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Friday, February 05, 2010

Watch Your Capital Letters

Here is something most people reading this probably don't know because it doesn't make a lick of sense: Google treats duplicate keywords as separate if they have different capitalization. For example:

PPC

ppc

These two words would be considered different keywords even if they were both in the same ad group. So you might say…what's the big deal? Here's the problem. It has been our experience that there are times when Google seems to greatly favor keywords that are all lower case. It would not be unusual for the first keyword above to have a quality score of 5 while the lower case version had a quality score of 10.

Given that you don't really know which keyword will trigger your ad, it is best to always use the version which might give you an advantage in ad positioning. So even if you decide to experiment to see what happens with capitalized versions, always test the lower case version as well.

Another problem with having keywords in your ad groups that are the same except for capitalization is that it aids in making your account more unwieldy and difficult to manage. Accounts that are fine-tuned to the best (and smallest) set of keywords are much easier to manage, so we suggest only using lower case keywords, but have each in your account as both exact and broad match.

This is just one example of how something that seems very insignificant can have an impact on your overall paid search account performance. It is important to pay attention to the details.

Got questions about search engine marketing? Feel free to contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keywords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

AdWords Ads: To Optimize or Not to Optimize?

When you set up your Google AdWords campaigns, you should create multiple ads for each ad group, in order to try and find the ad copy that is most effective. You have two options for how to rotate your ads.

Google AdWords has a feature called ad optimization, which Google defines as follows:

Optimize (default): The system will favor ads that have a combination of a high click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score. These ads will enter the ad auction more often.

The alternative to optimization is a standard rotation in which all ads for an ad group will be displayed roughly the same number of times.

Of the two, intuitively it seems that you would always want to use ad optimization. It just makes sense to let Google automatically display the ads with the highest click-through rate ("CTR").

But here's the problem. If you are trying to fine tune your campaign ad groups for maximum performance, YOU yourself should judge which ads are most effective, based on an analysis of historical data. Google's ad optimization kicks in quick. Ads that have a higher initial CTR will garner massively more impressions. So ads that could actually turn out to be the best performing over the long-run might be squeezed out of the picture early on.

Do your own optimization. Run all ads an even number of times. Give each ad a fair number of impressions. How many impressions will be different from situation to situation. If your are competing in a hot market with high click rates, then you might be able to tell after only a couple hundred impressions. But in most cases, you will need to give it more than that. Maybe a thousand impressions, maybe even more than that if click rates in your industry are low across the board.

If you do not have time to actively manage your search engine marketing campaigns, then you might still be better off using the optimization feature. It is better to use early optimization than to let poor performing ads run too long, dragging down your ad group performance.

But if you have time…do it right and take care of it yourself.

Or better yet…let us do it for you! Contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net to find out how we can make your life a whole lot easier.

Labels: ad optimization, ad writing, AdWords, google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing

Thursday, January 07, 2010

The Thirty Minute Writing Challenge

Write thirty minutes every day. That is one of the challenges to myself at the start of 2010. Day three (not counting the 1st, which was a football watching, beer drinking, chilling out kind of day; the 2nd, which was a Saturday devoted to catching up on chores; and Sunday the 3rd, which was a church and family day), this is day three of my New Year's writing challenge. Assuming I end up typing for in the neighborhood of thirty minutes, I can check off three consecutive days.

So what's the point?

When I am finished with this piece, I will have three new blog posts or articles, all dealing with my industry, and all containing keywords and keyword links to my main web sites.

If you do that…if you create a new piece of content every single day that gets posted on a blog, or posted to one or a hundred article directories, or to any one of dozens of high quality social media sites…all with keyword links back to your web site…you will accomplish several things:

You will get your name in front of a lot of people.

You will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry.

You will improve your web site's search engine rankings.

You will drive traffic to your web site.

That is an impressive list of benefits. In the general scheme of things, thirty minutes doesn't seem like much, but I can attest (and I'm sure many of you will agree) there are many days when you just can't find a half hour to do nothing but write. So maybe you do it early in the morning. Or maybe you do it at night (it's 10:34PM Central at the time of this writing). Or maybe you just pay somebody else to do it. It's worth the effort.

Normally I write something a bit more technical or specific to some aspect of search engine marketing (see the way I linked the keyword "search engine marketing" to my company's main web site?). My brain is fried from debugging .NET code all day (.NET programming definitely does not fall under the domain of search engine marketing; however, one of the things that Work Media takes pride in is being able to do WHATEVER our clients need us to do to keep selling), so this is what you get.

I'm at 37 minutes…with a couple of lapses to watch a few minutes of reruns of the Office…so I can call this one done.

Labels: article marketing, article writing, blog, blogging, internet marketing, search engine marketing, writing

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

A Lesson in Keywords: How Many Keywords Do You Need?

There is a client we have worked with for a long time who has a Google AdWords campaign that has not performed as well for parts of this year as it has in the past. In general, 2009 was somewhat of a difficult year due to increased competition for paid search traffic and poor economic conditions. In other words, there have been more advertisers chasing fewer customers. And this particular client definitely experienced the effects of that.

After trying many different strategies (account keyword expansion, keyword contraction, higher ad positioning, ad split-testing, etc.) we've finally stripped the account down to the barebones.

We're now only bidding on four keywords. I'm really not a big fan of bidding on so few keywords. It's the whole "eggs in one basket" thing. But in this case, looking backward, I can see that if we had concentrated our client's budget on that very small set of keywords, our performance over the last year would have been substantially better. We bid on many, many more than just four keywords. Throughout the year, we bid on fewer and fewer. And finally, this month, we're down to the final four contestants.

Should we go down to a single keyword? In theory, if you place all of your budget on the number one performing keyword, then all else equal, you will maximize the performance of your paid search account, up to the point where you run out of traffic. So there's one problem with this strategy. It is best employed in a limited budget situation.

If you have $10 thousand to spend, but bidding on a single or very few keywords only soaks up $1 thousand of your budget, there are likely many more opportunities you could be exploiting by spreading your budget around. But if you only have $1 thousand to start with, then spending the entire $1 thousand on a single keyword makes sense if it provides the best return on your investment.

Another problem is that keyword performance does tend to fluctuate. If you're all in on a single keyword, then if conditions change and that keyword's performance declines, your overall account performance will decline right along with it. So in our case, I don't see us dropping to a single keyword. We will stick with the four keyword basket, but you better believe if we start to see a trend of declining performance, we will open up some other keywords.

I guess the core lesson here is the importance of allocating your budget so that more of your budget is consumed by keywords that provide the best return for your advertising dollars. The only way to do that is by carefully examining your historical keyword performance. One caveat is that keyword performance can be affected by where your ads are positioned, so your analysis will be most accurate if your ad positioning is relatively steady across keywords.

Paid search management sometimes requires some imagination, and it definitely requires a watchful eye. Work Media have a lot of experience doing this stuff, and we're pretty dang good at it. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you on your search engine marketing. Contact us at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keywords, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Don't Be Fooled by this Old SEO Trick

Here is a trick of the SEO trade:

To demonstrate your skill in SEO by achieving a very high search engine ranking for a very low competition keyword.

Look, if your site ranks well for a keyword that noone ever uses, have you really accomplished anything? No! My partner relays an interesting story from his days at CJ Marketing about an SEO "expert" coming in and demonstrating how she could take a particular keyword and very quickly get it ranked number one on Google. Fantastic! Only...the web page she optimized was the ONLY result brought back by Google for that keyword. In other words, there was not a single other web page competing against her page for that keyword.

It is easy to be number one when you have ZERO competition!

So don't be fooled by this trick. SEO is not easy. It's not quick. And it's not cheap. If you want your web site to rank for keywords with no competition and no traffic, you don't need an SEO firm. You can easily make that happen yourself. But if you want to rank highly for competitive keywords that may actually drive targeted traffic to your web site, then you need to be prepared for war.

Labels: internet marketing, keywords, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, seo

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Three Critical Criteria for Judging SEO Keywords

The first step in any Internet marketing campaign is picking the right keywords. Many businesses and law firms make the mistake of choosing keywords to target based on their opinion of what keywords potential customers would use to search for them, rather than basing that decision on research. Don't do that.

The other big mistake I see some companies make is picking a huge basket of keywords for which to promote their web site. Don't do that, either. Think small in number and highly specific.

So just what do you do? Let research guide your decisions, and pick keywords that meet three specific criteria.

Here are the three major criteria to consider for any potential keyword:

1. Degree of relevance. You want a strong sense of congruity between a keyword and a particular web page. It doesn't have to be relevant to your home page, but it needs to be relevant to SOME page on your web site.

For example, a good keyword for the home page of a Ford auto dealership in Memphis might be "Memphis Ford dealer." A good keyword for a page about Ford Mustangs on this same dealer's site might be "Memphis Ford Mustang dealer." These are completely hypothetical examples.

2. Search engine traffic. The more search traffic there is for a particular keyword, the more potential traffic the keyword could drive to your web site.

3. Competition. The fewer competing web sites there are for a keyword, the more attractive that keyword is for the subject web site.

So the three major criteria for any keyword you are considering targeting is relevance, traffic and competition. The relevance criterion is judgment-based. It is common sense. For the traffic criterion, the best tool to use to generate that data is the external Adwords research tool, located at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. For the competition criterion, I suggest basing it on Google "allintitle:" searches, because this will return the number of web pages that are closest to being specifically optimized for that keyword.

Compile a list of potential keywords using Google's external keyword, eliminate the less relevant ones, then rank them by the number of searches Google claims for each one. Then look for ones that are in a favorable competitive situation. Your highlighted keywords at this point are your best bet for generating targeted organic search engine traffic in a reasonable amount of time. Your chance of ranking for those keywords, and thus generating visits to your web site, is excellent.

Call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net if you need some assistance orchestrating an organized SEO campaign for your business web site.

Labels: keyword research, keywords, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Ping.fm for Updating Social Networking Sites

I've begun using an online tool called Ping.fm to manage my social networking activities. I have looked at a number of different such applications, but i really like this one. It has a pretty easy to use interface, and it works with a lot of different platforms.

To use it, first you need accounts set up at a few social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe a blog or two. Then you create an account at Ping.fm and add your "networks" by telling the application what sites you want to manage and what your logins for the sites are.

Once that is done, rather than logging into individual web sites to update blogs and statuses and whatnot, you can just type a message into a textbox at the Ping.fm site and it automatically posts it to the various other sites you have configured.

Another interesting feature is that you can also use the application to update your various social networking sites via a mobile device. So if you are away from your computer but have an idea for something to post to your social networking sites, you can just submit the post to Ping.fm via your phone.

This is a concept that I encourage you to explore because it is a high leverage concept. I am a huge fan of writing something once and using it in many different places (when done ethically), and Ping.fm and similar services make that process much easier.

Labels: blog marketing, blogging, internet marketing, mobile blogging, ping.fm, search engine marketing, social networking

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Better Linking by Going Deep

April 8th and my first blog of the month. Shameful. My excuse is that I have spent a lot more time lately updating my newer blogs, those of the legal marketing variety on a couple of other sites. But really, there should be no excuses. I should just get it done. You need to have the same attitude yourself. You must blog!

Okay, now onto the actual subject of this blog.

When link building, the temptation is to always focus on your home page. Obviously, you would prefer that that be the page most people see and arrive at. It's sort-of like the cover of a book. It creates interest and gives the reader a little idea of what it is about.

So people love to link to their home page. However, the problem with this approach is that it does not account for two things:

1. You need to strive for a connection between the keyword in the link (if there is one) and keywords on the page that it links to; and

2. A single web page can only be optimized for a VERY small set of keywords (technically, it can only TRULY be optimized for one keyword).

So you want keyword-specific links pointing to keyword-specific pages. If you always link to your home page, you are not doing this. Instead, you need to practice something called "deep linking." Deep linking is the act of linking not to the home page but to a more specific sub-page. For example, if you have a web site that sells shoes, and there is a sub-page on the site devoted to Nike shoes, then a keyword link like "Nike shoes" would be more effective if it linked to the Nike page rather than your home page.

For help with your company's Internet marketing, contact Work Media at www.workmedia.net, info@workmedia.net, or 888-299-4837.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, linking, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Competitive Mindset Online Versus Offline

I'm a big fan of books like Think and Grow Rich and The Science of Getting Rich. I like that mental success stuff. Regardless of how much credence you give to the idea that one's mind can influence external events, you can't deny that your chances of success in business are better if you have a positive, optimistic outlook.

In The Science of Getting Rich, written about a hundred years ago by Wallace Wattles, one of the main ideas is that the competitive mindset works against you. A more productive mindset is one in which you assume that demand for your products or service is unlimited, so there is no reason to be in a competitive mindset. Don't worry about what your competitors are doing. Just run your own business, providing the very best service possible, confident that there are plenty of customers.

I like that mindset. It's a very self-empowering approach. Rather than sitting around worrying, just keep your nose to the grind and work harder. In this lousy economy, that is absolutely the best way to think.

HOWEVER...

The world in which I conduct most of my day-to-day business is the online world, and here, unfortunately, the same rules don't apply. Here is why:

The amount of search engine traffic that is relevant for a particular web site is limited at any given time.

For example, if you sell Nike running shoes on your web site, at any given moment, there are only so many people searching online for Nike running shoes. So, by definition, it is not a situation with unlimited demand; demand is fixed by the number of people performing those searches. So if you want that traffic, you have to FIGHT FOR IT! You are definitely in competition with all the other web sites that sell Nike running shoes. Either your web site has high search engine visibility or it doesn't.

The online competitive mindset has to be one focused on competition. If you don't do everything you can to position your web site to be seen by the people searching for your products, then they will see your competitors' web sites and buy from them.

So...in the real world, demand is unlimited. Online, demand is very limited, which requires a different mindset.

Need help with your online marketing? Call me. I'm Jerry Work. My office phone # is 615-263-2811. Or you can email me at jwork@workmedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, search engine marketing, seo

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sometimes You Just Wanna Be Anonymous

In general, our intention with online marketing is to get as much exposure as possible. However, in the course of doing that, we set ourselves up for failure. How? By being considered overly aggressive by the people who run the sites we depend on to help us spread our marketing message and generate links to our web sites. This can lead to being labeled a "spammer" and being cut off.

So when it comes to submitting content to various web sites, you really want to be anonymous to the web sites themselves.

How do you do this?

With proxy servers. A proxy server allows you to mask your IP address by doing your work under a different IP address. If your IP address changes when you submit web sites and do various other things, it becomes much more difficult to track you. As far as most web sites are concerned, when your IP address changes, you're a different person. Strange, I know.

