Are you concerned about how to attract more visitors to your site and convert them into your clients? There are hundreds of options out there, but not all of them are effective enough. How to find the most effective one and bring your online business to a different level? You are about to discover how can classified ads help you to achieve it.

First and foremost, you want your classified ad to be relevant. Unfortunately, many marketers miss this out being too general in their ads. For example, if you offer books in German, your classified ad should reflect it, instead of stating just ‘books’. Being as specific as possible will result in targeted traffic, and most likely in sales.

The second thing which your classified ad must do is speak to a person as if they were person. If you look on the Google content network where most classified ads are you will see a ton of ads which read like simple signs in a grocery store. They say things like: “Train your dog to be obedient.” Now sure that may be what the person is after but you are not speaking to them as if they were a person.

Pretend you are speaking about your product or service to someone you met on the street. This is how classified ad should sound like. Nothing odd and complicated.

The third and the most important thing which your ad must do is sell the dream. This means that you are telling someone what kind of an emotional benefit they are going to get from clicking on your ad, don’t worry about the offer just yet. You want the person to click the ad first and then have the sales page or report do its work. You might say something like: “Tired of your dog destroying your belongings? Find out how you can relax when you left him alone.” Something like this communicates the emotional benefit while arousing curiosity about what they will find out if they click your ad.

Once this is done, you are ready to place your ad. You can also prepare a couple of ads and rotate them to find out which one converts better. In the end of the day it is a customer who decides if it will work or not and if it is worth spending time on. Testing is the best way to find it out. So advertise, keep testing new ideas and see which of them result in conversions and profits.

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Over the years, the industry of internet marketing has developed to the point where incorporating an online marketing plan is absolutely essential for any company wanting to succeed in the future. Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are the most popular forms of internet marketing as they can drive lots of targeted traffic to your website. Down below is a list of some of the most important lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of search as a medium:

– Search should not be thought of as a stand alone marketing medium – PPC (Paid Search) is better for accomplishing some goals than SEO is – SEO is better for accomplishing some goals than PPC is – Content is KING – Content is KING (did we say that already?)

Perhaps one of the most powerful of these lessons however, is that as powerful as search is, it CANNOT compensate for a faulty business model.

Faulty Business Model

Sure, in the short term a good SEO can help. Those rankings will often bring in some business through targeted traffic from the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Unfortunately, those same good rankings can also help to conceal problems within the business model.

What is a Good Business Model?

What does a good business model consist of? It’s usually a direct function of the relative value:price ratio for a product or service amongst competitors, sprinkled with a whole lot of common sense.

However, if anything is amiss – the company is doomed for failure, expert SEO or not.

Why Are Companies with Faulty Business Models Doomed?

Companies with faulty business models are doomed for a number of reasons. Primarily however, they’re doomed because search engines want to recommend sites that SATISFY searcher’s needs. Almost by definition, companies with faulty business models cannot satisfy clients and searchers, because either:

– Their price is too high given the value of the product or service – Their value is too low given the price of the product or service – Common sense is lacking, severely distorting the value:price ratio – and we suspect this is by far the most common

Long term (in a few more years – not yet though) this means search engines will look at your friend’s preferences and opinions (aka social search), and the behaviour patterns of thousands of other searchers, and will rearrange rankings based on those indicators. The result – faulty business models lose.

What Does This Mean for SEO’s and the Industry of Internet Marketing?

As a result, SEO and internet marketing companies in the future will have to make some interesting business decisions:

– do we accept or retain clients with faulty business models? – how do we identify clients with faulty business models – what are the signals? – do we attempt to become management/change consultants too?

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

Ultimately, this means that companies must focus their time and efforts on what it is they do best. They need to ensure they’ve got solid defensible business models. The more sound the business model, the easier it will be to rank for relevant terms. If not, make the tough decisions, and correct the issues, or Google will!

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Many internet marketers especially those who spend a lot of money on AdWords to drive traffic to their websites are now asking themselves if Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots is necessary to have. Those who are seriously considering this are those who have a thing or two to say about Google and are discontent with the search giant.

Hence it is of no surprise that when a product comes out, positioning itself as the alternative to an already saturated market, a lot of marketers get curious and start digging up information.

So it comes down to this important question, should you really purchase Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots?

First of all, Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots teaches you how to enter and dominating the Yahoo Paid Search playing field which is literally in need of some competition as of the moment. It is without doubt that a huge majority of pay per click users are on Google AdWords.

Second, it reveals a little known glitch in Yahoo’s search marketing system that will allow you to get better ad positions and yet spend less. Most marketers who are new to PPC almost always lose their shirt before they master it, and yet many who do, still do not manage to turn out a profit, or even barely break even. Now is your chance to start out in PPC and not lose money.

Third, step by step instructions are one of the manuals best traits, this ensure that you fully understand what needs to get done, without breaking a sweat or getting a headache.

Lastly, Yahoo is more considerate with affiliate marketers that Google who according to some PPC veterans, have too many restrictive policies levied on the marketers.

So give Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots a try and start earning some idiot free income… besides at the end of it all, you would be an idiot not to try it for $77 knowing that there is a 60 day iron clad money back guarantee if it instead makes an idiot out of you.

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If you were to talk with a search engine marketing consultant, they would have certain tips to give you. There are many websites these days which do have a website which is optimized for search engine marketing. This is important because if you do not have a website which is optimized and shows up in search engine results, you cannot get traffic to your website without having to buy it and this gets expensive.

