Search Marketing InsiderPay Per Click, Social Media and SEO Strategies – An Internet Marketing Institute Publication

In the world of marketing, everyone’s favorite question is “What’s my ROI?” ROI (return on investment) is all about knowing what you’ll get out based on what you put in. If you spend X amount of dollars on a television commercial, how many people will see it? How does that affect your sales? In an economy where every dollar is being stretched to its maximum potential, companies are unwilling to part with their budget unless they know it is going to be worth it in the long run. Understanding the ROI of a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is just as important as understanding the ROI of running a radio advertisement. So what exactly should you be looking at when determining the success or failure of your SEO efforts? Here are a few factors to take into consideration:

1. Traffic to your site

A great way to see how well your SEO is doing is to look at your site’s traffic. You should see a steady increase in traffic over time, especially once your SEO begins to build momentum. You don’t want to see peaks and valleys; this means that your SEO efforts aren’t consistent. Peaks and valleys could also be an indication of black hat SEO tactics being used to promote your site. Black hat SEO provides short bursts of success, but no long-term, sustainable gain. I used to include search engine rankings as the main goal, but since rankings fluctuate so much these days, it is becoming less of a key SEO measurement metric.

2. Online presence

Part of conducting a successful SEO campaign is link building. One component of link building is the creation of business profiles on sites like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Places and so forth. As these profiles age, they will start to rank in the search engines. Depending on how competitive your industry is, these profiles can rank well when a user searches for keywords that you have incorporated into your profiles. The better your profiles rank, the more you can dominate the search results and increase your online presence. If your SEO is doing a good job of increasing your online presence, you should see your site showing up in the search results more and more frequently, and from a variety of sources. Aside from business profiles this can include directory listings, blog posts, press releases, social networking sites and more.

3. Bounce rate

Your bounce rate is a good indication of how well you site has been optimized, a critical component of any SEO campaign. A lower bounce rate means that more targeted traffic is being delivered to your site. It also is a good indication that your site’s user-experience is matching up with your visitors’ expectations. If a visitor can find the information they are looking for and is drawn further into your site, your bounce rate will go down. Bounce rate shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all measurement of success, however. If the goal of your site is to get someone to pick up the phone and call, they might not hang around once they find your phone number. If that is the case, your bounce rate might be high, but that isn’t necessarily an indication of bad SEO.

4. Conversion rate

Your site’s conversion rate is arguably the best way to measure the success of your SEO. Every site’s conversion metric is different. Do you want someone to pick up the phone? Sign up for a newsletter? Download a white paper? Whatever your site’s goals are, your conversion metric is a reflection of that. An increase in your conversion metric is good sign that all of your SEO efforts are working together. More targeted traffic is being directed to your site, which means that you’ve gone after the right keywords and are ranking well for them. A higher conversion rate also means that your site is keeping visitors engaged once they get there.

These four ways to measure the success of your SEO campaign are by no means the only way to determine how well or poorly your SEO is doing. They are, however, a good place to start and prove ROI. Being able to show a growth in traffic and conversion rates, among other things, is tangible proof that what you are doing is working.

About the Author – Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a Boston SEO services company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 130,000 opt-in email subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-350-4365 or nick@brickmarketing.com

Do you have one of *those* websites? They get traffic or links, but don’t convert. It could indicate a huge problem at the foundation of your SEO efforts — your keywords.

When Customers Don’t Know They Need You

Here’s the scenario:

Background: A client has a cloud computing service, ideal for SMBs that collaborate, travel, or work in multiple locations. This audience is busy and passionate, but lacks patience and tech skills.

The problem: The site is optimized and has an extensive marketing strategy. It generates traffic, but not profits.

The cause: The keywords they chose ([cloud computing service] and various versions of it) have good numbers, reasonable competition, and describe their services well, but their potential clients don’t use them. Instead, the target audience uses question queries and looks for general solutions to their problems, not a specific product.

The solution: Target the right people, with the right pages, using the right terms.

Know Your Main Markets

The first step? Decide:

Who visits your site?
Why are they visiting?
What words do they use?

Generally, the visitors you identify can be divided into three distinct audiences:

Group 1 — Potential Buyers — In our example, this group is tired of inefficient business systems and uses queries like [collaboration tools] to find solutions. In fact, buying comes second. Note: customers generally don’t link back.

Group 2 — Related Businesses — This crowd routinely writes and recommends your competitors, as well as similar services and tools. They rarely buy, but they do give you links and reach, so be sure to offer basic product details and optimize for keywords like [cloud computing]. Don’t forget: They normally link to your home page.