There are online proxy services that allow you to do your web surfing and other things through an interface that changes your IP address. And many search marketing software packages allow you to work under different IP addresses. If you are going to be really aggressive distributing content online (like we are), then this is a technology you need to utilize.

Of course, you can always just call Work Media and we'll do the work for you.

FYI, here are a couple of sites we have set up on the subject of print on demand publishing:

http://www.freewebs.com/printondemand

http://www.zimbio.com/Print+on+Demand

Labels: internet marketing, proxy ip, proxy servers, search engine marketing

Thursday, December 04, 2008

New Law Firm Internet Marketing Book

We just finished our latest book, The Law Firm Internet Marketing Book, and have created a new page to buy the book on our law firm Internet marketing web site:

http://law-firm-internet-marketing.net/the-law-firm-internet-marketing-book.asp

This book is highly targeted toward the legal industry. If you are responsible for the promotion of a law firm web site, you should definitely check this book out. Currently, it is only for sale via digital download in PDF format, but in a couple of weeks it will be for sale on Amazon.com for those of you who prefer a hard copy.

Some of the topics covered by the book include:

Keyword research to identify the keywords that people are using to search for the legal services you offer.

On-page optimization to rank highly for your target keywords.

How to use blogs and the SEO content cycle to create huge amounts of content to link to your site.

Using social networking sites like Squidoo and StumbleUpon to promote your web site.

Using social bookmarking sites to improve search rankings.

Creating your own informational site to guide the search engines to links you want them to find.

How to create XML sitemaps to make sure the search engines find all of your web pages.

How to perform keyword research specifically for pay per click.

How to manage your pay per click accounts to generate the maximum number of leads for your marketing dollars.

How to write pay per click ads and landing pages that get results.

Specific pay per click strategies for Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter.

How all the pieces of search engine marketing fit together.

This is a book based on real-world strategies that Work Media uses to promote our clients.

Labels: internet marketing, law firm internet marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer website marketing, legal marketing, mobile pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Guide the Search Engine Spiders with Your Own Information Hub

You should consider building a new web site separate from your main site that functions as an information hub for your industry. You can use RSS feeds to dynamically create much of the content for the site, which will save you the effort of trying to manually updating it with new links or articles. So why would you want to take the time to do such a thing?

There are a few good reasons, but the one we are most interested in is this: to have a means to guide search engine spiders to other web sites that rank to your main site, without linking directly to them from your main site.

The reason you would want to guide search engine spiders in this way is so that you do not end up with nothing but two-way links, but you also want to make sure that other web pages that contain links to your site are found. There is certainly a good chance that Google (or whoever) will find all those links on its own, but why not make it easy and point right to them?

To really take this strategy to the next level, you should give your new site, the information hub, its own IP address so that there is nothing tying the sites together. But even if you don't do that, it is still a good strategy because it eliminates cross-linking between other sites and your site.

Another big advantage is that the information hub gives you another opportunity to get your marketing message across. But avoid the temptation to make it just an extension of your web site for purposes of selling your services. It needs to stand on its own as a valuable source of impartial information.

Here are a couple of links with more link building strategies:

http://link-building-strategies.tumblr.com/post/56579067/link-building-strategies-that-really-work

http://www.zimbio.com/link-building-strategies/articles/2/Link+Building+Strategies+Work

Labels: internet marketing, link building, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Friday, November 21, 2008

Google's New Automatic Matching Feature: Good for Google, Good for the Advertiser?

Google has a new AdWords feature that is available as a beta trial to certain advertisers. It will probably be rolled out to all users within the next few weeks. The feature is called automatic matching.

Automatic matching is intended to help you capture relevant traffic that you may have missed based on your campaign keyword lists. When it is activated, Google analyzes your account and begins showing your ads for search queries that you have not specified as keywords.

The feature is not supposed to effect any of your existing keywords. In other words, keywords you have set up in your account should not get robbed of traffic in order for the system to automatically display your ads for other keywords. The point is to display your ads for alternate keywords whenever you have budget left over.

This is obviously a good thing for Google because it keeps your ads online for more keywords, which means more clicks and more revenue for them.

But is it good for advertisers?

Maybe, maybe not. You don't really want to relinquish control of your account to Google. That's asking for disaster. BUT...if you have budget left over every month and would rather have your ads running than not max out your budget, then this is a way to make that happen.
If you have the feature available, and you are currently not spending all of your budget, then you may want to give it a try. BUT...

Watch your numbers, especially your cost per conversion. If your cost per conversion rises to an unacceptable level because of extra money being consumed by automatic matching ads, then you should turn the feature off immediately.

Here are a couple of web pages that contain good information about pay per click placement:

http://placingppcads.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/is-pay-per-click-placement-in-your-control-yes-if-you-follow-these-strategies/

http://www.zimbio.com/placing-ppc-ads/articles/2/Pay+per+Click+Placement+Control+Yes+Follow

Labels: AdWords, automatic matching, google, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Useful New Google AdWords Features

Google has a couple of new features that you should check out. The first is a new keyword research tool that analyzes a supplied web site URL and seed keyword to show keywords that might be relevant for promoting that site (that are not already being used), along with traffic and bid data for each keyword. The main caveat is that you must be an existing advertiser. It's a great way to instantly generate a list of new keywords for a particular landing page along with the data you need to make decisions regarding what keywords to use and how much to bid. It's a great tool for advertisers, and certainly a great tool for Google since it will encourage bidding on more keywords.

The URL to try it out is: http://google.com/sktool/.

Another new feature is that Google has increased the number of unique results returned for a query report. These are reports that show you the actual search terms that are triggering your Google AdWords ads. Historically, the reports have always featured line items labeled "Other queries" that contained a large portion of the total queries. Now, there should be fewer results included in the Other queries line and more unique keyword results. This increases the knowledge that advertisers have about their Google accounts, improving their ability to make adjustments based on performance data.

Google is constantly releasing new features. The better you understand these features, the better you will be able to manage your account and maximize your AdWords performance.

Here are a couple more links to pages devoted to the topic of law firm Internet marketing:

http://lawyerwebsitemarketing.wetpaint.com/

http://marketingforlawfirms.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/lawyer-website-marketing-powerful-search-engine-advice-straight-from-the-source/

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Announcing Launch of New Web Site Devoted to Law Firms

We have been working on a new web site, www.law-firm-internet-marketing.net, that is a site devoted to information about using Internet marketing to promote law firm web sites. Law firms spend an incredible amount of money on advertising, including outdated vehicles like large Yellow Pages ads. It is our mission to inform the legal community about ways to better spend their marketing dollars - about how to use the Internet to generate more clients at a lower cost.

The site still needs a few tweaks, but it is there for the most part. It includes an articles page that will grow over time as we write new material. And the site will eventually be heavily optimized in conjunction with an off-site linking/content campaign to build a link catalog. If we can't actively demonstrate what we do by causing our own sites to rank well, then what good are we?

We love working with law firms. Our co-founder Chris Work has an extensive background working specifically with law firms, having optimized and promoted dozens of law firm web sites. And we are sickened by the scam that is pulled every day in the industry of promoting legal web sites...and that is when a firm gets conned into signing up with a company to promote its site, while that company is also simultaneously promoting web sites for dozens of firms IN THE SAME CITY! We're not going to name names, but if you know anything about this industry, you know who we're talking about.

So we are taking a more proactive stance to get into this market and take market share away from the scammers.

If you are responsible for marketing and promotion at a law firm, please call us today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net. We can save you a ton of money over your traditional media, and we will ONLY work for you to reach the top of the search rankings in your city.

Labels: internet marketing, law firm internet marketing, law firm marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Search engine reputation management

We've been thinking quite a bit lately about search engine reputation management. This is an emerging trend in the online promotion industry that is going to take on more and more importance in the years to come. Search engine reputation management could be defined as a sub-set of reputation management, the practice of taking steps to insure that your reputation is not tarnished by disgruntled customers or clients. Search engine reputation management is the process of reducing the visibility of search engine results that portray a business negatively.

This is accomplished by purposely positioning other content above the negative content in search engine rankings. Now...this is easier said than done, because as you know, ultimately you have no control over where search engines rank web pages. However, an experienced search engine optimization firm will understand the way pages are ranked well enough to create content that has an excellent chance at ranking highly.

Search engine reputation management can save your business' reputation and keep the cash register ringing. If somebody is spreading false rumors about you online, you should seriously looking into a search engine reputation management campaign to minimize the damage. Work Media can help you make it happen. Just call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: reputation management, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine reputation management, seo

Monday, September 29, 2008

Article Spinning Software: The Value in Spinning Content

Today's featured Squidoo lens is on the subject of banner ads. There are times when advertising on search engine results pages for your industry is just too expensive, in which case you may want to turn to content network advertising. You can run text ads on content networks, but sometimes you get better results with graphical banner ads. So obviously, banner ad creation is an important part of that process. Now on today's main topic...

Article Spinning Software: Should You Use It?

Content "spinning", or article spinning, is the act of taking seed content (such as an article) and creating different versions of it by changing words, passages, and paragraphs. It is somewhat of a controversial practice because, depending on how it is used, it can result in spam. For example, if I create an article and then use article spinning software to create a thousand slightly different versions of the article for blasting around to various web sites...that would probably be considered a spamming, or "black hat", technique.

That is not the way my firm practices spinning. I believe if you create spun content that has a large degree of variation that is optimized in such a way to be easily found with different keywords, then the technique is legitimate. So content that we spin has a large amount of variation between versions. It is a time consuming process, but still faster than maintaining a one-to-one ratio between original content and content locations. It gives us leverage on our time, but does not bombard the Web with content that is essentially the same.

This concept is similar to one we have discussed many times before, which is re-purposing content. For example, taking two blog posts that are about the same subject and combining them into an article, and then distributing the article directories. Like content spinning, it gives you great leverage on your time.

Certainly, publishing a blog is a fantastic start to a content campaign. But you need to go far beyond simply publishing your blog. You need to make maximum use of every word you type, and content spinning is one technique to make that happen.

To answer the question of this post: should you use article spinning software?, the answer is "yes." But do it in an ethical manner. If you don't have serious time to put into writing your articles so that each version will be very unique, then don't do it.

For help in making the absolute best use of your writing for purposes of improving your search engine rankings, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: article marketing, article spinning, content, content creation, content distribution, content spinning, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Monday, September 22, 2008

Thoughts on Microsoft's New Ad Campaigns

Today's Squidoo lens is about keyword research. This lens presents eight effective keyword research strategies, along with various resources, links, videos and more to learn more about this very important topic.

Well, Microsoft is certainly trying to fight back against the market share that Apple is taking from PC machines. Its new ad campaigns are big budget productions starring the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and Mr. Microsoft himself, Bill Gates. The first ad, which centered around Seinfeld and Gates in a shoe store, was a flop, in my opinion. It was fairly humorous, but not at all "hip," which I believe it was meant to be. The worst part of it is that it did not at all address the question of why someone should continue using PCs rather than Macs. It was the advertising equivalent of a box office bomb.

This weekend I saw their next attempt, which is much better. In the new ad, many interesting and cool people (scientists, explorers, athletes, celebrities) look at the camera stating "I'm a PC." This ad is more on target because it directly counters the underlying theme of Mac's very successful campaign that portrays PC users as nerds in suits. It still doesn't really address why you should use Windows, but it shows that many, many successful people use PCs.

I have to wonder about Microsoft's ROI on these ads. Maybe in this situation, ROI doesn't even matter. When a company with all the money in the world is losing market share, maybe the solution is just to spend your way back to the top. That's not the approach we take with our clients, but our clients don't have the kind of funding that Microsoft has.

If you don't have a billion dollars to spend on your marketing campaign and need to actually show a return on your marketing investment, call Work Media today! Even if TV or radio is your game, we can help you save a ton of money on your media costs. And of course, we're the guys to call for your search engine marketing needs. Call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, Microsoft, search engine marketing, search marketing, TV advertising

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Five Squidoo Lens Tips

Today's Squidoo lens is about what to look for in an internet advertising agency.

For a couple of weeks now, we've been building Squidoo lenses on a variety of topics. We hope to achieve "Giant Squid" status because that will give us better leverage of Squidoo for marketing purposes. To achieve that, you have to have 50 active lenses that people actually visit. So we're building lenses on all kinds of topics, not just Internet marketing. Anyway, following are some tips for making the most of your Squidoo lenses that we have gleaned from our own experiences so far and advice we have read from others.

1. Use your keywords in links to your main web site. This is the most basic SEO use of your Squidoo lenses. If you build a good lens, it only makes sense to place a prominent keyword link on the page that links to your site for the SEO boost.

2. Link your Squidoo lenses to each other. Help visitors find their way to your various Squidoo lenses by placing a list of links to those lenses in each one.

3. Spend some time on your lenses. This one seems obvious, but you may be tempted to throw up a bunch of half-constructed lenses. For a Squidoo strategy to work, your lenses really do need to be high quality. Fortunately, using the Squidoo modules, it is very easy to build a lens that updates itself. You just have to take the time to set up the modules properly.

4. Help search engines find your lenses. Link to your lenses in your blog posts or your main web site.

5. Tag your lenses. Do your keyword research (we suggest using Google's external keyword tool) and use a combination of high traffic and long-tail keywords for your Squidoo lens tags.

Follow these tips and you will be on your way to building a series of strong Squidoo lenses that will help your search engine marketing campaign. If you could use some help with these types of advanced link building strategies, contact Work Media at www.workmedia.net or 888-299-4837.

Labels: internet marketing, link building, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, squidoo

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Guiding the Search Engines

Today's Squidoo lens is about advertising copywriting. Strong copywriting can make a profound impact on your business performance. The advertising / copywriting Squidoo lens reveals the top five copywriters whose work you should study to learn how to write powerful advertising copy.

We recently published a new article on our site about a concept called "PageRank reflection," which, in a nutshell, is the process of linking to high PageRank sites that have links back to your site in order to help search engine spiders find the link back to your site. It is similar in concept to link swapping, only rather than having a link placed on the other site via a link swap, you take advantage of social networking or bookmarking sites that let you have control over the link placement. The example we hit on in the article was using Squidoo. To read more about the details of using Squidoo to accomodate PageRank reflection, read the article (no reason to re-write it here).

The general idea is to guide search engine spiders to pages you want them to find so that they will find the links back to your site. This concept applies to any web site where you have a link back to your site. It applies not only to social networking type sites but directories, blogs, and any other kind of web site. If there are blog posts where you have a link
(via a comment or whatever), you should link to the blog in order to let search engine spiders find that link back to your site.