If you are concerned about how your website shows up in websites, you may inquire about search engine marketing services. These services will usually focus their attention upon three main areas: incoming links, your content, and your keywords. These are factors which are important for the search engines and will result in your website being placed higher in results if you focus on these factors. This article will talk more about this.

The first of the six factors a search engine marketing services company will examine is competitive analysis. This is done to see how your website stacks up against the competition along with which companies are in the top ten results and why they are there.

The second factor to look into is keyword research to see which keywords are actually used by your prospective audience and how competitive these keywords are. Without proper keywords, your website is not visible to your niche audience searching for what you have to offer.

A search engine marketing consultant will use page optimization to see which keywords are emphasized on various pages. This will ensure that your set of keywords is used properly throughout your website so that you show up for all keywords you are targeting.

Search engine marketing services companies place great emphasis on site usability. Without a site that is easy to get around, your audience will become disenchanted and exit your site quickly which is not good for your business.

Off page optimization such as link building is the next area which will be focused on by search engine marketing services companies. Link building is important because this is a factor in search engine rankings.

You can also think about using paid search engine marketing such as Adwords. This is an option some search engine marketing consultants will recommend because you can get your website in front of your audience faster than organic search engine marketing optimization efforts.

Can you not see the importance of these tips if you were a search engine marketing consultant? There are certain steps that must be done to develop a highly successful website and this website covers many of those steps. Be sure to use these to maximize your website’s chances for success.

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Pay per click advertising – the services like Google AdWords, NineMSN Search Marketing and Yahoo Search Marketing provide you with a great way to track your online advertising, have instant results and are very cost effective. These are the qualities that make pay per click advertising my favourite way to advertise online. You need to make the most of your advertising money by ensuring that you are getting a good return for your investment. You can do this by using conversion tracking tools to determine where your money is being best spent.

A feature that allows you to do this is called conversion tracking and if you don’t know what this is you can easily search on Google for something like “Google Adwords Conversion Tracking” and a page should come up showing you how to install that. Once you have that installed, you can start to see the difference in the results between different keywords, different ads, and different landing pages. The first tip for Google Adwords or paid search is to:

1. Test Lots of Different Keywords: Don’t just test one or two; you should be testing hundreds or sometimes even thousands of very specific key phrases. You’re looking to work out which key phrases are effective at generating enquiries and which key phrases are just spending your money without having an effect. Once you have conversion tracking installed that will allow you to tell the difference.

2. Test multiple ads: Google Adwords, for one will let you try out different ads to see which are the most effective at driving traffic to your website. You’ll find out that some are far better at this than are others. For example, we worked with a client in the finance sector not so long ago and learned that one particular ad got traffic and conversions at less than a third of the cost of the other ads they were using. When you’re a larger company spending five figures on ads a month, a 30% saving is quite a lot of money.

3. Break up Your Pay Per Click Account into Targeted Ad Groups: An ad group is a set of ads which are brought up when people search for certain keywords. For instance, if you are a mortgage broker who offers mortgage refinancing, you may have a group of ads which are triggered when someone searches for the keywords “mortgage refinance” or variants of these keywords. Your ad which comes up when these terms are searched for will contain these keywords and be targeted to the demographic likely to search using these words. You’ll also need to make sure that the links send potential customers to a landing page which has to do with the refinancing of mortgages.

The goal here is to make sure that your landing pages and your ads as relevant as possible to your keywords – this is the way to get those high conversion rates you really want.

These methods can make your web based advertising dramatically more effective. Your Google AdWords and other pay per click programs can double, triple or even get ten times the results they are getting for you now!

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by Stockman Spiller

Are there spending requirements, or a minimum contract length? There are no minimum spending requirements with PPC Squad, or with Google. You can spend as much or as little as you want on advertising each month. There is a three month minimum when you sign up for PPC Squad, after that your commitment is month-to-month. Managing a PPC program is an on-going process, and campaigns perform better and better over time as they gain momentum, and as we accumulate data and continually refine and optimize for results.

What’s the difference between site optimization and search engine advertising? With optimization you are making your site and its pages as “friendly” to the search engine crawlers as possible. The purpose of both on-site and off-site optimization is to increase your rankings in the ‘natural’ listings and to establish as many links as possible to your site from other locations on the web. This is a long term, growth oriented concept. Search engine advertising can get your site exposure and get clicks to your site on an immediate basis.We are a reputable company based in Manhattan Beach, CA (near Los Angeles), and the founders have been in the technology business for many years.

What is PPC Squad? PPC Squad is a team of PPC experts offering professional SEM management to smaller business with smaller budgets. With packages starting at just $99/month, we do everything it takes to create and manage your pay-per-click program.We are a reputable company based in Manhattan Beach, CA (near Los Angeles), and the founders have been in the technology business for many years. We have also received the qualification of Google as an AdWords professional company and we manage millions of dollars a year in ad spending for large public and private companies.If you have a website, we can start to deliver traffic immediately.

Do you pay for searches from all countries ? Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. Some advertisers request USA, and or Canada traffic only and clicks for those advertisers will be paid accordingly.If you have a website, we can start to deliver traffic immediately. If you do not yet have a website, our partners can build a site for you quickly and inexpensively. Click here for a list of our website building partners.Search engine advertising, also known as paid search, is when search engine marketers bid for their advertisements to appear for specific keyword searches (e.