Group 3 — Buzz Builders — Those who provide services/products for your business, the media, current clients and others who use you to make money/get attention fall into this category. This group searches using basic queries (like [cloud computing]), while looking for information about the service, news, inspiration, and real-world examples.

Creating Your Site Blueprint

Next, compare your keywords to your sales funnels. Here’s what I mean:

Customer Sales Funnels (Group 1) — The shorter your sales funnel, the better your conversion rates will be. This tells us the “how it works” page, case studies, and blog are going to be the best landing pages for interested buyers.

Enhance this effect by optimizing these pages for client-based keywords ([collaboration tools] and [run software online], for example), instead of your home page. It’s one less step, and they’re far more likely to get to your money pages. (Money pages are where actual conversions take place, such as the services page, if you use buy buttons, or the contact page.)

The blog should also center on client-based keyword phrases and cover many of the problems and issues potential customers encounter. You’ll capture visitors here and push them back up to the services or contact page.

Link Building Funnels (Group 2) — Your home page gets the most links, and related businesses do the most linking, so it only makes sense to use group 2 terms ([cloud computing]) here. The same goes for your services and about pages.

Marketing and Media Funnels (Group 3) — As mentioned before, this group looks for information they can use to sell you something or to include in their own products, so they’ll need the right content. That’s where your press room, case studies, and contact page come in. Optimize them for group 3 keywords, and you’re on your way.

Creating Your Marketing Content

Use these same rules to create your marketing content. Make lists of topics, interests, needs, and issues under each group and combine them with the appropriate keywords to create your marketing strategy.

For example, if you’re looking to generate links, create content and marketing campaigns around the keywords for group 2. Go to your analytics and find out which of your keywords generated the highest conversions. The same goes for garnering media coverage or for making sales.

Targeting your content strategy and keyword research sounds difficult, but you’ll find the majority of the work is in the planning and research stage. Do it once and you can base the rest of your marketing, content, and expansions on it. The results will be more than worth the effort.

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Angie Nikoleychuk is the Senior Copywriter, Strategist, and Consultant for Angie’s Copywriting Service. She’s passionate about SEO, marketing, and behaviour. She loves a good marketing mystery, a great cup of coffee, and is an avid Twitter user.

Everyone loves guarantees. Most companies are able to provide guarantees for their customers in the sense that, if it doesn’t work, they’ll replace it at no additional charge to the consumer.

This is true for new cars, flat-screen TVs, even major kitchen appliances. Guarantees give the consumer faith in the product. They know that the chances of their new computer not working are slim, but they have the reassurance that it can be fixed or replaced if something goes awry. But notice how all these guarantees are associated with a tangible product?

SEO is a Service

Yes, SEO can be seen as a product, but not in the same way a new pair of jeans is a product. SEO falls more into the services category. And the bottom line is that some services can never be fully guaranteed.

An SEO expert, just like an airline or hair dresser, is going to do the best they can for their clients. But there is no guarantee that your website is going to see the exact results you were hoping for, just like there is no guarantee your haircut won’t be a little bit shorter than you were expecting or bad weather won’t cancel your flight.

No One Can Force Google to Change Your Ranking

A good SEO provider is going to do everything in their power to improve your website, but they can’t force Google or Bing to change your site rank. They also can’t control what your competitors are doing or have done with their own SEO efforts.

There is a lot of competition for the top spots on a search results page and if your company is late to the SEO game there are a lot of factors working against your success. An SEO expert is going to do everything they can to best position your site to take on these external factors, but in the end they have no control over the search engines’ algorithms.

SEO Takes Time

When SEO is done correctly, a site should see an increase in traffic and related bump up in the search engines. But this is only going to happen over time. Any SEO company that guarantees your site will rank on the first page for your selected keywords in a month is feeding you a line.

Don’t fall for it. No company can guarantee exactly where your page will rank after X amount of time. Sites that work in a niche industry with little competition may rank extremely well very quickly, because they are the only ones trying to do so. Sites that operate in a larger market and are going after competitive keywords may have a much longer road ahead of them before they get the results they want.

Google itself stated that, when it comes to guarantees “No one can make that promise.”

Beware of Black Hats

Companies that tote SEO guarantees are often using black hat SEO techniques to artificially boost their clients’ sites. That site might rank extremely well for a few months, simply because it is being propped up by 10,000 irrelevant links. But search engine algorithms are designed to catch and penalize these sites. Not only does the site lose its position, it can be removed from the search engine entirely. The short-term success of black hat SEO can easily be spun to look like a fulfilled guarantee, but when that site is no longer a client of that SEO company, it’s not unexpected to see those links (and ranking) disappear, even if they did escape the search engines.