One strategy you might consider is creating a web page specifically for the purpose of displaying links back to your site. There should naturally be some kind of common theme to those links (for example, most links to our site are located on other web sites that deal with Internet marketing), so it will resemble sort-of a mini-directory, which is a perfectly legitimate purpose for a web site. If you create such a site, register a new domain name for it and link to it from your main site. This will allow search engine spiders to easily find your links directory and begin following those links. Those links will all link to pages that link back to your main site. It's all just one big circle.

This process does take some time, but it is time well spent. Eventually, the search engines will probably find most of your links anyway, but the faster and easier you make it, the quicker you will climb the search engine rankings.

Contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net for help with your link building campaign. We can take over the burden of building a broad, well-constructed catalog of links to your site, so you can focus on managing the leads that come through.

Labels: internet marketing, link building, link campaign, linking, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Link Building

Squidoo lens of the day: http://www.squidoo.com/linkbuildingseo

We are playing around with some software that may be of use to anyone looking to build their inbound link catalog. It's called Fast Blog Finder, and it's purpose is to locate blogs about particular subjects that allow "dofollow" links in their comments. Dofollow links are links that search engine spiders can follow. So these are the kinds of links that help to improve search engine rankings. All links, by default, are dofollow links. The Web exists today as we know it because of the ability of search engine spiders to follow links and build indexes of web sites.

The problem is that any time there is free and open ability to post material with dofollow links, there are some who try to exploit the situation. In my opinion, for ethical, legitimate Internet marketers, it is okay to post comments on others' blogs, with links back to your site, if they are posting something legitimate that relates to the subject of the blog post. But there are those who would post thousands of blatantly commercial messages on blog posts simply to get the links back to their site. And so most blogs today do not allow dofollow links in their comments. The few have ruined it for the many.

However, there are still blogs that allow dofollow links. Generally comments on these blogs are monitored closely, so that even if a blatantly non-relevant commercial message is posted it will not stay on the blog for long. So it is still necessary to make legitimate comments based on the subject of the blog post.

Fast Blog Finder looks for blog posts based on a seed keyword, and it examines the comments on the blog posts to see if they allow dofollow links. It then reports the results back to you and highlights the blogs that do allow the correct type of link. You can save blogs you like in particular into a favorites list. This is useful because there is a good chance that if there is one post in a blog relevant to your business, there are more. So if you have the blog saved, you can return to it in the future and make more comments on other posts in the blog.

If there are no existing comments, the software is unable to determine if the blog allows dofollow links. That is the major weakness of the software, because we have found that a very large percentage (probably around 40%) of the blog results brought back do not report the link type allowed. Despite this weakness, the software still saves you a ton of time, and at a cost of about $50, it's still a bargain.

Regardless of how you go about it, making periodic comments on blog posts that allow dofollow links back to your site is a very good technique to combine with your other link building strategies. You want to have links from as many different types of sites as possible, and one way links from relevant blogs can be quite valuable.

If you could use some help managing a linking building campaign for your site, call Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link building, linking campaign, paid links, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Monday, September 08, 2008

Goofy, Low Budget Videos: Anti-Corporate Marketing

We spent a good bit of time Thursday and Friday working on a promotional video for Work Media. We've done a few instructional type videos and have added them to many video directories, but this is our first attempt to do anything with much in the way of entertainment value. We noticed that one of our local competitors (although a company for whom search engine marketing is a side business) has released a slick, professional looking commercial video that is featured on its web site. We decided to go the opposite route - our video is low budget, goofy, and definitely has an unprofessional feel to it. But this is not something that will be going on TV - just on our site and distributed to video sites for people hopefully to pass around.

So...for our purposes, what video type would likely work the best? Slick, professional, and straight up...or low budget and comical? We think the comical route has a better chance of doing anything for us. It's sort-of anti-corporate marketing. The video shows enough to make it very clear that we are a real company with a number of people working here, and that was really all we wanted to accomplish. Beyond that, we just wanted to do something that might stick in someone's mind a bit, or at least entertain him long enough to watch the whole thing. If someone needs proof that we are knowledgeable and skilled in our field, then there is all kinds of proof of that on our site - information, articles, blog posts, case studies...we've got lots of proof. A boring video about the details of what we do just didn't seem like the right approach.

We'll let you know how it goes.

We have been submitting articles to SEM Skinny, and noticed that because of that we currently have a nice front page article on a site called TalentZoo.com: http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php?articleID=843.

Our latest book, Scientific Search Engine Marketing, is slowly beginning to sell on Amazon.com. This whole book selling business is new to us, but it's definitely an interesting learning experience. Hopefully we will learn many things that we can share with you. We are already heavy into the writing of our next book, which is an expanded version of the Scientific Search Engine Marketing book aimed specifically at law firms. If you haven't checked it out, you can learn more here: http://workmedia.net/scientific-search-engine-marketing/

Here is another Squidoo lens to check out. This one provides a lot of valuable information about SEO linking campaign strategies: http://www.squidoo.com/linkcampaign.

That's all for today. We've slacked off hard on our blog the last few weeks but are recommitting ourselves to making quality posts three times per week. If you could use some help with your company's search engine marketing, call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, scientific search engine marketing, search engine marketing, squidoo, video

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Work Media Update

No blog posts for weeks...that's not good. But honestly, we have had so many projects in the works that blogging has just fallen down the list of priorities. But I know, I know...I have made the point before that if you publish a blog, you should find a way to make 2 or 3 blog posts a week no matter what. And I have broken that rule. So let's start over.

Here are some of the things going on at Work Media. First off, our first retail book is now for sale at Amazon.com, Scientific Search Engine Marketing: Maximizing Your Pay per Click Return on Investment. You can also buy a digital download version on the Work Media web site. The book will absolutely improve your pay per click management skills. No questions. Go buy it now.

We have been begun releasing videos with search engine marketing advice. Because of a bug in the Blogger platform, our videos no longer get automatically added as blog posts, so we will have to begin adding them here manually.

We have also gotten heavy into using Squidoo. Squidoo, if you don't know, is a site created by Seth "Permission Marketing" Godin that is sort-of a combination of a wiki-style site and a social networking site. Here are a couple of the Squidoo lenses we have set up so far so you can see what we're talking about.

http://www.squidoo.com/searchenginemarketingservice

http://www.squidoo.com/ppc-campaign

We're going to have a lot of these before it's over with, so we'll post the URLs here as they go live. The cool thing about Squidoo is the way the pages are put together. You create pages (which are called "lenses" in Squidoo language) using a combination of modules, which are page elements that can be configured to automatically pull content from various sources. It lets you easily create an informative, dynamic page that updates itself. Squidoo also offers some advantages for SEO, which we will discuss in future blog posts and videos.

Contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or Info@WorkMedia.net if you need some help and guidance promoting your web site via search engine marketing.

Labels: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, squidoo, video

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Early AdWords Campaign Awareness

Quick Tip: For the first couple of weeks after launching a new AdWords campaign, watch your keywords every day to make sure they are still online.

It's easy to feel like you've accomplished something after setting up an AdWords campaign and beginning the process of driving paid traffic to your site. But you can't take your eyes off of the situation. Even if Google begins sending a stream of traffic to your site, it is highly likely that very soon it will begin shutting off your keywords. What seems to happen is that AFTER your account is up and running, the Google system begins an audit of your campaigns to see how closely your keywords match your ad content (and possibly even your landing pages), the kind of click rates your keywords and ads have, etc. While it's going through this process, it will probably be shutting off many of your keywords and insisting that you bid more (MUCH more in some cases) to turn them back on.

So if you're not paying attention, the traffic you started receiving at the beginning of your Google campaign will dry up to a trickle until you adjust your bids. So being aware of what's going on with your campaigns early on is critical to keeping your ads running.

You can avoid this situation by bidding very high early in your campaign. The problem is you could end up paying more than you should in order to have a profitable account. It is probably best to start low and adjust your bids up as needed, rather than starting high and adjusting down.

Call us if you need some help monitoring your pay per click campaign.

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

Monday, June 30, 2008

Just Say No to Paid Links

In the past, we have recommended using paid links (not paid search ads, but paid links) to boost a web site's external link count and improve its search engine rankings. Although much has been made the last couple of year's about Google's battle against paid search marketers who use paid links, the technique continued to work.

But that trend may have changed.

We recently noticed that a site for which we had been using paid links received a beatdown at the hands of Google in terms of its rankings. They plummeted. Around that same time, we noticed that Google had launched a new form where anyone can report a web site for using paid links. Then I guess the Google decency patrol will investigate and punish the site accordingly.

So...when it comes to something so important, so precious, as your search engine rankings, you can't take any chances. We think the environment for using paid links may have gotten too dangerous, now that Google has made it so easy and encourages narcing on other sites for using paid links.

If you are paying for links, our advice is to reallocate that money toward press release distribution. You will accomplish the result of generating new links, and you will be safe from punishment at the hands of Google. So protect your rankings and play it safe.

Stay away from paid links.

Call Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net if you need some help with your search engine marketing.

Labels: internet marketing, linking, linking campaign, online press releases, paid links, pr, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo, web marketing

Friday, June 27, 2008

A More Accurate Way to Estimate Keyword Traffic

The very best source of keyword data for your search engine optimization campaign may be your own paid search campaign. We use keyword research tools such as NicheBot.com a lot, especially early in the life of an SEO campaign. The problem is the data generated by such tools is only an estimate, and sometimes those estimates are highly inaccurate.

If you want concrete proof about the potential traffic for various keywords, take a look at the search queries people are using that have triggered your ads. In Google, you can run a search query performance which will show you most of the actual search terms that were used when your ads were displayed. One column of data in the report is impression share. If you run a report for a month, then divide the number of queries for any particular keyword by the impression share for that month, you will have a pretty accurate total for the number of times that keyword was used in that month. If you then divide that by 30, you will have an estimate for the number of times that search term is used on a daily basis.

The formulas are as follows:

Monthly Searches = Number of Impressions / Impression Share

Daily Searches = (Number of Impressions / Impression Share) / 30

You can then plug these search queries into NicheBot or another tool to get an idea of how many directly competing sites there are for the keyword. Or you can type the search query into Google surrounded by quotes to get an estimate of the competition.

The final data set created by doing this will give you a more accurate picture of actual search traffic and competition than simply relying on the information provided by keyword research tools. You can't go wrong with hard data.

If you need some help conducting keyword research for your search engine optimization or pay per click marketing campaigns, please call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, paid search, pay per click, search engine marketing, search engine optimization

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Don't be Discouraged by the Google Dance

Man, achieving a very high ranking in Google for desirable keywords can be tough. We have been heavily promoting our site for a few select keywords and are right on the cusp of positioning ourselves the way we want, but Google keeps bouncing us around. Now, I will say that these are very competitive keywords, and we're competing against lots of other companies that all know about search engine optimization...a pretty tough situation.

We actually rocketed up the rankings fairly quickly, then Google started moving us down, down, down. But we just kept working, and eventually we started rising again. The lesson here for you is that if you want high search engine rankings, you just to be patient and keep working. Never stop promoting. Never stop distributing content, writing your blog, seeking links partners, and all the other things you do to promote your web site.

Like we've said before: You can't outspend your competition, but you can outwork them. If you are intelligent in the way you go about your SEO campaign, eventually you will see results.

If you could use some professional help with your own search engine optimization campaign, call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web marketing, web site marketing

Monday, June 16, 2008

Find a Place to Blog

I'm typing this on my laptop on the way to the office (I commute with my brothers most days, which often gives me the opportunity to work in the car), typing as fast as I can because my battery is going dead. This is the place where my type out most of my blogs. Since blogging is a non-revenue generating activity, I don't like to spend too much time in the office doing it.
What's your strategy for getting blog posts written?

You need to find a place, and a regular time if possible, to type out your blog posts. If you can systematize the process, it will make you more efficient at getting blogs posted and make the process less demanding. I recently blogged about the SEO content cycle, in which I suggested that you re-cycle blog material into articles, articles into books, etc. If you can find a regular place and location to type, you can begin this kind of content cycle, which could have a profound impact on your business.

If you are an early riser, maybe you can set aside some to blog early in the morning. If you're a night owl, then late at night might work better for you. If you're like me and often have time in the mornings on the way to work, then that might be the best option. But find somewhere and go to work!

Blogging is a very "soft" marketing activity. You're not actively displaying a marketing message to prospects. It's more like you are placing more and more bait out until cyberspace hoping to attract prospects. It's a long-term business strategy. This is one reason I suggest you do it as much as you can outside the office.

If you could use some help implementing a blogging strategy for your business, call Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, blog, blog management, blogging, blogging advice, content creation, internet marketing, search engine marketing

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Lessons from the Presidential Primaries

There are some important lessons to be learned from the presidential primaries that relate directly to search engine marketing:

1. Successful search engine marketing requires diligence.
2. You must make the most of the visits to your web site.

For example, in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama ran an ongoing paid search campaign so that his marketing message was constantly seen. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, ran ads sporadically. Obama consistently collected names, email addresses, and donations for months on end, building a huge database of voters and bankrolling his campaign with millions in small donations.

And now we know the outcome.

Obama has won the Democratic nomination and will be running for President against John McCain. McCain himself has done a good job of consistently using paid search ads to build mailing lists and collect donations. Even though he had no competition late for the Republican nomination, McCain wisely continued promoting and building momentum. Chances are excellent that both candidates will continue to use search engine marketing all the way up to the election.

How can you use search engine marketing to gain an advantage over your competitors?

Let us know if you need some help with SEO or pay per click management for your business.

Labels: internet marketing, mobile pay per click, paid search, ppc, presidential primaries, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Seven Questions to Ask Your Potential SEO Firm

SEO is a confusing service to purchase. Talk to ten different companies and you'll hear much of the same thing, yet get ten wildly different prices.
So here is a list of seven questions that will help you make the determination of what firm to hire.

1. How many hours per month will you be devoting to promoting my site? If you have received a quote that is very low, it may be because you're really not getting very much time for your money.

2. Who will actually be doing the work? Is it done in-house or farmed out to off-shore contractors?

3. What is your hourly rate? If a firm's rate is too low, is it a real business or some guy doing it from his house on the side? You should know this.

4. Can you give some examples of rankings earned for clients? This one is obvious.

5. What are your methods? Here is where it helps to have done some homework and know a thing or two about search engine optimization. Avoid any company that immediately starts talking about meta tags.

6. How do you decide on keywords? Your SEO firm should offer guidance to help you choose keywords that generate a reasonable amount of traffic with as little competition as possible.

7. Do you have referrals? Even if you never follow up with the referrals, you'd like to see that the firm is confident enough to provide them.

So there you have it. Ask these seven questions and you will have a much better understanding of what any particular SEO firm offers and what the true cost is.