Are you part of or affiliated with Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL? No we are a separate company, but we have received the Google Qualified Advertising Professional certification, meaning we are experts in using Google AdWords and have passed Google’s stringent tests to receive this seal of approval.Search engine advertising, also known as paid search, is when search engine marketers bid for their advertisements to appear for specific keyword searches (e.g. see the “Sponsored Links” section on a Google search results page). This advertising is also known as pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) since the advertiser only pays when a user clicks on the ad and is directed to the advertiser’s web site.With optimization you are making your site and its pages as “friendly” to the search engine crawlers as possible.

What is the BetterPPC Business Directory? Why is it free? The BetterPPC Business Directory was created as an added benefit for customers of BetterPPC WebClicks. It is a central directory of all of our customers (and other businesses) and was created with the goals of helping our businesses customers find more customers of their own! The listing is completely free and is an added benefit for BetterPPC Webclicks customers. BetterPPC Webclicks drives traffic directly to your site from major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.Yes you can change the credit card on your account at any time. Simply give us a call at 1 888 PPC ADS 3 and we will change your billing information.

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by Buck Stanfield

When you talk with a search engine marketing consultant, he or she will have certain recommendations about what you need to do to ensure your website shows up near the top of search engine results. Search engine marketing ensures that your website will have the ability to be near the top of search engine results. People who are searching for your particular topic will then be able to click through to your website, giving you prospective customers if you operate a business website.

If you talk with search engine marketing services companies to ensure you receive great traffic, much of the attention and questioning will revolve around how many incoming links you have, your content, and how your site is optimized around your main keywords. These factors help determine your ranking in search engines and whether you will show up in the top ten rankings or not. This article will explain six important factors in a brief period of time you should look for when doing search engine optimization marketing.

Search engine optimization marketing is first started with a competitive analysis. This is used to see which companies are in the top ten results for a particular keyword and why those companies are there.

The second factor to look into is keyword research to see which keywords are actually used by your prospective audience and how competitive these keywords are. Without proper keywords, your website is not visible to your niche audience searching for what you have to offer.

A search engine marketing consultant will also examine page optimization of your website. This is important because your website will have a set of different keywords and certain keywords are used for certain pages.

Search engine marketing services companies will focus upon site usability. This is important because you want your website to be very easy to get around so that your audience is able to find what they are looking for.

Off page optimization such as link building is the next area which will be focused on by search engine marketing services companies. Link building is important because this is a factor in search engine rankings.

You can also think about using paid search engine marketing such as Adwords. This is an option some search engine marketing consultants will recommend because you can get your website in front of your audience faster than organic search engine marketing optimization efforts.

Through this article, you can get an idea of what a search engine marketing consultant deems important. These are important points you should examine closely to make sure you included it with your website development. If you do not use these steps, you are putting yourself at peril of losing traffic you could have had to your website.

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by Terry Stanfield

One of the problems that come with search engine marketing is having keywords or key phrases for your website that are very common and that many websites use. Since more and more companies are becoming aware of the need for search engine optimization and are starting to use search engine marketing any company that makes a product or sells a service similar to yours might end up using the exact same keywords or key phrases that you are using. After all, when you’re coming up with keywords or key phrases you’re trying to think of the most common words that you can so that you will pick words that a lot of other people associate with your product or service so it only makes sense that other companies would be using those words for their search engine marketing too.

But if you are using the same keywords and key phrases that a lot of other companies are using then your website might not rank as high on the search engine results pages because your keywords could be the same as a thousand other sites.

So how can you solve this problem? You can use long tail keywords to solve the problem of using the same keywords or key phrases as thousands of other web pages. Long tail keywords are clusters of keywords that are not common words individually but when put together they will point customers and clients to your site. By using long tail keywords you will rank higher in the search engine results pages because the words that you will be using will draw, in most cases more qualified customers who are interested in your product.

Using long tail keywords can be tricky and requires a good vocabulary. If you’re not sure how to use long tail keywords and you are trying to promote a website that has a focus that is very popular and a lot of other websites have then you might want to consider hiring a company that specializes in search engine optimization and search engine marketing to figure out what long tail keywords would work best for your site. Driving traffic to your website can be tricky when there are millions of websites that are all competing with your website for traffic but using long tail keywords is one way that you can outsmart your competition.

If you are using long tail keywords in conjunction with an ad program like Google’s Ad Sense then you save money on advertising because you will be using words that are less commonly and more focused and therefore less expensive but when you string those words together to make a key phrase that key phrase can be an effective search engine marketing tool that can drive customers to your website instead of to websites that are run by your competitors.

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by Jill Brennan

People are constantly looking for ways to get more website traffic; however, unless they’re getting targeted website traffic, they’re just spinning their wheels. Is your good-looking website attracting the right kind of traffic? Are you reaching the right audience?

Targeted website traffic includes people who are actually interested in what your site offers. They have been -targeted- for that very reason. For example, when you look at a book ad on Amazon.com, they show you books other people bought who also liked the one you were looking at. That’s because it is reasonable to assume that if you’re interested in the first one, you’ll be interested in others like it. They are targeting a fantasy fan for their fantasy books, instead of trying to sell them to random people. That is what you need to do as well.

Targeted website traffic and guaranteed traffic are not the same thing. You don’t want to attract just anybody and everybody to your site. You want a specific client — one that will benefit from your information or product, ultimately becoming a loyal customer.

Randomly luring people is the difference between displaying magazines for people to leaf through or snagging a loyal customer who returns to buy each month.

One good way to get targeted website traffic is to use keywords. Think of the person you want on your site. When he or she is looking up something on the internet, the person uses particular words to do that, right? If they need fuzzy dice to hang from their rearview window, they will type certain things into the search engine in order to find those fuzzy dice.