Some black hat SEO companies will guarantee their work by getting a site to rank first for a very obscure, long-tail keyword that no one is really searching for. But your site is ranked number one! Guarantee fulfilled.

It is the actions of these black hat SEO firms that have given the rest of the industry a bad reputation. Website owners get repeatedly burned by companies that are supposed to be helping them. This “once bit, twice shy” mentality affects their opinion of the industry as a whole. Good, white hat SEO professionals have to work that much harder to convince their clients that they really are doing their best for the site.

Beware False Promises by SEO Companies

The bottom line is that SEO guarantees don’t really exist, regardless of what the SEO company promises. While it may be frustrating to not have that assurance, website owners should now that a white hat SEO expert is going to help their site in the long run. You can expect good things to come when your SEO is handled by someone who knows that they are doing and does it in the search engine approved way. But no company can guarantee you’ll see specific results.

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Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing a Boston SEO services firm and Internet marketing firm. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily updates to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal (or SEO Journal) and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter that goes out to over 126,000 opt-in subscribers.

The mark of the New Year often times allows companies and individuals to really start over with a clean slate. It is a time where you can leave older bad habits behind and embark on a journey of new initiatives for success. With the quickly changing landscape of search engine marketing there are many online efforts that a vast majority of business have decided to leave out of their marketing arsenal this past year. For one reason or another whether they were busy or under resourced and the New Year offers a new, fresh approach for any online marketing campaign.

Here are some areas that a business should focus on for the New Year in order to really strengthen their approach online:

Increased Company Blogging: I still bump into company websites that have such low frequency of blog posts that it is almost sad to look at. The way you approach your blog often times adds credibility to your company. Try increasing the frequency to at least twice per week, and really give your posts some thought and personality.

Beef up That Facebook Fan Page: Facebook fan pages now have a vast variety of additional plugins a company can ad in order to increase the user experience. Facebook fan pages bring a variety of branding and credibility efforts to the table. Give your immediate fans or audience a reason to want to become a part of your community.

Start Tweeting More: Twitter is no longer just a little fad.  It is a real business tool that can be used to increase awareness, business and overall website traffic. Are you still skeptical about using Twitter to help grow your business? There are a variety of case studies that show a staggering number of large and small businesses in the U.S that have been successful in significantly growing their businesses using this amazing communication tool.

Think Community: You might think your website is just a website but it is more than that. Online entities are increasingly attempting to grow their business by keeping the word “community” in their mind. Picture it like a small army of loyal fans that listen to what you have to say about your business or industry. Community rich online brands reap the rewards of referrals, increased chatter and word of mouth marketing that you simply can’t put a price tag on.

Allow SEO To Be Your Friend: I speak with so many potential clients that really harp on the search engine optimization process. The reality is that if you simply give it some time and be patient with it things will work out but you can’t rely on your business growth entirely from search engine rankings. The search area is vast and wide and if you corner yourself thinking that SEO is the end all be all you will drive yourself nuts.  Take an integrated approach to your SEO, and if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, hire a white hat SEO services company to help you.

Think About the Fun Stuff: Get your team together and think about some fun promotions and contests you can start with your business in order to really get some viral power brewing in your industry. All it takes is one great promotion and your community of bloggers and writers could quickly start generating some great little stories surrounding your effort. I don’t think I have to tell you what a great search engine optimization benefit this would be for your organization.

Fine Tune Your Website: Your website is probably your most powerful selling tool you have. Most people will land on your site before they decide to communicate with your company. Your website could be what causes your phone to ring, so take the time this year to really clean it up if you haven’t already. Having a website from 2001 is not going to help you grow your business in anyway. Sometimes all you need is just a little bit of fine tuning which doesn’t have to break the bank.

The New Year is a great time for all of us to really approach everything we do with a clean slate, a fresh start with new intentions on how to grow yourself as a business in your community. Change is a great thing and there is no better time to do it than for the beginning of a new year.
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Nick Stamoulis is a search engine optimization and search engine marketing veteran and President and Founder of the SEM firm Brick Marketing.  Nick Stamoulis also writes in his SEO blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal.

An industry best practice for structuring a paid search campaign is the implementation of highly targeted and relevant ad groups. This is a part of the ‘before the click’ process that can easily be controlled and maintained. If this is not happening you have bigger issues than what the rest of this discussion is about. That being said, separated out into its own stop along the entire value stream, the paid search campaign is a relatively easy thing to manage and manage well. However, as we will see, the paid search campaign is in the middle of the value stream and can only sustain long lasting success if the upstream and downstream processes are completely aligned to serve the customer with the best user experience.