If you need any help with your SEO or PPC management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web marketing, web site marketing

Friday, June 06, 2008

Measure Your Life's ROI

I was having a conversation with my brothers this morning, and a thought popped in my mind that I thought I would share. Much of what we do here at Work Media is based around the idea of maximizing our clients' ROI, or return on investment. Our clients give us money, and we try to return that much money plus more.

But the concept of ROI is much more globally relevant than in just figuring out the value of financial transations. Everything you do, say, and think has an ROI.

For instance, if you stay up late and get up in a tired, hurried state the next morning, then your ROI might be a chaotic, unorganized day. If you plan your day the day before and get a good night's sleep, the return on investment will be that you feel good and have a productive day.

Every moment in life is a choice, and there are usually numerous options. When you sit down for dinner in a restaurant, you have many choices for your beverage. You can have beer, wine, cola, tea, or water, among other choices. Over time, which one do you think will provide the highest return on investment?

And of course, the classic: you can spend all your money, or you can set 10% of everything you make aside for saving and investing. It's easy to figure out your ROI on this one, because it can be measured in dollars.

So my advice to you is to estimate the ROI of every decision you make. Noone can be good all the time, but if you make more choices that have a positive outcome than those that have negative consequences, you will get a much greater return on your life.

We don't really do much in the way of life consulting, but if you need some help maximizing the return on investment on your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: paid search, pay per click, ppc, return on investment, roi, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Does Your Search Engine Marketer Know What He's Doing?

These days, anyone can set up a paid search account and call himself a pay per click expert. But there is a big difference between knowing how to set up an account and knowing how to maximize the profitability of that account. Before you hire anyone to manage your pay per click account, ask the following questions:

1. Are you certified by the major search engines?
2. Do you have any references?
3. How many accounts have you managed?
4. Do you do other things, or only search?
5. How long have you been managing pay per click accounts?

I know it's tempting just to let your ad agency or web designer do this stuff for you. But the cold, hard fact is that most web designers don't know that much about search engine marketing, either paid or natural. And most ad agencies don't really know what they're doing when it comes to online advertising.

My advice? Hire professionals who only do search engine marketing! In the long-run, it will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration.

Work Media is a search engine optimization and pay per click firm in Nashville. That's all we do, and we would love to talk to you!

Labels: advertising, paid search, pay per click, pay per click firm, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, seo, web site marketing

Friday, May 16, 2008

Have Patience with Pay per Click

You have to have patience when running a paid search campaign. Here is a real world example, from our own Google AdWords campaign. We are running a promotion right now whereby we are doing free optimization analyses. We're using AdWords ads, targeted to our local market, to advertise the promotion. Obviously the benefit to us is that we would collect local leads...if it worked.

The campaign had run for several days without much success. It was costing us a little money, but not much. I was on the verge of cutting it to try something else, when all of a sudden we got two good leads two days in a row, from companies based in Nashville looking to promote their web sites. The cost of these leads? Maybe $20 each, if not less. Compare that to the cost of a lead generation service where you are competing against several other companies for each lead, and it's a real bargain.

So have patience with your paid search campaigns. Don't pull the plug until you have enough data to know for sure that what you're doing is not going to work.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Beware of False Promises

If you are thinking of working with a search engine optimization company and they tell you they can have your site ranked on the first page of Google within a week...you need to step back and ask yourself what you are really getting. Yes, it is probably possible to have a site highly ranked in Google within one week...

...for a keyword that no one is using!

Here's the deal. It does not matter if your site is number one on Google, if that number one ranking is for a keyword that no one is using to search for your type of business. The point of a search engine marketing campaign is not to achieve rankings...it's to drive traffic. That is the reason we really don't have any kind of package deals right now where we promise X number of rankings for Y keywords. Every web site is different. Every situation is different.

We may end up marketing our services via such packages before it's over with (if that's what we have to do to stay in business), but we definitely prefer to take it on a case-by-case basis. It may be the case that for your web site, for your industry, you only need to be ranked for one keyword to generate a ton of traffic. If that is true, then we focus our efforts on that one keyword. Or there may be five different keyword that, collectively, would drive a ton of the traffic you need. In that case, we will focus on those five keywords.

So don't be fooled by the claims of some SEO firms. Sure...they can probably have you ranked on the first page of Google within a week...but they won't put any money in your bank account.

Please contact Work Media is you need any help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management. We won't make any grand promises, but we will give it to you straight. And we will work our butts off to get you ranked for the keywords that will actually result in customers for your business.

Labels: keywords, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, sem, seo

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Make Sure Your Landing Pages Work!

The topic of today's post may seem obvious. I mean, who wouldn't make sure their landing pages work before launching a pay per click campaign? Well, we do make the assumption that you would test your pages before launching the campaign...but what about afterwards?

You should check your landing pages periodically. Hey, things happen. If your landing page is completely static (straight-up HTML with no server-side code), then chances of it breaking are minimal. But what about your form?

Your landing page probably has some kind of form. If it doesn't, then what's the point? Your form will have to use some kind of server-side component or script to deliver the contents of the form to your site (or to process an order). And that's where things can break.

We have a client whose account recently began performing quite poorly. It turns out that her hosting company had moved her site to a new server. In the process, they had broken the form confirmation page (the page that sends the contents of the form to our client in an email). We spotted this by submitting the form ourselves to make sure it still works. We did this on a hunch after noticing that her site had stopped showing any conversions in her search engine conversion stats.

So...don't let this happen to you. Once a week, check all of your landing pages to make sure your forms are still working. The nickel you save could be your own.

If you need some active, professional help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, landing page, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem

Monday, April 14, 2008

An Introduction to the Kelly Formula

Today we're going deep. We're going to examine a mathematical equation created years ago by a guy named J. L. Kelly. Kelly was a brilliant man who devised a formula that is so rudimentary, yet so critical, it is the foundation for many systems in the world of finance AND gambling. Here is the formula:

Fraction of bankroll to invest = Edge / Odds

Edge means any information you have that gives you better than 50/50 odds. For example, if you have a quarter that is weighted in such a way that heads should come up 60% of the time, then your edge would be 10%. On any one flip of the coin, you would have a 10% edge if you bet on heads. In the world of finance, an edge can be any information you receive that gives you an advantage over other investors.

Odds are odds. It is the payout from winning the bet or gamble. For instance, going back to the coin flip example, the odds would likely be 1:1, or even money. In the formula, this would just be represented as 1. If you guess the coin correctly, you would win an amount even to your bet. If the odds were 2:1, then a 2 would be used in the formula.

So using the above edge and odds in our formula gives us:

Fraction of bankroll to invest = 10% / 1, or 10%.

The formula tells you that you should invest 10% of your total bankroll on every coin flip.

If the odds were 2:1, then the formula would look like:

Fraction of bankroll to invest = 10% / 2, or 5%.

So...what does this have to do with search engine marketing? Everything.

To be as successful as possible in your search engine marketing, you need to allocate your funds to those keywords, ads, and campaigns that generate the highest return on ad spend. If you had enough information, you could use the Kelly formula to allocate your budget. If you don't have enough information, it is still a good mental model for you to follow. Put more of your money on keywords that have proven to be most effective.

We will be discussing these types of concepts more in later blog posts. I just wanted to introduce you to Kelly and get you thinking about the process of maximizing the return on your paid search ad spend.

If you need some help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, Kelly formula, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Designing a Pay per Click Management System

In the course of working on our latest book, I have put a lot of thought into the concept of a trading-style system for managing a paid search campaign. There is definitely a correlation between investing in securities and investing in paid search. Every keyword you bid on is sort-of like a stock: you are bidding a certain amount in anticipation of turning a profit on it.

Possibly the investing concept (also a gambling concept) that is the most relevant to pay per click is money management. You want to allocate your budget to the keywords that will maximize your profit and minimize losses. Unfortunately, unlike with securities, you have no historical data to use to test your beliefs except your own. And it costs money to generate your own data.

There's no way around it. If you want to successful in paid search, you have to be willing to pay the price to generate enough data to know what changes you need to make to your account.

Another big difference between trading securities and managing a paid search account is that there are other variables other than just the keyword (the "security") and the price paid for it. With paid search, you have more "touchy feely" things to deal with - namely, your ad copy and landing page copy/design. You can have your account set up just right and your bids set perfectly, yet still not be successful because of your ads and landing pages. There is a complex relationship between the keyword, bid, ad, and landing page. A weakness in any of the elements can greatly diminish the effectiveness of a pay per click campaign.

But again, it all just comes down to generating data, and the way to do that is to test, test, test. With our new book, we hope to give readers a reasonably simple system to use to properly allocate their budget. The rest is just good ol' split-testing and constant revision.

If you need help with PPC management NOW and can't wait for our book to come out. feel free to call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, internet marketing, keywords, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web site marketing

Monday, March 24, 2008

Thinking Hard About Pay Per Click Management Strategy

I've been reading a lot lately about trading systems - that is, rules-based strategies for making short-term investments in stocks or other securities. So far, most of my personal stock purchases have been made in more of an "investing" mode, as opposed to trading. In other words, I'm buying stocks that I think are undervalued or that have strong future prospects, in order to realize long-term appreciation in the stock prices. Trading is completely different. It is based purely on things like volume of purchases and momentum.

What's the point, you ask? It's that there is a strong correlation between the trading of securities and the management of a paid search campaign. For instance:

When trading, you are buying something at one price in hopes of selling it at a higher price. In pay per click management, you are biding a certain price for a click in hopes of turning a profit on it.
When trading, many, if not most, of your trades will be losers, with the hope that your winning trades outweigh your losers. In pay per click management, most of your clicks will be losers, with the hope that you have enough clicks that convert to outweigh your losers.
Trading involves a set of stocks or other securities. Pay per click management involves a set of keywords or web sites.

One major area of difference between a trading account and a paid search account is that paid search has a strong creative element. Even if you do the math right, if your ads are lousy or your landing pages are lousy, you're still going to lose. But we have some ideas that we think will make the creative side easier even for novices.

We have begun work on our newest book, that will be a rules-based strategy guide for managing paid search accounts. This one will be shopped around to real publishers, rather than publishing it ourselves as we have in the past.

For the time being (until you get a chance to buy our book), the point is to think of your pay per click campaign as an investment. Your keywords are the entities (your securities) that comprise your portfolio of keywords. Some keywords are going to make you money, and some (if not most) keywords are going to lose money. You need to figure out which ones are your winners.

If you need some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Monday, March 17, 2008

Improving Return on Equity with Pay per Click Marketing

The mark of an exceptional company is the ability to generate ever greater returns on equity. For instance, if your company has $1 million of accounting equity, and you generate $200 thousand in earnings (profit), then your return on equity is 20%. Your goal for next year, then, might be to generate a return on equity of 25%. This kind of analysis is particularly relevant to public companies, but it is also valid for private companies as a measure of performance.

One way to increase your company's return on equity is to invest in things that will increase sales and that can be measured so you know how much they are increasing sales. These "things" consist of advertising and other forms of marketing. Unfortunately, most forms of advertising make it very difficult to track how much business you are actually generating in return for your advertising dollars. But you and I know about a form of advertising that does not suffer from this weakness.

Paid search, or pay per click.

Pay per click lets you know exactly what your return on investment is for all of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. Over time, as you generate data and do more split-testing, you should be able to make your return on investment from paid search improve. Improving the ROI on your advertising improves the return on equity for your overall business, all else being equal.

So if you are looking to improve your company's financial performance, look to advertising platforms that are cost-effective, easy to implement, and provide complete transparency with regard to return on investment. Paid search is your best bet.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, roas, roi, search engine marketing, sem

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Keyword Relative Value: a Simplified Way of Measuring Search Engine Visibility

This week we published an article on our web site discussing a concept we have developed called Keyword Relative Value. The article can be accessed via the link below:

http://workmedia.net/articles/Keyword-Relative-Value.asp

To quote from the article:

We developed a formula intended to attach a numerical value to a web site's search engine ranking for a specific keyword. The resulting number, called the Keyword Relative Value (or “KRV”), places a value on a keyword for a particular web site based on two parameters: the amount of expected traffic for the keyword and a site's ranking in a particular search engine for the keyword.

Here is the KRV formula:

KRV = ROUND(T*(SQRT((1/R)^3)),2)

where T = the expected traffic for a keyword and R = a web site's ranking for the keyword in a particular search engine.

The above formula derives the value for one particular keyword. A much more instructive exercise is to calculate the KRV's for a group of keywords. We call this the Aggregate Keyword Relative Value ("AKRV"). The formula for AKRV is as follows:

AKRV = X(ROUND(T*(SQRT((1/R)^3)),2))

where X is the number of keywords that have search engine rankings.

The point of these formulas is to boil your web site's search engine visibility for a common set of keywords down to a single number. You can then track this number over time and compare it to your competitors to gauge your visibility against your competitors. We believe this concept is a powerful new tool to give web site owners a stronger sense of how well they rank in the search engines, in an easy-to-understand format: a single number.

To learn more about KRV, please read the article linked above.

If you could use some help improving and understanding your search engine visibility, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword relative value, keyword research, keywords, KRV, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, sem, seo

Monday, March 10, 2008

Publicity the Easy Way: Using PRWeb

We just paid to have a press release distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, if you don't know, is a press release distribution service that is tied into a large network of web sites and people to whom it distributes press releases. PRWeb has four basic levels of service which cost up to $360, although you can also spend more than that depending on what extra features you utilize. One such feature is a podcast feature by which PRWeb staff will call you and record a 4 to 5 minute podcast from the call. This service starts at $100.

After distributing a press release, PRWeb provides the following statistics: Reads (the number of times the press release was accessed via PRWeb), Pickups (the number of times the press release was accessed via a consumer or media person), Prints (the number of times the press release was printed), Forwards (the number of times your press release was forwarded via a link on the press release), and PDF Downloads (the number of times your release was downloaded via PDF). Depending on the level of service you pay for, you can also view information such as visits by country, search engines, and search terms by search engine.

Unlike articles, you can place a true hyperlink in the body of a press release. This has considerable value, as you can load the text of the link with keywords relevant to your business. So unlike articles, where your link has to appear in the author's box, which appears beneath the article, an online press release can contain a link back to your web site at or near the top of the body copy.

One problem with online press release distribution is how glutted the market is. It is no secret that online press release distribution is a fantastic SEO technique. As a result, every day there are hundreds or thousands of press releases distributed that are little more than fluff. So, if you want your press release to stand out, you should have something legitimate to talk about. Think from a reporter's perspective. If you were a reporter looking for something to write about, would the press release issued by your company spark your interest? It better.

This press release we're doing this week is the first one we've done where we have paid for PRWeb's top level of service. We'll let you know how it goes, and if we feel like it is worth the money, or if you're better off sticking to the $200 level.