This is where psychology comes into play. Do they type in -fuzzy dice,- -car dice,- -hanging dice,- -rearview mirror dice,- -fuzzy car dice,- or none of the above? What if they can’t spell right and type -fuzy dice-? What if they don’t know whether -rearview- is supposed to be one word or two? You want the money from the -rear view mirror dice- people just as much as you want the others. Keywords are all about improving your odds.

To both maximise your web traffic and build even more you need to have other items that your fuzzy dice seeking consumer is also likely to be interested in. In order to do this, you need to know more about your customers. Are they male or female? Under 25 or over 40? Perhaps a car accessory site is the best fit. Or maybe an unusual gift type site is a better mix. Without understanding the interests of your likely web visitors, its difficult to get your pitch right.

Targeted website traffic is like playing the stock market — you can make predictions based on careful research, but you will never know exactly whether your predictions will translate into sales. All you can do is increase the odds of driving more website traffic to your site through targeting your audience.

About the Author:
by Carolyn Hulbert

A search engine marketing consultant will help you develop a website which can show up very highly in search engine results. There are certain techniques which you must do if you want to ensure your website shows up. You want your website to be high in the search engine rankings so that people searching for your particular topic will be able to find your website.

If you are concerned about how your website shows up in websites, you may inquire about search engine marketing services. These services will usually focus their attention upon three main areas: incoming links, your content, and your keywords. These are factors which are important for the search engines and will result in your website being placed higher in results if you focus on these factors. This article will talk more about this.

The first of the six factors a search engine marketing services company will examine is competitive analysis. This is done to see how your website stacks up against the competition along with which companies are in the top ten results and why they are there.

The second factor often examined is keyword research. This is used to determine competition for keywords and how you can make sure you are receiving as much traffic for various keywords as you can.

A search engine marketing consultant will also examine page optimization of your website. This is important because your website will have a set of different keywords and certain keywords are used for certain pages.

Search engine marketing services companies will focus upon site usability. This is important because you want your website to be very easy to get around so that your audience is able to find what they are looking for.

Off page optimization such as link building is the next area which will be focused on by search engine marketing services companies. Link building is important because this is a factor in search engine rankings.

One other factor you will want to look into is paid search engine marketing. This would include Adwords and you may want to think about this because you can put your website in front of your audience immediately.

Can you not see the importance of these tips if you were a search engine marketing consultant? There are certain steps that must be done to develop a highly successful website and this website covers many of those steps. Be sure to use these to maximize your website’s chances for success.

About the Author:
by William Stanislaws

Now that you have a website the next step is to get it found on the search engines. If you talk with a search engine marketing consultant, he or she will have certain recommendations about what you need to do to ensure your website shows up near the top of search engine results. Search engine marketing ensures that your website will have the ability to be near the top of search engine results. People who are searching for your particular topic will then be able to click through to your website, giving you prospective customers if you operate a business website.

If you talk with search engine marketing services companies to ensure you receive great traffic, much of the attention and questioning will revolve around how many incoming links you have, your content, and how your site is optimized around your main keywords. These factors help determine your ranking in search engines and whether you will show up in the top ten rankings or not. This article will explain six important factors in a brief period of time you should look for when doing search engine optimization marketing.

The first important factor a search engine marketing services company will look into is a competitive analysis. This will help determine which companies are in the top ten rankings for certain keywords and why they are currently there.

Another factor which will be examined is keyword research and what keywords are used and what kind of results happen with these. If you do not have the right keywords used, you will not have as strong of an audience visiting your website as you could have hoped for.

A search engine marketing consultant will then look at your page optimization. Your pages need to be optimized for the various keywords so that your pages will show up in search engine results for different keywords depending upon the content of a particular page.

Search engine marketing services companies will then examine your site usability. It is important to have your website show up in search engines but you must also make sure that it is easy for your audience to get around your website and find what they are looking for.

Off page optimization is important and includes such activities such as link building. Search engines place great emphasis on this because you have to show the value of your website to other website owners who see enough value to link to your website.

One other factor you will want to look into is paid search engine marketing. This would include Adwords and you may want to think about this because you can put your website in front of your audience immediately.

Can you not see the importance of these tips if you were a search engine marketing consultant? There are certain steps that must be done to develop a highly successful website and this website covers many of those steps. Be sure to use these to maximize your website’s chances for success.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

A search engine marketing consultant will help you develop a website which can show up very highly in search engine results. There are certain techniques which you must do if you want to ensure your website shows up. You want your website to be high in the search engine rankings so that people searching for your particular topic will be able to find your website.

If you are concerned about how your website shows up in websites, you may inquire about search engine marketing services. These services will usually focus their attention upon three main areas: incoming links, your content, and your keywords. These are factors which are important for the search engines and will result in your website being placed higher in results if you focus on these factors. This article will talk more about this.

The first important factor a search engine marketing services company will look into is a competitive analysis. This will help determine which companies are in the top ten rankings for certain keywords and why they are currently there.

The second factor often examined is keyword research. This is used to determine competition for keywords and how you can make sure you are receiving as much traffic for various keywords as you can.

A search engine marketing consultant will also examine page optimization of your website. This is important because your website will have a set of different keywords and certain keywords are used for certain pages.

Search engine marketing services companies place great emphasis on site usability. Without a site that is easy to get around, your audience will become disenchanted and exit your site quickly which is not good for your business.