Upstream From the Paid Search Campaign

Before a paid search campaign can take form and become effective a search team needs to have certain basic information from the client who is further upstream in the process than the paid search team is. The following are key points about how to be most effective and what to avoid further upstream from paid search.

1. Goals and KeyPerformance Indicator’s (KPI’s) - To begin, clients should have a good idea as to why they are getting into the paid search game or how they’d like to grow their current paid search program. Clients should know the goals they want to achieve, their KPI’s, and their tolerance/risk for testing in order to learn. Paid search experts can help set expectations and guide clients in understanding what the potential may be for reaching certain goals, however, the initial goal setting should come from further upstream. Since both parties are working toward the same end results, ideally these are collaborative goals agreed upon by the expanded team before implementation or optimization happens.

2. Messaging Information- If the paid search program has already been implemented or is in the process of being developed, one of the most critical components of a paid search campaign is the text ad. And it’s just not the relevance of the text ad for Quality Score or how targeted it is, but more so in what the text ad messaging offers. Is there a generic call to action or is there some amazing discount or benefit that only your client can offer potential customers?

In some cases differentiated messaging can be found on a client website that can be worked into the ad creative copy. In many cases, on large e-commerce sites where there are hundreds of vendors and thousands of products, hunting and pecking for sales, discounts, and offers is not an efficient use of time. These offers, sales, and discounts should be made available to the paid search team in the form of a merchandising calendar so pro-active planning can occur.

3. Internal Communication- At times there are internal communication issues outside the paid search team that occur farther upstream that can have a significant negative impact on the success of paid search. Whether it’s an in-house paid search team or an agency there can be multiple layers of people and departments involved. If those parties farther upstream fail to communicate effectively, the lack of communication can trickle farther downstream and limit the effectiveness of the paid search team. This not only adds stress to the relationship between the paid search team and the departments farther upstream, but in effect, when the lack of communication and alignment reaches the paid search team and they are left to work with limited information this will have a negative impact on potential customers – the people you are trying to convert.

The impact of upstream goals, information or lack of information can vary but can mostly be managed to a certain level of success. If upstream processes are not fully aligned with everyone involved, the sustainability of long term growth may be at risk.

Downstream From the Paid Search Campaign

As part of the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of a paid search initiative, there are a couple of ‘post-click’ components that occur on the website that have an even greater significance on the success and growth of the account than those farther upstream in the process.

1. Does the Website Work/Are the Landing Pages Valid – This downstream process is the most critical in the mix because this one comes closest to customers you are trying to convert. First and foremost your website should work 100% of the time. Beyond that it should be user friendly providing the best experience possible for customers. Once customers have decided that your paid search ad matches closest with what they want to buy or it provides a solution to their questions, you are on the way to providing a high level of satisfaction for customers.

Not only should the website work and that its usability and navigation be at its prime, but the landing pages selected must be functioning and relevant. In reference to the large paid search program above, if you tag keywords and/or ad creatives with destination URLs it is critical to have open communication (from farther upstream) as to when those URLs change due to inventory levels or other website structure changes. If the landing page has been updated or the product no longer exists and there is not a redirect in place until the paid search URL can be updated, customers landing on error pages or some other random page is never a good thing. This not only impacts customers’ experiences, but also can have Quality Score implications.

2. Proper Implementation of Web Analytics Tracking & Tags – We all know paid search and all other online marketing channels are usually inaccurate within an acceptable range. That’s just the nature of this industry. For some reason website analytics tagging is the search industries bane of existence and inevitably problems occur when web analytics site tagging is not implemented correctly the first time. The other problem is when URL tagging parameters are not used correctly and used as a temporary work-around to fix a problem farther upstream instead of fixing the root cause of the problem. These types of downstream problems create additional challenges in reporting and decision making farther upstream in the process.

Regardless of upstream or downstream from paid search, the entire value stream should be considered as a total system.  When all of these processes are aligned there is a greater opportunity for success of the paid search account. The alignment of the entire value stream also builds trust between all those involved creating a more productive team for long term sustainability.

Let us know what you think — fee free to add your comments, ideas… below!

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Matt LeVeque is the Founder & President of SEM Science Consulting, LLC and Senior Member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

Google AdWords can have numerous benefits if planned, executed, and monitored properly. There are also pitfalls to be avoided. This article will cover important things to avoid as well as effective steps for implementing an effective AdWords campaign.

