVA and Mirago. Too many different campaigns – each of which are run according to different rules, different budgets and different funding – are too much to juggle for most first time online advertisers.

It is important to stay focused when deciding on your first search marketing network, and refer back to your online strategy to properly match your purpose to the correct network. I would always recommend trialing a campaign on Google due to its amount of market share (55%) and quality traffic. If your campaign performs well on Google, chances are it will also perform on other networks.

Walk before you can run. Test your campaign on one network first to get a feel for it, and when you feel more confident then consider branching out.

Secret 4: Trial and Assess the Results

After choosing the correct search engine network to implement your PPC campaign, embark on a simple three week trial campaign. The great thing about PPC is that you can pause it whenever you like, so you are not locked into any long term commitment after your designated ‘trial period.’

Once you have seen the campaign results for the first three weeks, you (or your online agency) should be able to identify trends for your particular business. For instance, you should be able to see which of your key words were most sought after, which words attracted most enquiries or led to sales, which “click-days” and “click times” were extremely popular and which companies you compete with.

Example: one of our clients in the beauty industry knew after their three week trial period that Wednesdays and Thursdays between 12 noon and 4pm were extremely popular for them in regards to clicks and enquiries for their services. As a result, they shifted their entire media budget on these 2 days and now receive twice as many enquiries as they had gotten in previous weeks – with the same investment!

Whilst trends are important to analyze for both your medium- and long-term online strategy, you must also closely analyze the direct impact that the campaign has on your business. Your sales team (or whoever answers calls in your business) needs to be briefed before the campaign starts and should monitor where new business leads are coming from.

Analysis of your new business enquiries and where they found out about you is important to accurately gauge the impact of a prolonged PPC campaign. Use your trial campaign as an indication of what is to come.

In my experience, PPC campaigns improve immensely over time and a feature of their success depends on the amount of time that is invested in their development.

About the Author

Barbara Fischer is the founder and director of Sydney based agency, Trendhaus Marketing. The core service offerings are strategic consulting, branding and online marketing. http://www.trendhaus.com.au

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Escaping the Dark Ages of Online Marketing with Tom Leung

October 29th, 2009

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23+ Ways to Promote Your Website for Free

October 29th, 2009

from: http://inchoo.net/online-marketing/23-ways-to-promote-your-website-for-free/

23+ Ways to Promote Your Website for Free

There is actually no such thing as free website promotion unless you are really lucky. You always have to invest at least some time and effort, and as we all know time equals money which means no promotion is actually free.

However, if you are looking into ways to promote your website online while not spending any money, here are some ways you can do it. Most of these are generally well known but you might find something new and useful.