If you could use some help composing and distributing an online press release to promote your business, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, linking, linking campaign, online pr, online press releases, online publicity, pr, PRWeb, publicity, search engine marketing

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Our Thoughts On Several Second Tier Paid Search Platforms

We have been experimenting with second tier, or alternative, paid search platforms. Here are our thoughts on these platforms:

Turn. This is a really cool concept. We love the pay per action model, where you specify an amount you are willing to pay for the completion of some action - having the prospect fill out a form, make a purchase, or whatever. Unfortunately, we have had no luck generating leads on Turn. Perhaps we are just not bidding high enough for conversions, but we know what we can pay and still engage in a profitable transaction. So far, Turn just hasn't worked for us.

Miva. This is a content network. We're a little divided on Miva. We used it on one paid search campaign very effectively, but on another...nothing. So you might want to invest a very small amount in Miva and see how it does. If your first attempt doesn't produce anything, abandon this one.

GoClick. Don't waste your money here. Their search marketing interface is pitiful. We burned through our entire budget in a couple of hours, without having any idea where the traffic came from, and without a single conversion.

Enhance. This is a content network with which we are starting to see some nice positive results. The interface is more professional than some of the others as well. This one is worth a try.

SearchFeed. We had mixed results on SearchFeed. It might be worth a try, but start conservatively.

Though not really a "secondary" platform, we should also mention that we have had mixed results with Ask, but we definitely recommend you include it in your marketing mix. It has much wider distribution than the above mentioned platforms and is somewhat cheaper than Google or Yahoo!.

Even though we have not had outstanding results with any of the second tier platforms, we still recommend that you experiment for yourself to see if you can find something that works. Google and Yahoo! are not the only games in town. If you could use some help managing a wide, multi-platform paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: Ask, Enhance, GoClick, internet marketing, Miva, paid search, pay per action, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, Turn

Friday, February 29, 2008

Generating Leads via Paid Search: Sometimes It Just Ain't Easy

We have been involved in a project that is very different from the way we typically work with our clients. Rather than funding their own paid search accounts and then paying us a management fee (generally figured as a percentage of the ad spend), our client arranged for a special affiliate program that pays us a certain amount for each lead. We normally don't agree to such arrangements, but we have done enough work for this client in the past with good results that we thought we already had a good feel for what to do. We expected to make more money this way.

You just don't know how something is going to work out until you try it. Even though the site and service we are promoting is very similar to what we have done in the past for this client...something is different. We are driving traffic, but that traffic is not converting into leads. No one is filling out our client's form. We are on our third different landing page design, and still no luck. People just don't seem to trust our client.

If you are in this situation (spending money to drive traffic to your site that is not converting), you need to take a hard look at your situation. Do people trust you based on your web site? It may be helpful to get one of those Better Business Bureau logos for your site. Are there certifications in your industry (and corresponding logos) you can get that can prove your level of expertise? Do you have a phone number placed prominently on your landing pages?

Speaking of phone numbers, it is also useful for you to get a separate number specifically associated with the paid search campaign. This way you will know exactly what calls resulted from your paid search ads.

All you can do is test, test, test. It is impossible to predict what will work, and every situation is different. Based on our experience with a similar campaign, we thought we had a good idea of what would work for this particular client. But we were wrong. The lesson? You can never stop testing. Never.

The negative aspect of this is that it will likely cost you some money to do adequate testing before you start making any money. But paid search is much more cost effective than any other type of marketing, and it gives immediate feedback. It can provide you with critical data that can be carried over to other forms of marketing.

So...generating leads via paid search ain't easy, even for experienced Internet marketers like us. But if you are patient, systematic, and willing to absorb some losses in the short-term, you can make it work.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: copywriting, internet marketing, landing page, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web site marketing

Friday, February 22, 2008

Our 200th blog post: Our Very Best Tips for Successful Search Engine Marketing

Well, well...here we are...200 blog posts. Please excuse us while we give ourselves a pat on the back...[pat, pat, pat]...

We thought we would use this occasion to give some of our very best tips for promoting your web site:

Pick one keyword for which to optimize the front page of your site. Make that keyword the first words in your title. Use it twice in the copy, once in a header, and once in bold. Use it in the alt attribute of the first image on the page. Use it in the text of every link throughout your site that links to your home page. And, if possible, use it in the text of links on other web sites that point to your site. Speaking of links...
Get lots of external links pointing to your home page. I don't care what some "experts" say - we have seen time and time again that linking still works as an SEO technique.
Write articles. This may be the single best way to acquire one-way, keyword-rich links to your site. Do it often. If you do one a week, in a year's time you will have a TON of links. If you can't write, there are companies you can hire to do it for you. Or hire a smart local high school kid to do it.
Publish a blog. Search engines love content that changes often. That's exactly what a blog is - content that you update often. But you need to post at least twice per week.
Use paid search. Sure, it delivers targeted traffic to your web site. But possibly even more importantly, it generates mission critical data. It will tell you things like what keywords generate the most traffic, what keywords generate customers, what web page copy converts at the best rate, etc.
Use your analytics. You need to have a strong understanding of what is going on on your web site. For example, are your visitors using a particular screen resolution that doesn't work well with your site? Is there a particular location where a lot of your visitors come from? Is there a particular page on your site where most visitors leave? Google Analytics can answer all these questions for you, and it's free.
Never stop trying to do better. Using the data from paid search and your analytics, you should constantly be looking for clues as to what changes to make to improve the performance of your site.

If you do these things, you will be successful. But is it work? Of course. That's why we're able to be in business. Because it takes time to implement a search marketing campaign and get a feel for what the data means. So if you could use some help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management, call us today at 888-299-4837 or email us at Info@WorkMedia.net.

See ya in blog post number 201!

Labels: article marketing, blog, internet marketing, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, web site marketing

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Allocating Your Advertising Budget: Think Before You Spend

Think before you spend. That is today's lesson. We're talking about spending with regard to what you spend on advertising, especially online advertising. We have a large client who inquired about advertising on the front page of Yahoo!. Before we even looked into what it would cost, we knew this was a bad idea.

Yahoo! has massive reach. The home page gets nearly 2 billion impressions PER DAY. That is a lot of eyeballs. It's fairly analogous to advertising during the Super Bowl, both in terms of reach and expense. So yes, advertising on the front page of Yahoo! would give you an incredible amount of exposure and probably drive a lot of traffic to your web site.

But even if you are a big enough company to afford Yahoo!, is it the best use of your money? Probably not. For a fraction of the cost, you could run ads on dozens or hundreds of web sites much more closely aligned with your target market. For instance, if you are a financial services company, you could run your ad on many financial-related web sites, where people are already interested in your type of service, for pennies on the dollar of what the Yahoo! ad would cost.

You should apply this kind of thinking to all of your marketing. Ask yourself: am I spending my money on an advertising forum that will expose my message to the maximum number of people who are good prospects for my service at the best price? If you have lots of money to spend on marketing, we still think you should apply this kind of thinking. Spend your money on targeted advertising first, and then if there are funds left over, you can use those funds on a more broad, branding-oriented campaign.

If you could use some guidance with your pay per click management or search engine optimization, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, business advice, internet marketing, marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, Yahoo

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Simple Secret to Ultimate Online Marketing Success

You probably don't realize it, but you have the ultimate tool for business success right in front of you. Assuming you sell a reasonably high quality product or service, all you have to do to be successful is get people to your web site and then use the words on your site to convince your visitors to do business with you. Fortunately, there is a marketing technique that can accomplish both of these objectives:

Pay per Click!

Or, as we usually refer to it, paid search marketing. With paid search, you can find the marketing copy that turns visitors into customers. You can run multiple ads for sets of keywords (ad groups), with each ad linking to a different landing page. You can then use the landing pages to test different copy. Make sure you set your ad groups to display the ads an even number of times (turn optimization off). After a few days or weeks (however long it takes to generate a few hundred clicks), you will have some very solid data showing which landing pages (and which copy) generate the most sales or leads.

Once you have figured out what copy converts visitors into customers or clients, it is time to get more aggressive with your campaign. Direct all your traffic to the best landing page. Increase your budget. Increase your bids (although keep an eye on your return on ad spend - you don't want to bid too high).

One critical component of making this technique work is to make sure you have conversion tracking in place. This is very easy. All you have to do is place a snippet of code supplied by the search engine on your conversion confirmation page. This will allow you to make the connection between specific keywords, ads, landing pages, and conversions.

Many times in life, the things that work seem too simple to believe. Success is not about carrying out some complicated plan - it's about doing the simple things very well. Create a plan for your business based on the technique discussed in this article, and you are guaranteed to succeed. Just don't rush the process. Be patient, and make sure you have enough data to analyze before making any big decisions.

If you could use some help implementing a data-based pay per click management plan, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, advertising, copywriting, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web site marketing

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Search Engine Marketing: Hot Tips for Writing Better Articles

Article writing continues to be one of the most effective search engine marketing techniques in existence. It has two major benefits: it is a good branding move because it makes you appear like an expert in your field; and it generates one-way links to your web site which often contain specific keywords in the link text. If you write articles regularly, you will do yourself a lot of good. But there's good...and then there's GOOD.

So how do you write a GOOD article?

We're not really talking about good in the sense of writing that is compelling and interesting. I mean, if you can do that, then that is a huge bonus. We're really talking more about writing that will improve your search engine rankings and close business.

First off, you should have a specific keyword in mind when writing the article for which you would like to improve your search engine rankings. If you don't already have a specific keyword in mind, you might want to visit http://Nichebot.com or a similar service to look for keywords that get a lot (or at least some) traffic that are relevant to your business. It doesn't do you nearly as much good to write an article focused on a keyword that nobody ever uses.

Once you have decided on a keyword, then you need to try and use the keyword in the title (if it makes sense), the article body, and most importantly, in the author's box. The author's box is where you can actually make a hyperlink out of a keyword. If you can insert a hyperlink in the body text, that's even better, but that is often frowned upon.

As far as the content for the article, one easy way to create content is to pull it from your blog (you do blog, don't you?). For example, I just authored an article based on two blog posts. Each blog post discussed a real life example of poor web site marketing at the local level. So I combined the blog posts, re-wrote some sections of it, and titled it "Two Examples of the Damage Done by Poor Local Web Site Marketing".

Now I'm going give you a power tip, so pay attention. When conducting online research for an article, I use Google Notebook to collect snippets of information into a single page where I can view it all. Basically, I'm creating notes on the fly from different sites that I can use as the basis for my article. This technique could save you a lot of time.

When writing your article, use proper grammar and spelling. You can write the article in a conversational tone (which is good), but you don't want to appear ignorant. Remember, there is a branding component at work here. You want to come off as a true professional in your industry.

Once the article is written, it needs to be distributed to article directories. You can do this manually, one at a time, or you can use a directory submission service. The manual way is best, but it takes oh so long to do. You will probably want to use some kind of automation to get your article out to as many places as you can.

If you see the power of article marketing but just don't want to do it yourself, Work Media offers an article writing service. Call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: article directories, article distribution, article marketing, article writing, articles, copywriting, internet marketing, search engine marketing, seo

Monday, February 11, 2008

Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application - Trying to Finish

Yes, after all these months, we are still trying to finish the Google AdWords management application. Some time in late November, I decided that it was just going to take me too long to finish and stabilize the program myself. So I decided it was time to seek some help. The vehicle for finding that help is http://elance.com.

Elance.com, if you don't know, is an online resource for finding developers, writers, and other skilled individuals for hire on a project-by-project basis. We don't really need a full-time programmer right now, and don't want to deal with an I.T. staffing firm, so finding an off-site resource on our own is the best option.

Using elance, is pretty easy. You just create an account and then describe what you are looking for. You can also upload documents for prospects to get more detail about the project. I think that's a critical part of the process - making sure you have created documentation that thoroughly details what you are trying to accomplish. I spent a few weeks working on a Word document that contained specs for the project. My specs are probably not up to par with what a real developer expects, so I also created a static HTML mockup of the site. This allows potential hires to get a better idea of how the application should work, beyond trying to interpret my specs.

We have been contacted by a number of developers since posting on elance. Bids are all over the place. One of the bids is so low that we don't believe the bidder understands what we are doing. But there are a couple of bids that are very much in the ballpark of what we were looking to spend, and those developer seem to have a good understanding of what we need. So we are very confident that we will be able to hire a quality developer within our budget (which ain't much).

We also posted on http://craigslist.com, but did not receive much of a response to that. We did get contacted by one local developer who was between gigs. That would have been perfect, but he really didn't have the skillset we needed.

If this project goes well, I have a feeling we will be using elance for more projects in the near future, to get things done quicker and free us from having to do them ourselves.

If you need help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: application development, elance, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, pay per click, search engine marketing, web site marketing

Friday, February 08, 2008

Do Not Fear the Missing Google Rankings

We have recently begun being more aggressive promoting our own web site. We have very strong rankings for search engine marketing related keywords that contain the word "Nashville", which is generally where we advise businesses with a brick-and-mortar location to begin. It is often very difficult to achieve high search engine rankings for broad, non-geographically targeted keywords. So generating rankings for keywords specific to your home market is a great way to begin driving traffic to your site that consists of very strong prospects for your service. It has definitely been beneficial to Work Media to be near the top of the rankings in Google for search terms like "Nashville search engine marketing firm". In fact, just out of curiosity, I just typed exactly that search term into Google and we have the top-ranked natural listing and the number one paid search listing. Now that's good shelfspace.

Anyway, we've decided it's time to start promoting our site for more broad terms, not specifically related to Nashville. We have a ton of content on our site and the site is reasonably well optimized, so the main thing we're concentrating on is off-site optimization (i.e., getting links pointing to our site). We've been working on it for a few weeks and have already begun seeing results. But one odd thing happened which we have seen happen a lot. So we thought we would tell you about it so if it happens to you, you don't freak out.

There is one keyword in particular we are keen on ranking for, so it is the main one we have concentrated on in our linking campaign. When we started, we ranked a little past 100 for the keyword. A few weeks after beginning our new efforts to rank for this keyword, we disappeared altogether from the Google results. But we were not worried - we've seen this before.

Sure enough, after a few days, we were back in Google's results for the keyword, this time ranked in the 60's. Nowhere near where we hope to be, but a real nice jump from where we started.

When a web page suddendly begins to have lots of new links pointing to it, that page tends to disappear from the rankings, only to reappear later, higher ranked. Our theory is that when Google picks up on a lot of new rankings for a page, it temporarily removes it from the rankings in order to do some additional analysis on the page. This analysis probably includes Google asking questions like: Are the links relevant to the site? Is the site strong in content? What do we know about the site?