Step 1: Define attainable goals

A team seeking to maximize the use of AdWords will identify and articulate realistic goals, which might include:

1)    Increasing donation volume

2)    Recruiting more volunteers

3)    Raising brand awareness

Step 2: Appeal to the relevant geographic and/or demographic targets.

An effective campaign should speak to a defined market. For tracking purposes, duplicating or moving around keywords once “up and running” should be avoided. A feature called Ad Scheduler can be set up using either Accelerated or Standard Delivery (evenly delivered ads throughout the day).

Step 3: Develop tightly-themed Ad Groups

The more relevant the ad text, the higher the CTR (click through rate), the Quality Score and the Page Rank that will be achieved. As for Ad Text Optimization, place catchy calls to action and inter- capitalize your display URL.  For instance, instead of having www.marketingbydeepak.com show http://www.marketingbydeepak.com/.  In addition, rotate various ads and you can track individual performance.

Step 4: Research keywords

This requires serious consideration; an organization can benefit from using the Google Suggest Tool to find relevant keywords.  Trying to think like the target demographic may result in coming up with keywords from the User’s perspective.  Be sure to look at all match types – broad, phrase and exact.

Step 5: Landing Page Optimization.

Most people have shared the frustrating experience of clicking on an ad only to be led to page that has nothing to do with the product/service searched for.  There are numerous resources available on Landing Page Designs online.

The bottom line is that the marketer can have great goals, campaigns, ad groups and keywords; however, if these cannot be converted to close the sale, the effort has been fruitless.

AdWords Campaign Cautions and Pitfalls
Earlier, it was mentioned that there are pitfalls to be avoided. Chief among these is: Google AdWords cannot be done alone.  AdWords is only one aspect of Social Media, which is a marketing tactic.  Any business or organization seeking to leverage the social media tools, at a minimum, will establish a presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook and show up in organic search results in addition to running AdWords.

Statistics indicate that, when people do searches, 75% of the time they click on the organic content found within the search engine results page (SERP).  Only 25% click what they see on the sponsored links section.   Users tend to trust the organic content more because of the independent review.  An organization that shows up in both areas has a great deal in its favor!

Branding should not be underestimated.  An organization that is well-branded and enjoys good press is more likely to perform better than an up-and-comer.

Remember to use Keyword Research, the Google Suggestion Tool, and to brainstorm with your Team or others to generate novel ideas.  Even funny-sounding search terms can yield surprising results!

Campaigns that are up and running can benefit from the reporting features and Google Analytics to monitor and track campaign performance.  Every so often, adjust a campaign by eliminating low performers, refining keywords, and ads themselves.  Repeat this process often.

As with other aspects of your ad campaign, budget how much to spend on AdWords.  Calculate enough allowance for your industry.  Competitors may jump in and bid up the price for keywords.  Determine a realistic ROI. Team members should take the time to read your reports and work with AdWords as seriously as they would a direct mail campaign.

What are the challenges you face with your AdWords campaigns? Please add your comments below.

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Deepak Gupta is VP of Marketing for Help My Resume, a Florida-based non-profit and is the Principal of Marketing By Deepak Consulting Group. Prior to jumping into the inbound marketing world, Deepak worked in database marketing and analytics where he developed marketing initiatives for brands like the Auto Club, State Farm, UPS, Hooked On Phonics, Comcast, AT&T, World Wrestling Entertainment, ESPN, Nickelodeon and other related brands.

The countdown to Christmas is on and the holiday shopping season is now in full swing, with Cyber Monday just barely in the rear view mirror. The good news is that there is still a lot that can be done to take advantage of the increase in consumer spending this month, whether you started planning in July or are just now thinking about how to grow sales this holiday. Here are 5 tips and tricks that any Pay Per Click (PPC) advertiser should consider when maximizing AdWords for the holiday sales rush.

1.       Budget Wisely. For many online retailers, traffic and sales volume can go through the roof come holiday time. This is because more people are searching and more of those searchers have the intent to buy. Don’t let your ‘regular’ budgets limit your profits. If you are obtaining or exceeding your ROI goals, there is no reason to keep your campaign budgets capped! This is one of the easiest ways to increase your PPC profits this time of year.  Review your campaign budgets and ROI and where it makes financial sense increase those daily campaign budgets to levels that ensure your ads aren’t missing out on impressions.

 In AdWords, you can look to the metric called “Lost IS (budget)” (“IS” stands for “Impression Share”) to tell you how much traffic you might be missing out on. In the AdWords interface, edit the columns of data you are viewing and select this metric. If your “Lost IS (budget)” is 25%, then that means that you could be receiving 25% more impressions if your budgets were 25% higher.

