The Work Media Internet Marketing Blog

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. We've finally gotten so busy that publishing our blog has slipped way down our list of priorities as we do everything we can to keep our clients happy and our business growing. We apologize for the lack of new posts - we know you've been anxiously awaiting a new post for a week now.

Our friends at Bentley Systems are keeping us slammed. We are involved in a major pay-per-click management initiative with them involving many keywords, many ads, and many landing pages. Much like SEO, pay-per-click is a front-heavy process. Once you get your keywords set and your ads written, it's largely a matter of managing bids to maximize your return on ad spend. Bentley is a little different because there are SO many landing pages to create that we're doing a few a week, so it's much more of an ongoing manual process.

Our server crashed this week, putting us in a very awkward position. Our hosting company is replacing both the hard drive and memory. In the meantime, we have several sites down, which is ruinous for search engine rankings.

We also have a bunch of new prospects in the pipeline for whom we have had to have meetings, phone calls, and a series of email communications. We are a small firm. At the moment, the same people who are doing the actual work are the same ones doing the marketing. We hope to change that very soon.

Anyway...no lesson today. We just had not blogged in a week, so we wanted to at least post and say "Sorry", and we will try to do much better from this point on. If there is anything we can do for you, please call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sem, seo, sponsored search

We at Work Media have started using the AdWords Editor tool quite a bit. The AdWords Editor is a free tool that Google recently released to allow for OFF-LINE editing of your AdWords account. It is a bare bones application with a couple of neat features. One feature that is very useful for a large account is the ability to report on duplicate keywords across ad groups.

We are currently managing an AdWords account for a software company with many very similar products. Our keyword research for each ad group has returned many duplicate keywords, some of which get added to the ad groups in an attempt to flesh out the keywords. The AdWords Editor will show us when we have duplicate keywords, so we can make sure we only use each keyword for a single ad group.

The main reason we've begun using the AdWords Editor is speed. Using the Google AdWords online interface is a fairly slow process. You can only work on a single ad group or ad at a time, and there is a lot of "traveling" involved in moving from one thing to the next. With the AdWords Editor, we can quickly move from one ad group to the next. We can quickly add a group of keywords, and even copy ads from one ad group to the next, or within an ad group.

The ability to copy ads is a feature we are making heavy use of. If you have read much of our writing, you know we encourage ad testing in which a single element is changed in each ad, such as the title. By copying and pasting ads, we can quickly create lots of ads by just changing the title (or body copy) on each one.

If there is more than one person working on your AdWords account at any one time, you should be careful about stepping on each other's toes with the AdWords Editor. It works by pulling down the data for your account, and when you are done you upload the account data. In the interim, there is the possibility that someone else could have made changes that are not reflected in the data you have.

The Google AdWords Editor is a power tool that can save you a lot of time. However, we suggest not using it until you understand how your AdWords account works. After a few weeks of actively managing your account, then switch to the AdWords Editor.

If you could use some help managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

When setting up Google AdWords ads, you have to split your ad copy up into two lines of 35 characters or less. To save space, you may be tempted to split up a word with a hyphen, starting the word on the first line and continuing on the second line. This is often the only way to squeeze all of your words into the ad.

For example:

This is test ad copy that is going to be hy-
phenated. This will save some space.

When your ad is positioned on the right-hand side of a search engine results page, the ad looks fine. However, if your ad is positioned at the very top of the page, the body of the ad will be on a single line, and the hyphen will still be there. From a practical standpoint, it doesn't matter, but it won't look nearly as good.

So if your bidding strategy is to try and achieve top ad rankings, then you are best to avoid the use of hyphenated words. If your bidding strategy is more conservative and will generally result in right-hand positioned ads, then you're fine using hyphens to save space.

For help managing your paid search campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web site marketing

It is possible to weld the core business motive of generating profit with virtues such as charity and environmentalism. Not only is it possible, it is advisable.

If you incorporate an element of charity into a marketing campaign, such as giving a percentage of earnings to a particular charity, it gives you the opportunity to tap into a whole new network. It also gives you a hook for public relations purposes. It goes without saying that the charity should be one that you have researched and want to be associated with.

Having an environmental element to your marketing is another great way to gain the participation of socially aware prospects. People who are devoted to a particular cause are aggressive about dissiminating information in support thereof. So if you associate your marketing campaign with that cause, then you will win the loyalty of and help from the people who believe in the cause.

If you can combine the above elements with a discount or money-saving offer, then you compound the effectiveness of the offer. You will also have all of the makings of a strong press release campaign. Online PR can be used to distribute your message to thousands of web sites. If you push the right buttons, you can generate a ton of traffic from environmentally-conscious individuals who will be receptive to your offer.