  1. Start a blog. If you already don’t have a blog you have no idea what you’ve been missing. As we all know, content is king and having an ability to deliver fresh, engaging, and interesting content to potential visitors is crucial for any organic SEO success.
  2. Be guest author on specialized blog or eZine. You can’t just wait to be invited to write for someone. You should contact respected blogs or web magazines in your industry and ask them if you can be a guest author. In most cases they will allow you to link back to your website and thus for you will gain free promotion. Being a guest author in respected media in your industry is also very good for raising the brand awareness of both you, your company and your services or products.
  3. Get guest authors for your blog. By getting other people to write for you you will save time of writing an article of your own and you will be able to spend that time on promoting your website. In most cases guest author will also promote the article on his own, giving you free promotion. To find guest authors you can search for relevant bloggers and contact them or if you already are established website with community of its own, you can ask your community to participate in blog posting.
  4. Comment on other blogs. Most of the blogs will allow for you to make your name on the comment appear as a link to your website/blog. By commenting on relevant blogs you will in most cases bring targeted traffic to your website and raise awareness of your existence to the owner of the blog. If you are investing lots of time and effort into creating valuable content in your comments, the blogger migth decide to award you for the effort and link to you via blogroll. Some of these blogs are “do follow” blogs and commenting on them will provide you with SEO benefit to.
  5. Link to relevant content in your articles / blog posts. By linking to other relevant sources you show your give additional value to your content for the readers. Most of the websites track their visit statistics and referral sources and this way you will also raise awareness of your existence in the eyes of your niche. Some of them might be so nice to link back to you in some cases while some websites have automated systems of showing track backs to their articles.
  6. Ask bloggers for your product or service reviews. Most of the bloggers are actually looking for something to write about. If your product or service is relevant to the blog’s content, the blogger might agree to test it and write a review of it for free. There is nothing for you to lose, you only need to ask nicely. Send an email to as many relevant bloggers as you can find and ask them to write about you. Eventually, you will get lucky.
  7. Create a Facebook page and/or group. Facebook is one of the best social networks out there that you can use in order to bring some targeted traffic to your website. You should strive to create viral marketing effect when dealing with social networks such as facebook. Groups that encourage users to buy your service and / or product will not be very effective. You have to be clever and think of ways to lure people that might be of interest into your products and / or services into your group without being clearly obvious that purpose of the group is to direct traffic to your website and make people buy from you.
  8. Create a Facebook application. Facebook applications tend to create even bigger viral effect then facebook groups or pages, especially if you play the cards right. Make something cool and fun that people will love to share and make sure to have a plan on how will you benefit from the application.
  9. Use Twitter. Twitter is undeniably the next big thing in social media burning the web with over two million users right now! The ability to promote your product via twitter almost effortlessly should not be ignored. It’s really easy to gain followers on twitter and once you have a nice number of followers it’s as good as an RSS feed. You should read some useful tips on how to use twitter in marketing purposes and how to gain twitter followers.
  10. Use LinkedIn. While Facebook and Twitter both have huge user base and potential to bring millions of visitors at your website’s doorstep, LinkedIn can sometimes prove to be much more ROI effective. LinkedIn is a network full of highly educated professionals from different industries and in some industries it will send much more targeted audience then other social networks.
  11. Create a LinkedIn group. And by creating a group I don’t mean create a group about your company. Try going much broader and create a group that concentrates on your entire industry. Invest some time and effort to bring people into your group and once you built yourself a nice community you might be lucky enough and your group starts growing on its own. If you succeed you will have an army of your industries professionals at your disposal. You will have ability to send emails to entire group and to make any discussion featured and thus for control where the traffic of your group will be sent.
  12. Be involved in LinkedIn discussions. The discussions on linked in (group discussions and questions and answers) tend to bring really nice and targeted traffic if you place a relevant link to your blog post or article in it. Try not to look spammy and only link to your articles when they solve the problem someone asked in discussion.
  13. Create YouTube channel and post cool videos. YouTube is currently the 2nd largest search engine in the world! Imagine how much traffic you could pull from there especially considering the fact that in most industries competition on YouTube is pretty low compared to the big search engines. You should try not to put on commercials on YouTube (unless they are extremely funny) but instead put something interesting that might go viral. Be sure to always include a link to your website or the relevant article or subpage to the video on your website into the sidebar.
  14. Create accounts on other video websites (YouTube clones). There are really lots of similar websites that don’t actually have as much traffic as YouTube does but they also have much less competition. If you already made a video for YouTube it’s not very time consuming to also upload it to other video websites and it’s really worth of effort.
  15. Publish press releases. This is not as effective as it use to be but it’s still worth the effort. There are quiet a number of websites that allow you to submit your press release for free. Just Google it and you’ll find more then enough to fill your appetite.
  16. Post a Wikipedia article about your company / website / product. Wikipedia tends to rank really well on Google and appears to be really good source of targeted traffic. You’ll have to invest some time and effort into creating the wiki entry as you don’t want your entry to be disapproved (deleted as soon as editor realizes you are just trying to promote yourself). If this is your first time submitting something to wikipedia, you should spend some time researching the similar wiki entries and reading the guidelines.
  17. Exchange links. Use search engines to find relevant websites to your industry and contact them in order to try to establish a link exchange. In most cases both websites will benefit from such a exchange as long as you are exchanging links with websites relevant to yours. Avoid exchanging links with spammy and scammy sites.
  18. Exchange banners. In some cases you will find banner exchange more efficient then link exchange. The same rules apply here as in link exchange case. Try avoiding the big banner exchange networks and rather concentrate on setting up exchange deals on your own with websites you actually wont to exchange banners with.
  19. Submit your website to web directories. There are really lots of web directories that will allow you to list your website on them for free. Try concentrating on biggest ones such as DMOZ and also on really targeted ones for your website’s niche.
  20. Submit your website to CSS / design galleries. If you have a nice looking website design, it’s a shame not to share it with the world. Some of these galleries are really popular and could bring nice traffic. There are also specialized galleries for different type of website such as Magentique (Magentique is showcase of web stores made with Magento ecommerce platform).
  21. Use Digg. Recent stats show that digg’s traffic is declining, however, it still remains one of the most valuable sources of free and targeted traffic you can find online. It’s not enough just to submit the article to Digg, it won’t hit the front page by some magical IT voodoo dance. You have to build yourself a network of friends on Digg which requires a lot of time and effort.
  22. Use social bookmarks. You should use social bookmark services and be active part of community. The most popular ones are also free to use and only thing you invest is your time and effort. You should try with StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us. Also using less popular social networks might bring you some traffic easier as competition is lower.
  23. Be active member of your niche’s forum communities. Most forums will allow you to put a link to your website in your forum signature. Some of them will even allow multiple links in signature which means you can also build some deep links easily. In some cases you will be able to mention some of your blog posts or articles in forum discussions when they actually solve the problem asked in discussion. This will bring highly targeted free traffic to your website.

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Ready for Google Video?

October 28th, 2009

from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/sitedesign/article167504.html

Video advertising has gone live on Google. Is it right for you?

With online video advertising building momentum among marketers, Google has gotten in the game with the introduction in May of click-to-play video advertising in the U.S., Canada and Japan.