2.       Plan Your Promotions, Have Ads at the Ready. Make the management of your holiday PPC efforts effortless – by having all of your promotions laid out for the holiday season, you can also ensure that you have PPC ads ready to support those promotions. By creating ads ahead of time and including the ads in your campaigns on “Paused” status before the promotion is live you allow time for the ads to be approved by editorial and limit the risk of any lack of visibility when your promotion goes live. I generally recommend adding new ads a week in advance just to be sure there aren’t any editorial issues. Then when it comes time to promote your sale or special offer all you have to do is switch your old ads off and flip your new ads on.

 3.       Know Your Competitor’s Deals. Holiday shoppers are a fickle bunch – always looking for the best deal. This is why it’s so critical to make sure your promotions are just as attractive as your competitors. Be sure to consider the total price of the transaction, including shipping. A comparable “30% off regular price” will not be as enticing if your standard shipping is $10 and your competitor is offering reduced or free shipping on top of the 30% off price tag. Monitor your competitor’s ads and websites and have the flexibility to adjust your promotions accordingly.

 4.       Leverage Sitelinks. Many retailers have a lot of different promotions, offers and sales taking place this time of year – and with only a very limited amount of space in the typical PPC ad, it can be difficult or impossible to make sure searchers are fully informed. The AdWords ad extension called “Sitelinks” can add up to 140 additional extra characters to your text ad space. Add up to ten Sitelinks per campaign that call out, for example, your Free Shipping offer, Clearance Sale, New Products, lowered prices on specific products in your inventory, or Gift Guides. AdWords will display up to four Sitelinks in an ad at a time. Sitelinks will not only help to make your promotions visible, but your ads themselves are often more visible and can generate high click-through-rates.

 In this example, Moonstruck Chocolates is using Sitelinks to merchandise a variety of holiday-related product offerings. A range of price-points are included in order to speak to a range of shopper’s budgets.

5.       Plan for Promotions After December 25^th. This is something that retailers often forget about – some of the biggest shopping days of the year are actually AFTER Christmas. This is driven by gifts that shoppers received such as gift cards, cash or products such as a Wii that will require the purchase of additional games and accessories. Post-Christmas shopping is also driven by deal-seekers heading out in droves to take advantage of all of the clearance sales that traditionally take place at this time. Be sure to promote your post-holiday sales in PPC; don’t just revert to your ‘regular’ ad messaging. Make your website’s Clearance or Sale section extra prominent, but be sure to keep tabs on inventory – if pickings are slim, then users can get frustrated and leave the site without making a purchase.

Even though the holiday shopping season is quickly counting down, PPC advertisers still have time to grow sales and profits. Make it a happy holiday for your PPC campaigns by implementing any or all of these five easy tips.

Let us know what is working or not for your holiday AdWords campaigns. Feel free to comment!

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Leisa Hall is an Account Director at Anvil Media, Inc. – a search engine marketing agency in Portland, Oregon. Leisa directs Search Engine Marketing strategy primarily for B2C clients ranging in size from start-up to Fortune 500.

When creating a pay per click campaign, marketers commonly focus on things like keywords, match types, cost per click bids, organizing the campaign into ad groups, target cost per acquisition, and other mechanics of PPC campaigns. But in concentrating on the setup and execution of their pay per click campaigns, too many marketers don’t spend enough time thinking about their PPC landing pages – some don’t even setup customized landing pages at all!

So here are the top landing page mistakes to avoid when creating pages for your pay per click campaigns:

1) Not having a landing page. I know I already mentioned this, but this is the single biggest mistake you can make. Many marketers who are first getting into PPC advertising think it’s adequate to drive traffic to their website. Get people to your home page, and they’ll know what to do, right?

Wrong. When people are typing a search into Google, Bing, or another search engine, they are looking for an immediate answer to a specific query. If they click on your ad, they’re expecting a question to the answer they asked – now. They’re not going to dig through your website to find what they’re looking for. Customized landing pages answer the question the searcher was asking quickly and directly.

2) Not having CUSTOMIZED landing pages. If you’re running a large pay per click campaign or multiple PPC campaigns, chances are you are covering a multitude of keywords and have numerous ads. If possible and appropriate, you should be setting up customized landing pages with different offers that are aligned with the ads and keywords used in individual ad groups and campaigns.

This can help improve your quality scores for Google AdWords, which, in turn, can help bring down your cost per click. By ensuring your landing page offer and wording are closely aligned with your ads, you should also improve your conversion rate.