Off page optimization such as link building is the next area which will be focused on by search engine marketing services companies. Link building is important because this is a factor in search engine rankings.

The final factor to consider is paid search engine marketing. A prominent example of this is Adwords and this allows you to put your information out to your niche audience in a quick manner.

Through this article, you can get an idea of what a search engine marketing consultant deems important. These are important points you should examine closely to make sure you included it with your website development. If you do not use these steps, you are putting yourself at peril of losing traffic you could have had to your website.

About the Author:
by Josh Prizer

If you are like a lot of companies dependent on client leads to keep afloat, you may be noticing a trend from some of the lead generation companies out there. Not only are the leads expensive, but they aren’t as strong as they used to be. We are hearing this again and again from our clients who are shifting their budgets to crank up the stronger quality pay per click search leads.

Many lead gen firms use pay per click (PPC) search to attract their leads. Once they have a lead, they will ship it out to a variety of vendors, charging each the same fee. If you are seeing your leads get more saturated, it might be time for you to go right to the source instead of letting the middle men do that for you.

Getting into PPC advertising is not as simple as it used to be. Sure, you can set up a website with some contact info, but the competition has gotten more sophisticated in recent years. In order to really compete and push down your cost per acquisition, you’ve got to throttle up your effort and skills.

When you launch a paid search campaign, you need to realize that everything in your pipeline, from what keywords to appear on, what ads to run, where to send them, how to get them to take action, etc. — all of that can be managed and optimized. Let’s examine two of these areas.

Begin with your paid search ad copy. Today’s PPC search engines place high importance on your click through rates. The more an ad is clicked, the more money they can make. So, they have worked into their algorithms things like “Quality Scores” which take these rates into consideration. Fine tuning your ad copy will increase your click through rates. Conducting daily split tests is vital. By testing your ads continually, you will find what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t have the time to do that, then hire a PPC management company. An expert can double or triple the number of people clicking on your ads.

Maybe that doesn’t sound important, but it is. Doubling and tripling your quality traffic can do the same for your number of leads. And, it can lower your costs per click in the process.

But as I mentioned, everything in your pipeline can be optimized. Let’s take a look at where you are sending these people who click on ads. Do you have a contact form or just an email address? Is your phone number visible or in your footer? Are you offering an incentive for people to take action? There’s a lot to tweak and test.

Fine tuning your landing pages will lower your cost per lead. We’ve seen small changes double conversions and drop your costs per lead in half. So, tinkering is well worth the effort.

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to Pay Per Click search, hire a PPC management company. They will develop keyword lists, find keywords from your competition, advise you on some ideas for your landing pages and conduct those daily split tests.

Ditching those weak, watered-down leads and going right to the source can help your business boost its results dramatically.

About the Author:
by Josh Prizer

Tired of watered down, poor quality leads from your lead generation company? The last several years, we have been noticing a trend being discussed by our clients. They are telling us that the quality of leads that used to come in from their lead generation services have dropped off the map. At the same time, they’ve noticed that the quality of leads coming from pay per click has remained superb and even gotten better.

Interestingly, one of the sources that lead generation companies use to develop leads is pay per click search traffic. Many will end up marking up the costs to you and then shelling the same lead out to multiple vendors. If this sounds like your situation, perhaps you ought to think about ditching the go-between and head straight to the source of traffic.

Unfortunately, PPC search isn’t quite as easy as it used to be. These days you have a lot of competition and it’s getting increasingly sophisticated. Sure, you can set up a simple web site with contact info and point some ads at it. You’ll probably get a trickle of leads. But if you want to really increase your business and lower your cost per lead or cost per acquisition, you will most likely need to dedicate some resources to it.

One thing we continually preach to clients is the importance of fine tuning every aspect of your online lead pipeline.

Let’s start with your PPC ad copy. You can certainly just place an ad and let it ride, but with the PPC algorithms placing more and more importance on Quality Scores, you need to pay close attention to your ads. If you can’t conduct daily split testing on your ads because of the time and effort, then try outsourcing to a PPC management company. A good firm should be able to double or triple your click through rates.

Why is this important? Because it doubles or triples your traffic — and in turn doubles or triples your leads.

But don’t stop there, look at your landing pages (the pages where you send your pay per click traffic). Are the contact forms too busy or too buried? Is your phone number buried? There are ton of things you can do to convert leads at a higher rate.

Fine tuning your landing pages will lower your cost per lead. We’ve seen small changes double conversions and drop your costs per lead in half. So, tinkering is well worth the effort.

If jumping into the paid search engines sounds like a lot of work, it is. You can roll up your sleeves and make it pay off over time, or you can hire a turnkey PPC management company. A good PPC expert will develop expansive keyword lists, mine keywords from your competitors, conduct daily split tests on your ads, and advise you on your landing pages.

So, consider getting rid of the saturated lead gen services and heading for the source. The results can be dramatic.

About the Author:
by Josh Prizer

If you are like a lot of companies dependent on client leads to keep afloat, you may be noticing a trend from some of the lead generation companies out there. Not only are the leads expensive, but they aren’t as strong as they used to be. We are hearing this again and again from our clients who are shifting their budgets to crank up the stronger quality pay per click search leads.

A lot of lead generation companies are using pay per click search to gather their leads. They will then mark up the cost it took to acquire them, or they will send them to multiple vendors and the quality to you is often poor. If this is your problem, maybe it’s time you skip the middle man and go straight to the source.

Jumping into Pay Per Click isn’t just a matter of setting up a website and contact information. You can certainly get results doing that — we see it all the time. But to truly compete and drive your cost per lead down, you need some sophistication.