“Publishers know that video ads are treated like content by users, and users enjoy interacting with video ads,” says Gokul Rajaram, director of product management for Google AdSense. Ads are user-initiated and are priced on either a pay-per-click basis or on the level of website traffic. Advertisers can control where ads are shown by targeting with keywords or selecting sites that accept Google advertising. Ad campaigns vary in cost, but Rajaram estimates that $5 can get an advertiser about 5,000 impressions.

Emily Riley, advertising and marketing analyst at market research firm JupiterKagan Inc., says entrepreneurs should realize how Google’s offering is different. “Google’s video option is not in-stream video, but is instead in-banner video, which doesn’t fall in the middle of a video clip from a show. It’s a more advanced version of a rich media advertisement,” Riley explains. She believes entrepreneurs should think carefully before jumping in—businesses with large budgets may be able to offer more per impression and bump out smaller competitors, although larger advertisers are more likely to use providers like FoxNews.com or YouTube, which offer in-stream options. “Even with geo-targeting, an entrepreneur often won’t be able to purchase enough impressions to get a sufficient response,” she explains. “But if you have a video you’d like to share, this might be an affordable option.”

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Write a Keyword-Rich Article to Increase Site Traffic

October 28th, 2009

from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/websmarts/article173448.html

If you have a way with words, we have 3 simple steps that’ll help increase your web traffic–for free.

Want to increase traffic, build credibility, improve your search engine rankings and get people talking about your business–at no cost? Then open up your word processor, and start writing. By determining your best search keywords, writing an article that includes those keywords and getting it distributed online, you’ll be putting yourself on the radar of people looking for what you provide.

Step 1: Set up your site for maximum “searchability.”
Your site has to feature the keywords your potential customers use to search for your product if you want them to find you. To determine your keywords, type a word or term you think people in your market might search for into Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool to find out how many people searched for that particular term over the past month. It’ll also show you a list of related words and phrases and how often they were searched over the last month, too.

Once you’ve generated a list of useful keyword ideas, you can do some more serious research. Wordtracker goes into more depth to show you not only what people are searching for online but also how many other sites are competing for the same audience. You’re looking for search terms that are popular but don’t have too many sites competing for them. Wordtracker is a paid service, but you can sign up for a day for less than $8 and for a week for less than $27.

Now that you have some great keywords for your market, find as many places as you can to plug them into your site. Use them in your title tags, source code, page copy, headers and subheads, and your opt-in.

Step 2: Create a keyword-rich article.
Write a keyword-rich article that relates to what you sell, then give it away to other sites–for free. Believe it or not, this is one of the best ways to drive a steady stream of eager customers to your site.

Why does it work? Well, people basically come online for one of two reasons: to check their e-mail or to look for information. Sure, some of them end up making purchases, but this isn’t generally the reason they log on. They want the answer to a question or the solution to a problem–and you can provide that in a short article.

Make sure that each article you write contains rare, valuable or hard-to-find information. Not only will this increase the chances that other site owners or managers will post your article, it’ll also increase the number of visitors who click through to your site after reading it.

For example, if you have a site that sells used golf equipment, you could write an article about three things to look for in a good, pre-owned putter. Or if you sell an e-book about setting up your own home computer network, why not write an article about common problems people have in setting up a wireless router?

Look for article ideas in the questions people ask you all the time or in the things you often see people doing wrong. Share hot new tips on how to use the products you sell, or talk about trends you’ve spotted in your industry. Your quick piece should:

  • Be no longer than 400 words (not even a whole page in Microsoft Word)
  • Contain a relevant keyword in the first 90 characters
  • Contain the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
  • Have a short, credibility-building bio with a link to your site at the end. For instance, “Joe Smith is a recognized authority on the subject of widgets. His site, www.JoesWidgets.com, provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you’ll ever need to know about widgets.”

Step 3: Get your content headed everywhere on the web.
Once you’ve taken the time to write one or two articles, head to one of these top online content distribution sites. Upload your keyword-rich content to:

These sites carry hundreds (some carry thousands) of articles on a range of topics. If someone’s looking for content for their site, they can download or copy an article from the distribution site without paying a dime to use it. They can’t change the text of the article, and they must publish it with the author’s name and information intact.

Now people plugging your keywords into search engines will be directed to your content at these highly ranked sites, and site owners looking for fresh, search engine-attracting content will download your article–along with your bio and link–and put it up on their pages. And once visitors see that you know what you’re talking about, they’ll click on the link in your bio and head straight to your site.

Some content distribution sites also offer “send to a friend” links next to articles posted on their sites, so make sure you’re uploading your articles to sites with this kind of capability. Every time someone enjoys your article enough to pass it on, your audience grows. And since people don’t forward bad content to their friends, they’re basically recommending you as a credible source just by passing it on.

The best thing about this strategy is these visitors are quality, targeted traffic–they actually want what you’re selling because you’re meeting a need or giving them help with the problem they came online to solve.

Derek Gehl is Entrepreneur.com’s “E-Business” columnist and the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, an internet marketing firm that has helped thousands of people learn to start and run their own online businesses.

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