3) Not having a conversion goal. Too many marketers do setup landing pages, but fail to setup a conversion goal. What is a conversion? Simply put, a conversion is when a visitor to your landing page takes the action you want them to take.

This could be downloading an ebook or white paper, signing up for a newsletter, registering for a webinar, and so on. If there isn’t an action you’re trying to get visitors to take, why are you paying to get them to your website? Tracking conversions lets you know how effective your PPC campaigns are. Make sure you define what your conversion is and setup conversion code on your landing pages to track when visitors complete your defined goal.

4) Not tracking return on investment. While establishing a dollar value for conversions can sometimes seem arbitrary, doing so can help you manage your PPC campaigns and determine whether or not they are cost effective. While the dollar value of some conversions might be easy to calculate (buying a product, registering for a paid webinar), others can be more difficult (signing up for a newsletter or downloading a free white paper).

Do your best to realistically calculate the value of your conversions and use this to compute ROI on pay per click campaigns.

5) Not testing, testing, testing. Another major mistake many online marketers make is failing to constantly test and improve the effectiveness of their PPC campaigns. There are many landing page optimization tools out there to help you do this.

If you’re not continually testing and optimizing your landing pages, you’re letting potential customers get away and leaving money on the table. Testing different offers, landing page designs, copy, and images can help you improve the conversion rate on your pay per click campaigns.

Everybody has been new to Internet marketing at some point, but that doesn’t mean you have to repeat the same mistakes as everyone else. Instead, learn from the common pay per click landing page mistakes explained here.

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Jason Mikula works as a freelance search engine marketing and social media marketing consultant.  Jason has experience working with pay per click, search engine optimization, and email and web marketing.

Online marketing today is not quite what it used to be. Just a couple of years ago, the combination of SEO with PPC seemed to be the final word in serious online marketing. With Social Media gaining ground in recent years, more and more channels and communities are accessible to users where they prefer to ‘hang out.’

Users are researching blogsphere & community websites for checking out reviews of products they want to buy, find solutions to their problems, or just share their views on subjects that would interest most marketers in reaching out to them. Most users feel that peer groups tend to offer a more unbiased and genuine reviews about products.

Facebook’s traffic alone is inching close to Google’s traffic and is growing at a much faster rate than Google’s traffic. Twitter’s traffic is in the vicinity of Yahoo’s & Bing’s traffic put together. Smart marketers need to put their content in front of these potential buyers, right where they hang out.

The increase of Social Media usage, as against traditional marketing channels like SEO & PPC, is also throwing up several uneasy questions –

• Is SEO losing its effectiveness, becoming obsolete or already dead?
• Will PPC become more expensive? Will it continue to serve its original purpose?
• Will companies divert part of their PPC budgets into SEO & Social Media Marketing?
• Is Social Media just a fad? Can Social Media really serve as a serious marketing vehicle? Should one have a defined and serious Social Media Marketing strategy?
• Will Social Media continue to grow at the same pace or is it reaching its saturation?
• What will happen if search engines like Google make more radical changes to their algorithms?
• Should one have a common or a complimentary marketing message across SEO, PPC & Social Media?
• How should SEO, PPC and SMM dovetail into your online marketing strategy? What role should each play? What kind of performance can one expect from each of these marketing vehicles?
• How does one decide how much budget one should allocate to each media?

Today’s marketers need to take a fresh look at their marketing strategies when they plan their media mix of SEO, PPC, Social Media and other vehicles to deliver their marketing message. Conventional promotion techniques and approaches need to be innovated to get powerful results and fight competition.

One can no longer think of SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing in isolation. You need to have a holistic approach in planning the media mix, keeping in mind the power as well as limitations of each media. The role of each media should be deployed in such a way that they fill gaps of the other. One needs to use each medium for what it is best suited to individually accomplish, given its distinct advantages. Ideally, SEO, PPC, and Social Media should together serve your common business goals.

Online Marketing Objectives

Before you can go about planning how each marketing medium should be used, it is important to first outline your specific short-term & long-term marketing objectives. Getting clarity on your marketing objectives is key to setting a roadmap for your resource deployment and budget allocation to SEO, PPC and Social Media. SEO usually works well to serve your long-term objectives, while PPC and Social Media Marketing can be used to achieve both short-term and long term marketing objectives.

For example, SEO can be deployed to steadily build website traffic for your main key phrases but may require considerable time and resources to get good results. However, SEO can achieve quicker results for your long-tail keywords with minimal efforts. It is also cost effective to promote ‘non-commercial’ product-relevant keywords, which may not boost instant sales on your website, but is good to get potential buyers interested in your product and may eventually convert into sales.