Since our site is very strong in content, well-aged, and has been indexed for a long time, we think Google performed the analysis and made the determination that we were not trying to spam our way into its index. It then re-ranked our site accordingly, taking into account the new links we have.

This is all just a theory, really. But we've never been ones to stress out over trying to figure out exactly how Google's algorithm works. We just follow the basics...and it works every time. So if you undertake a linking campaign and find your site suddenly disappearing from the rankings, don't worry about it. Unless your site is junk, in which case it may not make it out of limbo. So make sure your site is strong on content.

If you need some help with your own site's search engine optimization or pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, search marketing, seo, web site marketing

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Search Engine Marketing: Going Wide Versus Going Deep

We are in discussions to provide search engine marketing services to a company with a very significant presence in numerous Latin American countries. One of their primary competitors has been making extensive use of Google's content network to distribute its marketing message to the same countries, so our potential client wants to do the same thing. In the course of a conversation yesterday, we discussed something which may be something you should think about for your own search engine marketing. And that is:

Should you go wide or go deep?

Here's what we mean. We don't want to launch an all-out marketing blitz in all of this company's market countries at once. We want to start on a fairly small scale, generate some data, and then start expanding. But is the best approach to take a single country and saturate it with search and content ads (going deep), or should we pick just a few target content sites and run ads on those sites in many countries (going wide)?

Each approach has its advantages. The deep approach will generate a lot of country-specific data related to lots of different sites and search queries. Chances are pretty good that what works with one country will work with another. So if we can generate enough data, we can probably create somewhat of a template that could be applied to the search marketing campaigns in the other target countries.

The wide approach makes sense if the advertiser already has a very good idea about what specific sites are effective for its marketing message. Our prospective client believes it knows at least one site that will be very effective, although we won't know for sure until we run ads and see if they result in converting customers.

Ultimately, like everything else to do with Internet marketing, it just comes down to testing. We don't know which strategy is best until we try some different things to see what works. Our suggestion in this case is to do both. By aggressively marketing in a single country AND marketing cross-country via a few select sites, we will learn very quickly which approach is best and can start doing more of it.

So ask yourself...should you go deep or go wide? The only way to find out may be to do some testing on your own.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Monday, February 04, 2008

Microsoft Buying Yahoo! Would Be Wonderful for Advertisers

I read over the weekend that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo!. They are willing to pay a nice premium over where the stock is at right now (having been beaten down by disappointing earnings), so it would represent a nice profit for Yahoo! stockholders. Will the deal go through? Who knows.

As search marketers, we would like to see the deal go through. We have tried to use Microsoft's search network and marketing platform (and continue to try) but Microsoft just doesn't have enough traffic yet, and its ad serving platform sometimes just doesn't seem to work very well. There are some features of Microsoft's ad center control panel that we really like, and some that we don't like.

The same with Yahoo! There are some features of its control panel we like, and some we don't. If the merger does happen, we would hope Microsoft would combine the best features of the two platforms into something really useful. The keyword inventory of the combined companies would also come closer to rivaling Google, and would exceed Google worldwide.

Frankly, we would just rather have to only deal with two major search marketing platforms than three. We like a lot of the things Microsoft has tried to do. Combining Microsoft's technology with Yahoo!'s Web positioning would create something new that could really be a boon to search engine advertisers. It would also set up an even more competitive situation between Google and the combined company, which should result in an increased pace in innovation and a better situation for advertisers. It seems counter-intuitive to think that a decrease in competitors from three to two would result in more competition, but it would. Microsoft just does not have the search engine traffic to be a real threat to Google or Yahoo!. But the new merged Microsoft/Yahoo! would be able to give Google a real run for its money. And that would be good for all of us.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Shopper Frustration: Local Businesses Losing Sales by not Using the Web

Local businesses are losing sales by not taking advantage of the Web as a sales tool. No, this is not based on any kind of poll or data analysis. It's based purely on my own experiences. It is usually the case that for every one person who experiences a problem, or expresses dissatisfaction about a situation, there are many more people who feel the same way. So I am going to make the assumption that there are many people who have the same frustration I am about to discuss.

Businesses at the local level just don't seem to get it when it comes to online marketing. They will spend thousands of dollars on TV ads, print ads, radio ads, etc., but give no attention to their web sites. Here is a cold, hard fact: more and more people use the Web to do product research and find local businesses with whom to do business; and that trend is only going to continue. So why would ANY business not have a strong Web presence that shows what products or services it sells, and that makes it easy to do business with it?

Here is an example of what I am talking about. I am researching gas and electric fireplaces for my house. One large retailer in Nashville who I thought sold fireplaces (since there is a fireplaces page on its site) has ZERO visibility and almost no information about its fireplaces. If I did not already know about the company, I would not have looked at their web site to start with since it is not possible to find it in the search engines. As it turns out, I found out that this business stopped selling fireplaces two years ago...despite the fact that they are still shown on its web site. I mean, come on...in TWO YEARS you couldn't update your web site?

So I continued my search. I only found a single local business online that had a reasonable number of the kind of product I was looking for. The business' web site was not very good. There is very little information about specific products. It is an ecommerce-enabled site, but there is so little information about the products that I don't think any user would feel very comfortable placing an order online.

I cannot find a single business in Nashville that sells fireplaces that has a well-crafted web site with adequate information about its products. And that can be found in the search engines. There is probably a retailer in Nashville with exactly what I want. But I can't find it. So I am reduced to physically visiting random stores in hopes of finding what I want. Wherever that perfect store is, it is probably going to lose a sale.

If you own a physical business that sells products locally, all you have to do to have a MAJOR advantage over your competition is put up a high quality web site where visitors can get lots of information about your products. If they can buy the products online, that's even better. And PLEASE have the web site built in a search engine-friendly manner so your site can be found. Ask your web site developer about this. If he is not experienced in SEO, either hire another designer or bring someone onboard who can work with your designer. Yes, it will cost some money, but it will be a very, very good thing for your business.

If you need help promoting your local business via search engine optimization or pay per click management, contact Work Media at 615-263-2811 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, local search marketing, marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, web site marketing

Monday, January 28, 2008

Managing a Paid Search Campaign: The Importance of Goals

I'm still working on the specs for our Google AdWords management application. I have to say...even just doing specs for something like this is a laborious task. Trying to get everything out of my head and onto paper that I want the application to do is difficult. If I were a better programmer, I probably would have creates specs from the start for my own purposes. But it really helped me to get a feel for what we could do with the AdWords API by writing code and building the thing organically.

I'm now trying to work out the logic of how the application should make automatic bid adjustments. I have read where some applications of this type use complicated Wall Street-style algorithms to make adjustments. These applications tend to be very expensive. And I really don't think we need to worry that much about it. The situation is sort-of similar to stock trading - you can obsess over charts and technical analysis to make just the right trades, but in the long run, a steady and consistent investment plan will likely do just as well.

One problem with a single magic algorithm to make adjustments is that it does not take into account the goals of the advertiser. For purposes of our application, I don't see any way around letting the user set his own account parameters to meet his specific goals. Some advertisers may just want lots of volume, regardless of conversion rates. For those situations, obviously, a wide open, aggressive bid attack is called for. More often than not, cost per conversion is a major consideration. For those advertisers, it is critical not to bid too much. Different objectives require different strategies.

So how does this relate to you? We just want you to think about your goals while managing your paid search campaign. Do you just need the visitors? Is there a a major branding component to your campaign? Do you need to turn a profit on the campaign right away? Or are you in a position to lose money initially in order to get new customers in your system? It is important that you decide early on what exactly you want to accomplish with your paid search campaign.

Your goals will have a major impact on how you manage your campaign. If volume, branding, and name recognition are your major goals, then you will want to be aggressive, bid high, and try to position your ads as high as possible. Likewise, if you are trying to get customers into your system even at a loss, you will want to be aggressive, though possibly less so than with a branding strategy. If immediate profitability is your main concern, then you need to be much more concerned with the price you are paying for clicks and conversion rates.

If you need some help withpay per click management so that it accomplishes your goals, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, Google Adwords, internet marketing, MSN, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

Friday, January 18, 2008

Seach Engine Optimization: Get the Link Out

We have been thinking a lot about this whole linking thing that is causing such an uproar in the Internet marketing community. If you haven't heard, Google is supposedly cracking down on paid links and is de-emphasizing the importance of links to a site's rankings...supposedly. We haven't seen it.

We are doing a lot of work right now for a company that is in an industry in which the top competitors are very aggressive about using paid links. In order to compete, we had no choice but to emulate the strategy. There was just no way we were going to be able to catch up using a purely natural linking strategy. It would take years...and we don't have years. So we're paying for links.

Are we going to be punished for buying links? We think not. Another thing we have in common with the companies we are competing against is that we are all heavy spenders on paid search ads. Is Google going to punish some of its best customers...customers who are generating millions of dollars in revenue for the company...for being aggressive in promoting their web sites?

We understand that Google wants its search engine results to be as genuine as possible and does not want companies doing things to try to artificially influence those results. But as a multi-billion dollar company, we do not believe that Google is going to piss off some of its largest advertisers.

Maybe the situation in your industry is different. But how would Google apply different rules to different industries? We don't think it would do that.

Our point here is that you have nothing to fear by going out and pursuing links to your site. Use a number of different strategies - link swapping, directories, paying for them, whatever. Now...we're not saying you should add your site to FFA pages or other sources of junk links. It will be a waste of your time. But for higher quality sources of links - go for it. The best strategy of all is to create content that is so interesting that other sites are compelled to link to you. Natural, non-paid, one-way links are still king. But regardless of what linking strategy you pursue...do not be afraid.

If you need help with your search engine optimization campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link bait, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Search Engine Optimization: Thoughts on Linking from Personal Observation

A lot has been made in the press and in the Internet marketing community lately about Google's attempts to de-emphasize the importance of links in its ranking algorithms. We've been asked a number of times by our clients if linking is still important. Based on what we have seen lately, the answer is a resounding...hell yes!

Google's anti-linking efforts are aimed at stopping web sites from purchasing links. Google feels this is a manipulation of its system. It wants only genuine, non-paid-for links. However, we are currently promoting a client in a very competitive category in which ALL of the top sites have used paid links to drive up their rankings. And they don't seem to be doing anywhere. In order to compete (and compete quickly) we basically had no choice but to adopt the same strategy. Otherwise, we would be too far behind the ball to catch up. We are not using paid links exclusively - it's just one part of a comprehensive strategy. So far the strategy is working, as our client is climbing the rankings.

Whether or not to use paid links should probably be determined by the competitiveness of the industry you are in. But regardless of your stance on paid links, you definitely need to keep getting links. Start with directories. List your site everywhere you can. Then start writing some articles and distribute them. A site we like for article distribution is http://isnare.com. If you are really dedicated, you can start going out and posting comments on other sites' blogs, with a link back to your site or blog (you do have a blog don't you? It's a powerful content creation strategy).

Then you can move into the realm of social bookmarking. This is where it gets really useful to have interesting original content on your site. If you have a really interesting web site with content that people want to link to, you will do well with social bookmarking. Once you introduce your web site via social bookmarks, hopefully other people will find it interesting or useful enough to add their own bookmarks. This can create a snowball effect where lots of people bookmark your site, thus creating lots of very high quality, one-way links to your site.

We are still using links as an SEO technique, and it continues to work for us. So don't worry about what the pundits say - keep working, keep linking, and keep aggressively promoting your web site. If your web site is high quality with strong content, then a linking strategy will work if you are diligent enough. If your site does not strong content, then you need to address that before you worry about linking. First things first.

If you need some help implementing a linking campaign for your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link bait, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Friday, January 11, 2008

Microsoft's Latest Keyword Research Tool: adCenter Add-in for Excel

Microsoft has released a new tool for use by advertisers on its search engine - adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007. Microsoft describes it as:

"...a keyword research and optimization tool that can help you understand keyword popularity and trends, and gain valuable insight on the demographic and geographic information of actual searches."

Now, we are all the time doing keyword research in various tools, exporting the data, and opening up it up in Excel to do whatever type of sorting and filtering we need to get down to a list of keywords we can use for our purposes. So we were very interested in a tool that would allow us to do keyword research directly from Excel, even if all the data comes Microsoft's own search network.

To download the tool, go here:

http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/adcenter_addin

It is easy to install and it even worked the first time we tried it. One disadvantage is that you have to have Excel 2007, which a lot of people probably don't have yet. Obviously Microsoft would like everyone in the world to upgrade to their latest version of Office, which may be one reason it only works in the 2007 version. But it did not seem to cause any problems with Excel's functionality, so if you have Excel 2007 and have need to do keyword research, you should definitely try it out.

After installing it, it places a new tab on Excel's main menu labeled "Ad Intelligence". Clicking the Ad Intelligence tab reveals a whole new sub-menu of really big, colorful buttons:

Keyword Wizard - generates a keyword list from seed keywords.
Keyword Extraction - generates a keyword list based on the copy in a particular web site.
Keyword Suggestion - suggests keywords based on three possible criteria: advertiser bidding behavior, keywords which contain the original keywords, and by keyword category similarity.
Search Buzz - suggests keywords based on top spikiness or frequency.
Monthly Traffic - provides historical and forecast traffic for selected keywords.
Keyword Categorization - identifies categories for selected keywords.
Geographic - provides location information for keywords.
Demographic - provides demographic information for keywords.
Monetization - provides keyword monetization data, such as CPC, CTR, impressions, etc.
Advanced Algorithm - lets you customize the parameters used to create keyword lists.
Options - lets you set system options for the keyword tool.

To try it out, we typed in three seed keywords in successive cells, clicked the Keyword Wizard button, selected the cells, selected the algorithms to use (campaign association, keywords that contain the seed keywords, or keywords that are similar - we selected all three options to bring back the most keywords), set the maximum results to return and the minimum confidence, and then let it run. It returned a list of keywords directly in our Excel workbook that contained lots of traffic-related data for each one.

The whole problem with Microsoft's search platform is that it just doesn't have enough keyword inventory. We recently gave up on Microsoft for a search campaign we were running because we were actually doing much better generating traffic in second tier search engines like Miva (and of course, Google and Yahoo!). But purely for purposes of generating keyword data to be tried in various search engines, Microsoft's adCenter Add-in for Excel is a very cool tool.

If you need help running paid search ads in Microsoft or any other search platform, please call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, MSN, MSN Labs, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web marketing

Friday, January 04, 2008

Improving Paid Search Performance Through Better Targeting

If you are driving traffic to your web site through paid search, but that traffic is not profitable, then you may need to re-examine how you are targeting your ads. Chances are your targeting is too broad. Remember, you don't just target with your keywords - you target with your ads and you target with your landing page copy.