When you launch a paid search campaign, you need to realize that everything in your pipeline, from what keywords to appear on, what ads to run, where to send them, how to get them to take action, etc. — all of that can be managed and optimized. Let’s examine two of these areas.

Let’s start with your PPC ad copy. You can certainly just place an ad and let it ride, but with the PPC algorithms placing more and more importance on Quality Scores, you need to pay close attention to your ads. If you can’t conduct daily split testing on your ads because of the time and effort, then try outsourcing to a PPC management company. A good firm should be able to double or triple your click through rates.

Why is this important? Because it doubles or triples your traffic — and in turn doubles or triples your leads.

But don’t stop there, look at your landing pages (the pages where you send your pay per click traffic). Are the contact forms too busy or too buried? Is your phone number buried? There are ton of things you can do to convert leads at a higher rate.

If you can optimize your landing pages over time, you can now take that traffic and double or triple your lead conversions. We’ve seen it time and time again. So, put in the effort, it is worth the time.

Making the jump to PPC search may not be in your company’s core competency. If not, then outsource to a PPC management company. Their experts can mine massive keyword lists, pull keywords from your competitors, conduct the necessary and vital daily split tests, and give you insight into better landing pages.

Ditching those weak, watered-down leads and going right to the source can help your business boost its results dramatically.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

In part one we discussed the need to have your site indexed by the major search engines and ordered to be found in the search results. In this article we’re going to discuss three ways to have your site indexed, get into the search engines database that are safe and will not get you banned by the search engines.

Have another website (that is already indexed) link to your site

Once a site is indexed or put into the search engines database, the search engine spiders go out to those pages anywhere for once a month to several times a day. You could get a one way link back to your website from a site that is already indexed the search engines will follow that link back to your site and index it. The challenge care is to put your link on the site that is related to what you do. Ideally, the link back to your site is on a site that is already considered an authority in your field. It is not a good idea for a plumber to swap links with a web designer. Speaking of swapping links, try and stay away from reciprocal linking and buying text link ads, more about that at a later date.

Publish an article or press release that has a link to your site

This practice has several great advantages. One is that a lot of those sites that allow you to publish your articles are free and are indexed constantly because the sites are constantly being updated with new content. Watch your article is submitted to one of the sites it may take up to two weeks to go through their editorial process and the review. When sure article is approved, your site can be indexed within a couple of days.

Sign up for paid search with each of the search engines

This is by far the fastest way to get your site indexed. When you signed up for an Adwords account in Google your website will be indexed immediately. It cost very little to set up an account. You can put in just a couple of keywords that you won a bid on and did very little so that your ad does not show up on the first few pages.

A great strategy for getting your website indexed and building links to your page

I would do a combination of first setting up a paid search account with at least the top three search engines Google, yahoo and MSN. Then I would start writing articles 500 to 600 words and start getting them published on as many publishing websites that you can.

Search engine submissions are very important but if done incorrectly can get you banned from the very search engines are trying to get into.

About the Author:
by Kenneth Doyle

Any small business that now thinks that the Internet is a passing fad is blind to the facts. There is still much confusion among small business owners about how to utilize the web to the marketing of their own small business. Marketing your small business on the Internet does not need to be expensive, nor does it need to be complicated.

Opportunities to market your small business are many and varied, just like in the real world.

For small businesses Internet marketing can be a surprisingly low-cost way of promoting your local small business. This promotion can be targeted locally, regionally or across the globe.

So, let’s hear these strategies I hear you say. And, how does one apply them?

There are numerous approaches, and this is where most people get confused. In essence there are THREE main approaches to small business Internet marketing, being…

1. Paid search marketing (Pay per click marketing, and its numerous variations), and… 2. In-context link marketing (being commercial links within content on a specific topic), and… 3. Natural search marketing (SEO, content marketing, blogs and its numerous variations).

So, with these different approaches, what are the pros and cons?

1. PAY PER CLICK SEARCH MARKETING:

Paid search marketing is paid advertising. You pay for your ad to be placed before people searching on specific keyterms. The effectiveness of your PPC campaign is directly related to the keyterms you chose to use, as well as the sales path you set up on your landing page (where people land when they click on your PPC link).

The PROS: If correctly targeted, you get prospects looking at what you want to sell and/ or promote quickly.

The CONS: A) Specialist skills required. And, you can lose a lot of money, fast! B) PPC specialists are not cheap. C) You continually need to run your ads. D) Can be very costly (especially for commercial keyterms). You only get to play as long as you continue to pay.

2. IN-CONTEXT LINK MARKETING:

This approach uses other people’s web site content as the platform for your advertising. The links are embedded inside the content on their web pages. This content is usually keyword focused. For example, let’s say that you sell wood heaters. When you engage in in-context link marketing your hyperlinks are placed within content on specific web site articles and/ or web pages about wood heaters.

The PROS: Information is the currency of the Internet. When you use these embedded hyperlinked, and within context ads correctly they can be a very effective advertising medium for small business. The clickthroughs may be lower than the PPC model, but the quality of visitor is usually much higher.

The CONS: A) You have little to no control over what web sites your links are placed on, which means that links can be placed within content that doesn’t quite fit sometimes. B) Best results are achieved by driving prospects to especially designed landing pages. Skill is required to set up these sales funnel paths. C) The demand for good, profitable commercial keyterms always exceeds supply, thus pushing up the price for the good terms.