PPC is ideal for promoting special offers, seasonal sales, geo-targeting, new product launches, direct website sales, lead generation, website page content A|B split testing and getting traffic for your ‘head’ or competitive keyword phrases that result in conversions. Essentially, it is best to invest in PPC where time is of essence and the results can be commercially measurable.

Social media promotion can play an effective role in building customer relationships, interactivity, providing customer support services at reduced cost, get direct customer feedback on your products, your services and your website. It allows you to build communities, positively influence existing communities and steer a positive peer review of your products.  Social media also works well in affiliate development, engaging new marketing partners, hiring key people, channel development, brand image building, creating brand visibility, online reputation management, and lead the users to useful online resources, information and reference material on your website.

Of the three stages of the buying process –

a) research stage where the customer is researching on the possible products or solutions

b) when the buyer firms up his buying decision and

c) when he is ready to make the purchase

- SEO and Social media can work cheaper to serve the first two stages, while PPC can serve as a ‘go-getter’ to grab the buyer in the third stage.

In this multi-part article, I shall evaluate several of the aspects listed above. We will try to understand the unique advantages of SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing and how each of these marketing vehicles can work in coordination to deliver maximum mileage for your marketing dollar. A well planned marketing strategy based on clearly laid out objectives not only enables you to measure the success of your campaign but also secures your investment for a long term and helps you remain ahead of the competition.

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Atul Gupta is the Co-Founder & CEO of RedAlkemi.com, a company specializing in Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. Atul is a thought-leader in Online Marketing industry and has been working in this field since 1996. His company has helped over a thousand clients succeed in their online businesses. Atul is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has published several articles about SEM industry.

Any single-metric-based approach is dangerous, but some are more deadly than others, especially in some contexts.

When you’re doing Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing as an Affiliate Marketer, you want to have a clear understanding of how the Earnings Per Click (EPC) is being calculated. EPC is a metric that is being widely used by affiliate programs and affiliate networks. In fact, while there is no across-the-industry uniformity on displaying other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of affiliate programs, EPC is one of very few metrics that is being disclosed to you — even before you join an affiliate program — by most affiliate networks out there.

Here’s an example of how this looks on Commission Junction:

While on the surface, EPC looks like a great “benchmark” metric, but it can be quite dangerous when taken at face value. There are two things PPC marketers shouldn’t do with the EPC data:

1) Do Not Understand EPC Literally

“While  this  abbreviation  was  originally  coined  to  stand  for an affiliate program’s average affiliate’s EPC, you want to be 100% clear on how exactly it’s being calculated. In fact, in the vast majority of cases EPC now means Earnings Per 100 Clicks, and not per single click. The formula used for calculating EPC in the majority of affiliate marketing contexts is: EPC = Profit ÷ Clicks × 100. Therefore, in the above screenshot AT&T affiliate program’s 3-month EPC, which is $88.65, should be read as: “$88.65 is what an average affiliate earns through the AT&T’s program on every 100 visitors sent to them”.

But wait! That’s not the only thing you want to understand about EPC! Point #2 is even more important:

2) Do Not Budget Your PPC Campaign(s) Based on EPC

When setting your PPC bids, you have to be especially careful with how you use the EPC data. One of the costliest mistakes is to merely divide the EPC figure by 100, and budget your marketing campaign setting the result of this basic arithmetic operation as the amount you’re willing to pay per click/visitor.

Let’s take this health insurance affiliate program as an example. Below is the information you will see on it (prior to joining it):

The program’s 3-months’ EPC is $16.56. Dividing this number by 100, we will arrive at an average affiliate earning of $0.16-$0.17 per click.

Here’s the part you do not see (top 10 affiliates’ EPC in the program):

Do you see how different the amounts are in every case? They range from $5.45 to $292.24 in earnings per 100 clicks, but you don’t know this when you’re looking at the average; and the individual affiliate’s EPC data is only available to the merchant.

There are also other important factors that you do not know (about the program, and affiliates in the program), but the above example illustrates the point well.

Averages are good to know, but always tricky, and should be treated as such. Never base your decision on any single metric, regardless of the context, and especially if this metric is an average.

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Geno Prussakov is the Founder of AMNavigator.com, a graduate of the University of Cambridge, author of “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” (2007), “Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes” (2008), contributor to “Internet Marketing from the Real Experts” (2010), international speaker, and regular contributor to a number of industry’s publications. He is an acclaimed expert in affiliate marketing and an award-winning affiliate manager. Feel free to contact him directly with any questions on affiliate management.