For your keywords, you should use a wide package of keywords that includes broad, high volume keywords as well as more specific, low volume keywords. Make sure you have tracking in place so you will know exactly which keywords generate sales or leads. After a few weeks, you should have a very good idea which keywords you should be spending your money on.

If your keywords are driving traffic but no sales, then you need to look deeply at your ad copy. Are you attracting the right prospects? If you attract a lot of traffic that is not converting, then you need to tighten up your ad copy to attract the right prospects. You will generate less traffic, but it will be much more profitable traffic. Ask yourself this: who is your ideal prospect? What industry does he work in? Does he drive a truck? Does she have good credit? Whatever characteristics make up your perfect prospect, you can use that information in your ad copy. For example, if your ideal prospect is a deer hunter, maybe your ad copy should mention deer hunting. If your ideal prospect is disabled, maybe you should try an ad header like "Disabled? We can help". These are just hypothetical examples, but you get the idea.

The same thing applies to your landing page copy. You need to make it clear who you are looking for and write your copy with that person in mind. Think of this whole process like a big funnel, and you are doing everything you can to apply filters so that the prospects who arrive at the end of your funnel are very eager to do business with you. By fine-tuning ads and ad copy for specific groups of people, you should greatly improve the performance of your paid search campaign.

If you need some help better targeting your paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, conversion strategy, copywriting, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search

Monday, December 17, 2007

How Not to Promote Your Business Locally Online: Shopping for Car Stereos

An experience I had this weekend got me thinking about the importance of local Internet marketing.

Saturday, I wanted to take my car somewhere to have a new stereo put in. Work Media is based in Nashville, but I live in a little town called Dickson. There is no big chain store to have such a service performed. So I did an online search for a car stereo retailer/installer in Dickson. I found two results. According to information I found, one of the businesses had a web site and a MySpace page. The other dealer had nothing other than an address in Google Local. Intuitively, you might think that I would automatically gravitate toward the business with the web site. But that was not the case.

When I tried to visit the business' web site, it appeared that the domain name had expired and had been purchased by someone who put up a generic web page with car stereo-related links. When I went to the business' MySpace page, I found a couple of quotes that said something about wanting my money. There was little information about the business. I was very turned off by what I saw on the MySpace page. It made me think that the business was only out to get my money and didn't really care about taking care of its customers. I decided to visit the other business. Even though it didn't have any kind of Web presence, in my opinion, that was better than the other business which had a presence that I found very displeasing.

My point in relaying this story is that you can do more damage with bad online marketing than you can with no marketing at all. If you have a web site, you should inspect every word on every page to make sure you are getting the right message across. Does your marketing copy emphasize that you really care about your customers? Or does it relay the idea that you only care about extracting money from the pockets of your customers?

Now, in the name of open disclosure, I should point out that I actually ended up going to the business that I had decided not to. It seems the other business either was in business no longer or was in some location impossible to find. So I guess the point there is that it doesn't matter what kind of marketing you do if you're not open for business to start with. By the way, I found the business to be just fine, but their poor online marketing almost cost them a sale.

A well-orchestrated local search campaign can do wonders for your business...if you do it right. For help implementing a local search component to your online marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: copywriting, internet marketing, local search marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing

Friday, December 07, 2007

Importing Google Data Into Yahoo! - Things to Keep in Mind

Earlier this week I was trying to import a Google campaign into Yahoo!. Yahoo! has this tool that is supposed to convert a spreadsheet with Google campaign data into the correct format to work with Yahoo!. Well, that thing seems to be a piece of crap. We ended up having to manually move lots of columns around, change column names, and add lots of data that Yahoo! needed. It was a pain in the butt. And then it still didn't work...at first. If you are trying to do this same thing, here is what we had to do to make it work.

1. We had to first create a campaign in Yahoo! to hold the new campaign data. Unless I'm wrong, you can't actually create a new campaign by importing the data - you can only add data to an existing campaign.

2. We had to specify our newly created campaign ID in the import spreadsheet.

We had also originally specified IDs for our new ad groups (which we made up), but Yahoo! did not like this. So...you DO specify a campaign ID in the import file, but you DO NOT specify ad group IDs.

There was a lot of work that had to be done on the import file (which was created by doing an export from Google AdWords Editor, which we have blogged extensively about), but the frustrating thing was when we got to the point of importing the file and it still didn't work. That is until we took the above steps.

If you need help managing your Google or Yahoo! campaigns (or any other search engine), feel free to 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, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

Thursday, December 06, 2007

A Few Quick Microsoft AdCenter Tips

Like all of the major search engine ad platforms, Microsoft's AdCenter has some nice features as well as some not-so-nice features. One feature we like is its bulk keyword editing feature. For one of our accounts, We imported a data file that contained both broad and exact match keywords. For some reason, the exact match keywords didn't get added. But using the bulk keyword editing feature, it was a simple matter to also set the keywords as exact match. Unlike Google, which requires that the same keyword be added twice in order for it to be in your account as both exact and broad match, with Microsoft, you only add the keyword once, but you can then set it as exact, broad, phrase, or any combination of the three.

For maximum coverage, we recommend you add your keywords as both exact and broad. Keywords set to exact match receive preference over broad match due to increased relevancy.

Microsoft requires a privacy statement or link to a privacy statement page on ad destination URLs that collect visitor contact information. This is a very minor, easy-to-account-for detail, but if you forget it, Microsoft may shut your ads down and it could take 24 hours to get them running again.

One thing we don't like about Microsoft's ad platform is that it takes much longer for your ads to enter rotation. With Microsoft and Yahoo!, your ads can begin being displayed in a matter of hours or less. With Microsoft, it seems to be at least a day. Also, for some reason, it seems that search ads go online much slower than content ads.

Another thing we don't like is that Microsoft places a credit threshold of $50 on new accounts.This means that every time the advertiser spends $50 on ads, Microsoft will send a payment request to its credit card company. So, for example, if you are investing $1,000 per day in MSN ads, Microsoft will be making 20 payment requests to your credit card company on the same day. We have found that some credit card companies are resistant to allowing that many charges from a single vendor. If a payment is declined, it can cause your ads to go offline. Once you're offline, it can take 24 hours to get back online. So we recommend having a conversation with your credit card company so that they know to expect many charges every day from Microsoft.

So above are a few tips to keep in mind when setting up a Microsoft AdCenter account. The Microsoft search network doesn't have nearly the total keyword inventory (search traffic) of Google or Yahoo!, but you may find that you can generate cheaper leads. It's definitely worth your time to give it a try.

If you would like to try out MSN ads for advertising your web site but just don't have the time or patience, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net. We'd love to hear from you.

Labels: internet marketing, Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, MSN, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web site marketing

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Things to Test in Your Paid Search Ad Copy

The human mind is a wondrous and complicated thing. It is also completely unpredictable. When it comes to writing ads for paid search marketing, you might think you know what copy will cause people to click your ad...but you really don't. We've preached this before but it bears worth repeating - the only way to know what works is by testing. Here are some different things you can test that could have a profound and unexpected impact on the success of your ads.

Capitalization. Most marketers capitalize the first letter of every major word in the title. You should try that as well as not capitalizing any letters. Do the same with your display URL.

The order of content. Let's say you have an ad with both an offer as well as a deadline. Try running ads with the offer first and with the deadline first.

Dynamic versus static content. Most search engines now allow you to dynamically have the keyword that triggers the ad placed in the headline or copy. Usually, this will result in higher click-throughs, but not always. Experiment to see what works for you.

The display URL. Try using "www" versus leaving it out. Try just the root domain name versus a domain that includes a sub-folder with keywords. For example, "www.yourdomain.com" versus "yourdomain.com/keyword".

Adjectives. For example, "easy" versus "fast". One of the two will probably trigger many more clicks. The only way to know the right psychological trigger is to test both.

Call to action. Visit now...Buy now...Learn more. These are all different ways of specifically requesting that the reader of the ad click the ad to visit your web site. Try different calls to action as well as not having a call to action to see what works best.

If you experiment with the above elements of your ads, you will have a much better chance at discovering the ad copy that generates the highest click-through rates as well as conversion rates. Another important part of this analysis will be only changing a single ad element at any one time. For example, if you change both the display URL and the call to action at the same time, you won't know which change causes a chance in the performance of the ad. This kind of analysis will not only drive the most traffic to your site, it will save you some money because ads with higher click-through rates can be displayed above ads with lower click-through rates even if the placement bid is lower.

If you need professional advice for managing your paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, advertising, copywriting, Google Adwords, internet marketing, marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Ready, Fire, Aim - the Right Way to Launch a Paid Search Campaign

'Hope everybody had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I headed down to Memphis to spend a few days at my in-laws'. I lived in Memphis for several years. The city has gotten some bad press recently because of its' crime rate, but it's a great city with lots of interesting shops and places to eat. Nashville, where we're located, is more of a corporate city. Memphis is more "down home."

Anyway, the day before Thanksgiving we got contacted by a business needing a paid search campaign up and running the same day. We're a small firm, so we have the capability to drop whatever we're doing and change directions. But getting a complete campaign created, funded, and up and running in just a few hours is quite a task. But we got it done.

The reason we were contacted is that the search marketing firm that was originally hired (about three weeks previous) was taking way too long to get the campaign on-line and was only spending a trickle of what our client wanted.

The problem the other firm made was that they spent days and days setting up a broad, super finely targeted campaign before launching. Our client needed traffic immediately. What they should have done (and what we did) was launch the campaign with a small set of keywords, start generating traffic, and then build out and fine-tune from there. This is a strategy you should adopt if you are an aggressive user of paid search.

It's sort-of like the old "Ready, Fire, Aim" marketing maxim. In other words, launch the campaign, generate data, examine that data to see what changes you need to make, and adjust accordingly. It makes no sense to spend too much time tweaking a campaign before you have any data to examine.

If you need some help with your paid search marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Powerful Search Engine Advice Straight from the Source

Matt Cutts is an engineer with Google who has become quite famous within the Internet marketing community for his blog posts that help online marketers better understand how Google works. A recent MediaPost article focusing on tips culled from various Cutts blog posts revealed the following strategy for optimizing a web page for a particular keyword:

Once in the title, once in the description tag, once in the heading, once in the URL, once in bold, once in italic and once high on the page.

Brilliant. The above sentence masterfully and simply summarizes how to optimize a web page, at least from a content perspective. Now, certainly there is more to on-page optimization. For example, the way a page is coded can have a significant impact on its ranking. But if you combine clean coding with the above copy writing strategy, your web pages should be very well optimized.

Possibly the hardest part of this strategy is getting the keyword in the URL. The ideal solution is to have a domain name that contains one or two critical keywords. This is often in conflict with a company's branding strategy, however. I mean, we (Work Media) might possibly generate more search engine rankings if we had the domain name "internet-marketing-search-engine-optimization.com", but it just doesn't flow as well as "workmedia.net". It would definitely be harder for people to remember.

Fortunately, blogging provides a way to generate web pages with keywords in the URL. We use Blogger, but most blogging platforms probably work in very similar ways, in that pages are automatically created based on the content of the blog posts. If you use important keywords early in your blog posts, and use keyword-rich tags to describe your posts, then your blogging platform should create archive pages that contain those keywords in the URL.

As for the other parts of the strategy, it's easy. Just figure out the best keywords for which to optimize your site (we've discussed keyword research in previous blog posts) and use those keywords often in your pages, spread out exactly as recommended above.

If you need some help implementing a search engine marketing strategy for your business, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net. We're here to help!

Labels: blog marketing, blogging, blogging advice, content, content creation, google, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Friday, November 09, 2007

Search Engine Marketing - You Get What You Pay For

Work Media is in business to provide top quality search engine marketing services - both organic and paid - for a fair rate. Unfortunately, our fair rate often seems very high to people we talk to who don't realize how much work is involved in the process. We often find ourselves bidding against competition that is much lower in price - ridiculously so. To those who are considering very low cost search engine marketing services, we just have to say - Be Careful!

There are a couple of ways SEO firms can offer super low prices. One is by just not doing very much work. SEO is a time intensive, manual process. There are some cursory things you can do related to SEO, but to get real results you have to put a lot of work in, and that work has to continue month after month. The second way to offer super low rates is to contract the work out to foreign companies. The problem there is that there always seem to be language issues. It does you no good to have your pages rank well if the language on those pages is not proper and convincing. Too much is at stake to leave your site to firms that don't take great care in crafting pages that both rank well and convince the reader to perform some action.

Another way to get really low cost SEO services may be to have it done by your son, daughter, kid down the street, etc. This is often the case when it comes to the initial design of a site. But here's the deal - there are a whole lot more people who can design a site than know how to promote one. Often, a design created by someone with no search engine marketing experience will look great but be lousy from a search engine perspective. In most cases, there is absolutely no correlation between knowing how to design a web site and knowing how to get search engine rankings.

Search engine marketing is serious business. That's why we do not try to compete on price. We compete by providing professional quality service and getting results. When comparing services between providers, we advise you not to look at it in terms of what each company costs, but rather in terms of what each company can provide. Are you wasting your money on something that won't give you results, or are you investing money in something that will increase your business?

If you could use some help with your search engine marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo, web marketing, web site marketing

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Fight the Power - Dealing with the Search Engine Ranking Shakeup

Recent search engine updates are causing havoc. They are completely wrecking people's lives and causing babies to starve in third world countries. They are probably responsible for the draught in the Southeast U.S. as well as the California wildfires.

Okay, so we exaggerate. But a lot of people are doing a lot of hand wringing because of changes happening in the search engine indexes. In Google, for example, many sites have experienced a drop in their PageRank, which, as you know, is a measure of the value Google places on a web site. Work Media has experienced our own drop in PageRank. So if your PageRank has fallen does that mean you are going to lose your rankings?

Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, it is completely out of your hands. So don't worry about it. Rather than worrying, get aggressive with your promotion. One of the main reasons for Google's current update is to devalue sites that have a lot of purchased inbound links. Google does not want you buying links. It wants you to get them the old fashioned way - by having interesting content that people want to link to. So do it! Write articles. Do press releases. Add your site to directories. If you don't have time, hire someone to do it.

Another way to fight the effects of search ranking shuffling is to fill your site with new, constantly changing content. Search engines still love content. You can't have too much of it. A blog is an excellent vehicle for doing this. A technique we really like is to use our own blog RSS feed to place content on our site that changes every time we update our blog.

You may also have to be strategic with your optimization in terms of keywords. Don't automatically assumed that the keywords that are most used are the best. If you can uncover some keywords that people use that have little competition, then those may be better keywords to target.