If you need help crafting a socially responsible marketing campaign and message for your business, give Work Media a call at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, charity, email marketing, environmentalism, internet marketing, marketing, pr, publicity, social media

Work Media has begun using the services of GetResponse.com, and so far we are highly impressed with the service. We don't do much product recommending, but we're going to make an exception. We did our research before signing up with an autoresponder provider. We wanted a company that specialized in autoresponders, had a strong track record, and that was reasonably priced. GetResponse won out.

The service has a very nice control panel that gives the user a lot of flexibility with regards to setting up campaigns, doing email broadcasts, managing subscribers, etc. The first step in configuring the system is setting up a campaign. A campaign is basically a container for a set of messages, with its own campaign name, reply email address, etc.

As you add messages to a campaign, you specify when each message should be sent. For instance, you might specify that the first message is sent instantly, the second is sent two days later, and the third message is sent two days after the second message.

Each message can be in plain text format, HTML format, or both, in which case the system will send the HTML message if the client receiving the message can accept it - otherwise, it will send the text message.

You can also track click-throughs of your emails and sales generated by each email. This tracking component is one of the most powerful features of the system. You can actually determine the exact email that triggers the most sales - powerful information to have.

At any time, you can also do a one-shot broadcast email to the subscribers of any of your campaigns, so you can continue the sales process even after the autoresponder series of emails is finished.

If you would like help setting up an autoresponder for your business using GetReponse.com (or another autoresponder service of your choice), contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: autoresponder, email marketing, GetResponse, internet marketing

Work Media is finishing up our first month of providing blogging services for one of our clients. The experiment has gone well. We blog all the time for our own purposes (we're up to post number 115 - whoohoo!). But to blog for someone else in a completely different industry...well, it's a challenge. But we've pulled it off, and all honesty, it has gone very well.

The point is this - if we can author a regularly updated blog (three times per week) for someone else...in an industry we really don't know a whole lot about...YOU CAN DO IT FOR YOURSELF.

By the way, the posts we're doing are not random pieces of meaningless crap. We have spent a good bit of time doing online research for material to write about it. But there is a lot of material out there for us to learn from and borrow ideas from. The blog posts don't have to be brilliant. They just need to focus on some specific concept or piece of information related to your industry. And THEY NEED TO USE KEYWORDS RELATED TO YOUR INDUSTRY.

Now, if you are able to develop a loyal audience around your blog, then that is spectacular. It's also difficult to do. But if you just do the blog regularly (and the blog is indexed in the major search engines) you will generate search engine rankings for various odd phrases that happen to be in your blog. It makes sense then to use keywords for your industry so you generate rankings for searches related to your business.

This approach is particularly useful for generating geographically-related search rankings. For instance, if you are a law firm, it will be very difficult to generate high search engine rankings for terms like "personal injury attorney". But you just might be able to generate related searches that contain geographic modifiers - i.e., "Buffalo personal injury attorney".

If you just don't have time to publish your own blog, give us a call at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net. We'll do all the work for you.

Labels: blog, blog marketing, blogging, blogging advice, blogging service, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization

You need to face facts - only a very small percentage of people who visit your web site are going to do business with you initially. You need to get that email address. The approach that Work Media has taken (and that probably many of you have taken) is to use a newsletter signup form to try and gather email addresses. We get some email addresses that way, but not enough. It's just too passive an approach.

To counter this, we are working on a free Internet marketing course that will be served via an autoresponder. An autoresponder is software that sends out a series of emails at intervals that you specify to anyone who provides contact information. This is extremely valuable because it allows you to contact prospective customers on a regular basis automatically, without you having to actually send out the messages yourself.

It has been shown in marketing studies that it often takes 5 or more contacts with a prospect before a sale is made. By automating the process, you get those 5 or more messages sent out regardless of what's going on in your life. Autoresponders have been used by Internet marketing experts for years, but they are still underused by many other types of businesses that could benefit.

For instance, let's say you own an automobile dealership. You could create a series of emails related to car maintenance (each email touching on one particular area), and then set up an autoresponder to send the emails to anyone who signs up. In this way, you keep your name in your prospects' minds.

Granted, you still have to get the traffic there to start with (we spend most of our time in this blog talking about ways to do that), but once you do, you need to MAXIMIZE the opportunity.

If you would like help automating your online marketing with use of autoresponder, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: autoresponder, email marketing, internet marketing

We have given advice on numerous occasions about using an ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)-based approach in setting your initial bids. In other words, don't just GUESS what your opening bids should be - use some logic to set a bid that will allow you to make a profit, assuming some minimal level of conversions. But once your campaign is running, you need to re-evaluate your bids on a keyword-by-keyword basis.

Over time, you generate solid data that you can use to adjust your bids. But until you have enough data, you need to use some common sense to make your adjustments. The main question you need to ask with regard to each keyword is: what is the likelihood that a person using this keyword will purchase my product or service? If the keyword is a broad, generic one related to your industry, the likelihood of any one person converting who visits your site from an ad triggered by the keyword will be very slim.