3. NATURAL SEARCH MARKETING:

Natural search is where people go to the Internet, type a keyterm into a search engine, and the search engine returns a list of the most appropriate web page on the web with has that keyphrase in it. When done correctly this marketing method has significant benefits for small business marketing their bricks and mortar businesses on the web.

Note: It’s important to understand that search marketing is different from SEO. SEO is a term used to describe the optimization of a web site and its pages for the search engines to be able to spider pages correctly.

The PROS: With natural search marketing tactics properly applied to the marketing of a small business it has a distinct advantage on the net. Why? Well, marketing analysis has determined that people purchase 90% of their needs from within a 10 miles radius of where they actually physically live. As people use the web more and more in daily life it is natural that if these same people find YOUR local business when they search the web for a solution to a problem that YOU then become their chosen solution. This is search marketing in action, locally.

The CONS: A) Search marketing strategies require more effort than the potential throwing money at the wall techniques of the other strategies. B) It can be a slower approach than the other methods discussed. However it has been proven time and again that search marketing is an ideal and cost effective method for small businesses to use on the net.

So, in summary… Small Business Internet marketing no longer needs to be the mysterious world it once appeared to be for small businesses. However, there is still a great divide between those small businesses that employ smart marketing strategies as the foundation of their online marketing systems, and those that don’t.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

If you’ve tried to increase web site traffic with search engine marketing and search engine optimization but you still aren’t seeing the kind of web site traffic that you want to have it might be time to consider investing in some web advertising. There are different options when it comes to web advertising but the styles of web advertising used the most by businesses is and paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is a good option if you’ve already tried search engine marketing and search engine optimization because your site is already well set up for paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is paying to make sure that a link to your site and a description of site is placed at the very top of a search engine results page.

This is a smart move because studies have shown that people who are searching for a site will usually click on any one of the first five links at the top of the search engine results page and then they will stop. Consumers almost never click through to the second page of search engine results after doing a search. So paying to make sure that your site is at the top of the search engine results page can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Figuring out how to manage your paid search advertising can be a little difficult if you’re not used to how web advertising works so you’re better off hiring a paid search management company to oversee your paid search advertising. When you’re setting up a paid search to increase web site traffic the keywords and key phrases that you choose need to be chosen carefully. A qualified paid search management company can help you set up your paid search to maximize the time and effort you’ve already put into using search engine marketing and search engine optimization on your website to increase website traffic.

Using paid search to increase web site traffic can be a very cost effective way to get the most of your search engine marketing. Essentially paid search web advertising is just giving your search engine marketing a boost and making sure that people see a link to your site before all your competitors. If your website deals with a popular topic then using paid search web advertising is really like insurance that your site make it onto the first page of the search engine results page.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

Have you thought about using internet video marketing to increase web site traffic? Internet video marketing is a very trendy form of web advertising right now and many companies are using a combination of search engine optimization and internet video marketing to increase traffic and increase their customer base. These days customers want more than just a slick ad. If you want to draw customers to your website the best way is to combine some web advertising with a fun and informational internet video marketing campaign. You should still use search engine optimization on your site to makes sure that your site gets shown on the front page of the search engine results pages and you might want consider buying some paid search web advertising too but once you have lured customers onto your site pitch your product with some new internet video marketing.

Information videos are a big hit on the web, so post a short information video about your product or show someone using your product or you can even post someone giving a video review of your product. With sites out there like YouTube you don’t even have to host the video on your site. Using YouTube is a fabulous and free way to start an Internet video marketing campaign that can be more effective than any other type of web advertising to increase web site traffic because YouTube videos are so easy to share with people. If you post a funny or unique video related to your product the people who see that video and like it can instantly post it on their own websites or their profiles on sites like Facebook and MySpace that are seen by millions of people everyday. They can also email it to friends and family and submit it to sites like Digg or Current where thousands more people will see it.

Internet video marketing can increase your web site traffic almost instantly once you post the right video. The best part of video marketing is that except for the cost of producing the video it’s all free. You can increase your web site traffic by thousands all for the cost of the video. And some videos are so low tech they can be made with a small digital camera or even a camera phone. Using an Internet video marketing campaign along with search engine optimization and search engine marketing is the best way to advertise your website and increase your web site traffic. Forget about expensive web advertising that doesn’t work.

You can use the free social networking and marketing tools on the Internet to increase web site traffic and take your business to the next level and double or triple the number of hits that you get on your website everyday. A few words of caution though – when you’re producing internet videos don’t make them too high tech or over produced. Keep in mind that some people will be viewing the video on a slow internet connection. Make a video that will load quickly and play fast so that people can view it even if they don’t have a high speed Internet connection or offer two versions of the video with one optimized for high speed connections and one optimized for slower connections.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

Search Engines

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN are really just data bases. When you do a Google Search you are not searching the “world wide web” you are searching Google’s data base. There are two ways to get in to these databases. One is to submit your site to the different search engines. In about 6 to 9 weeks the search engine will index your site. They have software that comes to your site and index every page and adds it to the database. They come into your main web URL and follow the links to all the pages of your site. They capture key elements from the code on your page to the content. These are then stored in the data base. When someone puts a keyword in the search box the “algorithms” determine the best page or links to the best pages for your search.

The other way to get added to the search engines data base is to have the search engine software find you through a link to your site from another web site back to yours. The software, called “spiders” will periodically comeback and re crawl your site to see if you have updated it.

One important thing to know is that each page on your site is indexed individually and each page stands on its own. The ranking are based upon the combination of correct meta tags, relevant content to the keyword they are trying to get rankings for and link popularity. Mostly one way links back to their site from relevant sites.