However, if the keyword is more specific, that would indicate a higher likelihood of a conversion because the person might be further along in the buying cycle. Therefore, that keyword is worth a higher bid.

Here is an example. Let's say you sell refurbished laptop computers online. A keyword like "computers" or even "buy computer" is very broad. It is also probably going to be very expensive. You might bid on the keyword to cover your bases, but you would probably bid low and really wouldn't expect a whole lot from it. But a keyword like "refurbished HP laptop" is much more specific. That would indicate a person who has already decided what he wants (a refurbished HP laptop) and is looking to buy it. For that keyword, you would want to bid more aggressively because of the higher chance of making a sale. Finally, a keyword like "refurbished HP Pavilion ze2000 laptop" would be the best of all because of its specificity. If you happen to have that model of laptop for sale, it might be worth bidding very high on the keyword because of the high likelihood of generating the sale.

If there is anything we can do to help you with your pay-per-click keyword bid management, please contact us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, internet marketing, pay per click, ppc, roas, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing

Okay, after months of researching, writing, scrapping what we just wrote, re-writing, and re-writing some more, we have finally launched our latest book:

Yahoo! Search Marketing User's Handbook & Strategy Guide

We believe this is the first book on the market devoted purely to using Yahoo's new search marketing platform to manage Yahoo! paid search campaigns. It is an 85 page, 6" X 9" format pdf download. It is available at the following web site:

http://yahoosearchmarketingbook.com

for $49.95.

Here is some of what the book teaches:

How to create an account.
How to create campaigns.
How to create ad groups.
How to do keyword research so you TARGET THE RIGHT KEYWORDS.
How to administer and fund your account.
How to run reports.
How to set up analytics so YOU KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOUR CAMPAIGNS ARE DOING.
How to use Yahoo!'s dynamic text features to CREATE MORE POWERFUL ADS and SAVE TIME.
Strategies for setting your bids.
Understanding the math behind running successful ad campaigns.
How to write POWERFUL ADS that get results.
The importance of keyword/ad/landing page congruency.
How to create LANDING PAGES THAT GENERATE SALES.
How to beat Yahoo!'s Quality Index ranking.

Any purchaser of the book who is not satisfied gets his or her money back, no questions asked.

If you have any questions about the book, or our Yahoo! Search Marketing management services, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing

You've probably heard that Google has recently purchased Double Click, an ad network management company. Well, in keeping pace, Yahoo! has just announced the purchase of Right Networks, an online ad exchange. Both deals greatly increase the respective company's reach by increasing the total ad inventory available.

So what does this mean to you?

It means the sooner you adapt to the new world of Internet-driven advertising, the better able you will be to take advantage of converging media. Face it - Google and Yahoo! are no longer search engines or directories. They are full-blown media giants who are steadily increasing their reach, both on-line and off-line. Being an informed advertiser experienced in the use of search engine interfaces gives you the cutting edge advantage. Soon you will be able to purchase search engine ads, TV ads, print media ads, billboards...all from a single company, using single centralized media management control panel.

Don't fear the future. Be on the cutting edge. It starts by running a simple pay-per-click text ad campaign. Where it goes from there, is only limited by your imagination and willingness to learn.

If you would like help entering the world of search engine marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad networks, advertising, internet marketing, marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

Traditionally, bidding on clicks in a search engine has been a hit-or-miss proposition. You set the MAXIMUM you are willing to pay for a click, and then your actual click cost usually ends up well below that. To play the game, you have to be willing to bid high to get your actual cost about where you want it. But you also run the risk of getting burned by being forced to pay what you bid.

Google has released a new ad pricing method that reduces your risk - preferred cost bidding. In this new method, you don't specify a maximum bid - you specify an AVERAGE price you are willing to pay for clicks to your site.

For example, if you know that, based on your historical conversion rate, you can afford to pay a maximum of $.50 per click to achieve your desired return on investment, then you can set a preferred cost per click of $.50. Google will then adjust your ad ranking on the fly to get your average cost per click as close to $.50 as possible. You are freed from worrying about getting burned by bidding more than you really want to pay. It also frees you from having to constantly monitor your bids.

To make this technique work, obviously, you have to understand your numbers. You need to know how many people who click through to your web site become customers and how much profit you earn on them. If you know the lifetime value of your customer, that's even better. But as long as you know how much you can afford to pay to generate a sale and what your conversion rate is, you can figure out how much you can afford to pay for a click, and use that as your preferred cost.

We think there is a lot of potential in Google's new pricing scheme and we will definitely be checking it out. If you have enough information about your business, then we suggest you do the same.

If you would like some help managing your Google campaign bids, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web site marketing