As long as the search engine can index the site, clearly read the meta tags and content, the better. The big issues come when a site is built in flash with very little content (search engines cannot read or index “flash” sites. Also, if the bulk of the relevant content is in PDF format this is bad because the search engines cannot read PDF. If the search engines cannot index the relevant text there will be no rankings.

You all ready know this but “sites” are not ranked, individual pages are ranked for specific terms found in the content of that page as well as link popularity, (relevant links pointing back to that specific page) for the term that you are trying to get ranked on. This is why each page has to be giving very specific attention. Paid search

Paid search is when your ad shows up at the very top of a Google search or down the right hand side of the results page. These are called “sponsored ads”. You pay for those positions. When every you click on one of those ads the owner of the ad pays the search engine. This is also called “pay-per-click”. The amount you pay is determined by several factors including what you are willing to pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

Natural Search

Natural Search is when you type in a “keyword” and a link and a description shows up on left hand side of the search result page. The only way to get on the first page is to have very relevant content on your web site and links to your site from other relevant sites. This is a long process for people in it for the long haul. There are a lot of companies that claim to be able to get you on the first page of Google. That may be true if the “search term” is very specific and no one else would ever search for it but you or they are using a “black hat” method that could get you site banned from the search engine. Bottom line: Paid Search means you pay for your position. The benefit is, if you have the $$, you will get instant traffic. Stop paying and the traffic goes away. Natural search is free traffic but it is built over time. The advantage is, if done right, it can provide traffic for a long time.

Search traffic (paid or natural) is the BEST traffic to have because you are being found by folks who are specifically looking for what you have. It does not get any better than that.

About the Author:
by Terry Stanfield

Paid search is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to our site from the major search engines. It can also suck our marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be us or the search engines? The goal of the search engines is more clicks. The more people click on our ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible within our budget are willing to do that all day long. The real goal should be “fewer clicks, lower cost with more conversions”. Let’s take a few minutes to look at some strategies that should make a difference in our campaigns.

1. Turn off Content Network in Google when you first set up a campaign there is a default setting that turns the “content match” setting to “on”. For now, turn that setting off. What this does is present your ads on websites that are using AdSense. If you go to a website and see “Ads by Google”, those ads are coming from Google paid search accounts. Those ads show up on these websites based on the content of the website. There are two things that you need to consider before turning on the content match. The first is that the website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad. The second thing is that most people who click on these ads are doing research. The magic of search engine marketing is that you come in contact with individuals who are actively searching for what you have to offer. Only pay for clicks that come from people in that category.

2. Search Terms. The more general the term, less qualified the lead (generally speaking) and the more the cost. What I try to figure out is what terms would work in order to get my ideal customer to my site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing copy for ads. When you write your ads put the following in your “headline” box: {keyword: “your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. Your ad should be specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad should contain at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Landing Pages. You need to put a lot of thought to your landing pages. Your landing page has to do one thing, that is, answer the questions are up that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his key words. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. The last thing a searcher wants to see see how great you are. They just don’t care. You must show them that you possess the answers to their needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. It can be a “buy now”, “for more information contact us”, “contact us for a free evaluation” or “free consultation”. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. The most important thing to remember are three words: tracking, tracking and tracking. Track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at least weekly in order to catch market changes. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

Paid search is a great marketing tool, if used correctly. It can also, as stated earlier; dry up your budget in a heartbeat. It is a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing and does this day in and day out to help you than it is to lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

About the Author:

Traffic generation for your website is all about getting visitors to
your website, or a specific webpage. Many marketers acknowledge that it’s
the most important ingredient in successful Internet Marketing.

As you may realize traffic generation is vital to Internet Marketing,
you cannot sell your product if no one knows about it. Let’s face it,
you can have the greatest product and sales letter on the planet, but if
you can’t get traffic to your site you’re not going to sell a thing.
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Everything else you do is, for the most part is  only
optimizing, to maximize the profit you gain from the visitors you get to
your website.

How do you get traffic to your site?

There are many ways to increase traffic to your site, and astute
marketers are coming up with more all the time. Basically they can be
broken down into traffic you pay for and traffic you get for free. Here
are some examples of each type:

Traffic you pay for:

  • PPC: Pay Per Click advertising.
  • Paying other sites to link to yours.
  • Advertise in ezines and online newsletters.
  • Submitting to paid search directories.

Free traffic:

  • Organic Search Engine traffic, the better you are at SEO (Search
    Engine Optimization) the more natural (not paid) search engine traffic
    you will get.
  • Social Bookmarking: you can increase your traffic if you and/or
    others, bookmark your site on social bookmarking sites like
    del.icio.us, OnlyWire, Furl, and StumbleUpon.
  • Social Networking sites: promote your site through social
    networking sites like Squidoo, Fanpop, FaceBook and MySpace. It also
    includes social networking microblog sites like Twitter and Jaiku.
  • Posting relevant and quality comments on blogs.
  • Posting in online forums and putting your site address in your forum signature.
  • Email: putting your website address in your email signatures.
  • Persuade other sites to link to yours for free.
  • Article Marketing: writing articles which other web publishers can
    use on their website for free providing that they include a link back to
    your website.
  • Submitting to free search directories.
  • Creating viral reports containing embedded links back to your site.

These are only some of the ways to get more readers to your website.
There are lots more ways to get traffic to your site, but this is
enough to get you off to a good start.