If you keep on creating new content, are strategic with your keyword selection and optimization, and adding new non-purchased links to your site, you will be fine. Google won't be able to deny you.

If you have lost search engine rankings and need help getting them back, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo, web marketing, web site marketing

Friday, November 02, 2007

Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application - Part 5

Yes, yes, development of our proprietary Google AdWords application is still ongoing. We just finished a section of the application that I am excited about it because it will be a major time saver in setting up Google campaigns. What we've done is give our keyword research page the functionality to create multiple ad groups at once. The list of keywords returned from a keyword search has a textbox next to each keyword where you can specify the name of an ad group for that keyword. Keywords for which you type the same ad group name will be added to the same ad group. This is a continuation of our plan to break away from the 1.2.3. approach to setting up ad groups that is used in the AdWords interface.

The next step will be finding some way to add some automation to the ad creation process. This may involve setting up a global ad template that will apply to all ad groups within a campaign. We're still trying to work out the logic in our heads and haven't really coded any of that yet.

We are running up a decent bill in Google API fees. We learned too late about using Google's sandbox AdWords API classes, which would have let us do our testing for free. But I did not want to go back and have to recompile all of our classes again. We had to add some custom code to the classes to get them to work anyway because of a bug (not really a bug, just a bad feature) of the .NET platform involving the way it communicates with Web Services. So it just seemed easier to pay the Google API fees than go back and have to re-do a bunch of work. Dealing with the API fees just from our testing certainly has shown us that we will need to be careful to price use of the application to cover the fees we'll run up once we open the application up to our clients. By the way, the trick to using Google's sandbox API is that you use a different URL for each Web Service when compiling your classes that make the Web Service calls.

Development of the application has slowed the last couple of weeks due to client demands. The thing has come a long ways - but it has a long way to go. We hope to be ready to launch by January.

If you could use some help with pay per click management or search engine optimization, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, search engine marketing, sem

Friday, October 26, 2007

Find Ways to Get Content on Your Web Pages

We're still amazed at the number of times we get contacted about optimizing a BRAND NEW web site that is lousy from an optimization standpoint. Usually the problem is that the site is constructed in such a way that it is very difficult to get any optimized content on the site. For example, it may be an all-Flash site or a site where the text is contained in images.

Please remember this: you MUST have text on your web pages!

Find a way to get some text on your web pages. One technique which is cool is to place text in layers (using div tags) and either hide it off-screen or dynamically display it at certain times, such as when rolling over a link or other object. We have heard that Google may now be checking for this, so it may be a technique that stops becoming useful soon.

Regardless of whether you use layers to hide your text or whatever, you MUST get some text on your page. If nothing else, place it low on the page, below the main section, if your site is constructed in such a way as to not allow text in the main content area.

As smart as search engines have become, they are STILL looking for quality, indexable text. So get some text on your pages!

For help optimizing the content and code of your web site to rank better in the search engines, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: content, content creation, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, seo, web marketing, web site marketing

Monday, October 22, 2007

Google Site Links Expansion Gives Marketers More Control

If you don't currently have a Google WebMaster account that you use to submit XML sitemap files to Google, get one! The URL is:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview

This allows you to directly tell Google about the structure and indexable content of your site, rather than passively waiting for Google to find it on its own. As a bonus, Google will sometimes display multiple links from a sitemap-submitted web site in the site's listing in a Google search engine results page (SERP).

And now Google is expanding the number of links that it will show in your listing, up to eight. Think about that: your SINGLE Google search listing could have nine different links into your site. We're all about shelfspace expansion (meaning maximizing the number of times your site appears on a SERP via natural and paid search), so this is a very good development.

It is also possible to now indicate to Google in your XML sitemap file what pages, if any, you would NOT like to show up in the site links listings for your site.

Google Sitemaps give you the opportunity to more easily get your site content indexed AND increase the total number of links you have on a page of search engine results. So do it today!

If you need help maximizing your search engine marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search marketing, sitemap, web marketing, web site marketing

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Dynamic Keyword Insertion in Google AdWords Ads

We are perplexed by how mysterious Google tends to make things. Certainly, the company does everything it can to hide the intricacies of its search algorithms so as to disallow anyone taking advantage of it for artificial gains in search rankings. Fair enough. But Google goes far beyond that in hiding its secrets.

We recently ranted a bit about Google's sparse documentation related to its AdWords API and about the lack of logic behind ad Quality Scores. We're just as perplexed about Google's failure to give full disclosure about all of the features of AdWords. We are Google certified, having studied all of Google's exam material, but we had never read anything about dynamic keyword insertion until we stumbled upon it by accident.

That's right. Just like Yahoo! and MSN, Google allows you to dynamically insert keywords into an ad. The reason for doing this is that the closer the ad matches the intentions of the viewer, the greater the likelihood of generating a click to your site. By inserting the exact keyword that triggered the ad into the title or ad copy, you more closely match that user's intentions.

To dynamically insert a keyword, place the following code where you want the keyword to appear: {keyword: default keyword}. Replace "default keyword" with the keyword that should appear if the trigger keyword is too long in characters for the ad. For example, if the dynamic variable is used in the title, but the keyword triggering the ad is more than 25 characters, then the default keyword will be used.

Don't overuse dynamic keyword insertion or your ads will all become very generic and boring. But it is a powerful tool to use in moderation.

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

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

Thursday, October 11, 2007

A Rant About Google Quality Score

We don't do a whole lot of complaining in this blog. We like to stay on the positive side. But Google is really getting on our nerves with its keyword "Quality Score". A representative from Google described Quality Score thusly:

"Quality Score is a dynamic variable assigned to each of your keywords. It's calculated from various factors, including the relevance of your ad and keyword, your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and your landing page quality.

Quality Score is used to determine your ads' position on Google and the Google Network. It's also used to determine your keywords' minimum bids. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the better your ad position and the lower your minimum bids."

Okay, no problem. Only...from what we are experiencing first-hand in many instances, Quality Score works very poorly.

We have ad groups running in which a keyword perfectly matches the text used in the ad and on the landing page, and that have a reasonable click-through rate (or no click-through rate because it's brand new)...and Google is still giving us a low quality score!

Basically, Google can assign a low Quality Score to any keyword and mandate that the advertiser pay an outrageous price for clicks, even if there is not a single other advertiser for the keyword. As far as we can tell, the logic for determining Quality Score has some serious problems. Google is forcing advertisers to overpay when it should not be necessary.

Is this good for Google? It might make them a few more bucks in the short-term, but long-term they are going to hurt advertisers and force them to go elsewhere. It's simple economics. If advertisers are forced into paying so much for clicks that it makes it impossible to generate a positive return on investment, then they will stop advertising there. Is Google so big and powerful that it can afford to have its customers start leaving? I don't think so.

Hey Google, how about letting the market determine what advertisers are successful and stop meddling in every little detail of everything that happens? Control freaks...

If you are experiencing your own Google frustration and need some help managing your AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, Quality Score, search engine marketing, search marketing, web marketing, web site marketing

Monday, October 08, 2007

Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application - Part 3

Today we will continue with our series of posts chronicling the development of our proprietary Google AdWords management application.

One thing that's a little unwieldy about using the Google AdWords API via its various Web Services is that every time a Web Service is called, you have to pass in a number of variables, such as the account email and password, the client email, and the developer and application tokens. And it's not as simple as setting properties of an object to these values. The values have to be set as arrays, so I have to create a variable to hold each value, then pass that value into a single element array, etc. etc. This can result in a lot of code just that doesn't really DO anything. To get around this, all of the code that actually involves using the Web Services is placed in separate classes that my web user controls call.

Which brings us to another key development strategy, which is breaking major chunks of user interface and functionality into their own web user controls. This way, those same elements can be easily reused on other web pages. It takes more time early in the development process to set things up this way, but it will save us a lot of time down the road.

One thing that seems odd about the way the Google AdWords API works is that it has a service called Criterion Service that is used to do things like add or remove keywords or web sites from a campaign, or add new keywords. To me, it seems like it would make more sense for there to be a function provided by the Ad Group Web Service that would return the keywords for a particular ad group. A lot of the AdWords API functionality seems counter-intuitive.

We have quite a few working components of the system, so this week we will probably begin tying everything together into a cohesive unit. This is going to be exciting.

If there is anything we can do to help you manage your paid search or natural search campaigns, feel free to contact us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application - Part 2

I had a good day yesterday working on our Google AdWords management application. I started implementing keyword research functionality. I created a .NET user control and class that lets the user perform keyword research, using Google's keyword data, which is returned in the form of a datatable with checkboxes that allow the user to specify the particular keywords he wants to use. Then we added a couple of functions which we think gives the user a lot more flexibility than when using Google's AdWords interface. After selecting his keywords, the user can either add them to any existing ad group in the campaign or use them to create a new ad group. Essentially, we have broken keyword research/addition out of the ad group creation process and made it a standalone process. We feel that this will greatly speed up the process of creating new ad groups or adding keywords to existing ad groups.

Speed is going to be a critical aspect of our application. The online Google AdWords interface seems like it is tailored toward users who need a step-by-step, "take me by the hand" approach. Google is probably right in designing its interface for the inexperienced user. But for the experienced user, the interface is slow and clumsy, and often not very practical.

Google does provide a much quicker, leaner AdWords management tool, the Google AdWords Editor, which we have blogged about extensively. The AdWords Editor is an offline, client-side application that can be used to create ad groups and other account elements, and move things around quickly. However, since it is completely disconnected from the Internet, it has no research functionality. We feel that our application, which will run on-line, bridges the gap between the off-line tool and the default online AdWords interface. It won't be as quick to use as AdWords Editor, since it will still have to move data back and fourth from Google's servers, but it will be a more complete management environment.

I would be fibbing if I said that we had this application completely laid out and designed before we started coding. We needed to get a feel for what we could with the AdWords API in order to know what we could do. And the best way to do that was just to start coding. So the application is very organic - growing as we program it, right before our eyes.

If you have some particular features you would like to see in such an application, feel free to email your ideas to us at Info@WorkMedia.net. And as we always say, please contact us if you need some help managing your Google AdWords or other paid search campaign. You can email or call us at 888-299-4837.

Labels: AdWords Editor, api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, web site marketing

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application

Jerry Work here. I think I never commented on my daughter. She had surgery last week to fix a kidney reflux problem, which basically caused her urine to flow the wrong way. The surgery went well, although there will probably be some additional future treatment required. So that's the update there.

I mentioned in our last blog post that we have begun programming our own Google paid search management application. I thought I would spend the next couple of blog posts discussing that process. This may turn into a whole series of posts chronicling the development process. We'll see.

First off, Google does not make it easy to figure out how to use its Google AdWords API and Web Services. There is an API reference, although one critical page of information didn't seem to be linked to from anywhere (that I could find) and was only discovered by searching the API reference web site. And the code samples are very sparse. It almost seems as if Google wants to make things difficult.

I have also searched online for code samples or tutorials that discuss using the AdWords API and have found next to nothing. So we're having to do things the hard way - by trying things out to see what works. We are building the application on the .NET 2.0 platform. At one time I was a certified .NET C# developer. That was several years ago, but once I got into the development process it all (well, maybe not ALL) started coming back to me.

So the main hat I am wearing in the company right now is that of application developer. Chris is really keeping the company going for the most part, while I spend as much time as I possibly can programming. I am using Microsoft's free Visual Web Developer software to build the application. I have to say, I am impressed by the little program. It is barebones but much simpler to use that full-blown Visual Studio. And since our application is meant to run on-line, it works just fine for our purposes. One thing that I love about it is that I can easily run the application on my development workstation without placing the code on a server. I just click the run button and it launches the site in my browser, running on its own built-in server.

So far, the application is communicating with the Google server, returning data related to ad groups, bids, and so fourth. The very first time I actually made that work, I was thrilled, even though all it was was a text string with the name of an ad group. We've already come a long way since that point, with nicely formatted data grids that contain all kinds of data, including performance data.

In our next blog post, we'll talk more about the challenges of pulling this off and where we're going with it. Until then, if you need some help managing your paid or natural search marketing campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web marketing, web site marketing

Monday, October 01, 2007

Mashups - the Future of Online Application Development

Jerry here. For those of you who had inquired about the status of my daughter, she is doing just fine. The surgery was a success. She is waking up in the middle of the night in quite a bit of pain, but for the most part she is still a happy, healthy baby. I was at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital most of the week, so little real work was done. But now that that is over with, we can get back to the business of Internet marketing!

The future of online application development will involve heavily around "mashups", which are applications that combine functionality from different APIs ("Application Programming Interfaces"). Many companies, such as Google, make data available via Web Services. A Web Service is a way of retrieving data in XML format for use in an application. For example, Google has Web Services which provide search data and that allow you to manage AdWords accounts. By accessing these Web Services (which, in turn, provide access to APIs), you can create your own custom applications that let you manage AdWords accounts and perform various other functions.

In general, when accessing data via a Web Service, you create a "class" that uses the functions provided by the Web Service. Web Services are written in a language called WSDL ("Web Services Description Language"), which can be used to generate a class. The class, in turn, provides methods and properties that can be used in the application code.

So what is the point? It's that if there is an online marketing application you need that doesn't exist, chances are pretty good there are Web Services that can be accessed that will make the development of the application much easier. Sure, you still need to be able to program, but programmers can be hired for cheap (try elance.com) if you can clearly define what the application needs to do and there are Web Services that provide the necessary access to data.

Work Media is working on a proprietary AdWords management system that works by using Google's Web Services. What features would you like to see in your ideal paid search management program? We would love to hear from you on this matter. What other kind of application could you use that would improve your online marketing? Chances are pretty good that there are some Web Services that could make it possible.

If you have an idea for a new online marketing application and need some help, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: api, application development, internet marketing, mashup, paid search, pay per click, ppc, programming, search engine marketing, web marketing, web service

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Using Google's Ad Preview Tool to Verify Your Geographically-Targeted Ads

One technique for fine tuning your Google AdWords campaign is to use Google's geographic targeting options to only run your ads specific markets. One very good reason for this is if you only do business in certain markets. In this case, you will be wasting money if you run your ads nationwide. It just makes sense to only run your ads in markets where you do business.

Another reason for using geographic targeting is if you have reason to believe that your products or services may sell better in certain markets. In this case, you would want to set up a separate campaign for each market in order to generate separate performance data for each market. By doing this, you can learn exactly what markets are more receptive to your marketing message and concentrate your budget in those markets. If you already know that your products or services will sell better in certain markets, then you should just run your ads in those markets to start with. For instance, it is a pretty good bet that snow blowers will sell better in Minnesota than Arizona.

Google's geographic targeting works by examining the IP address of the Web browser and making a determination of the location of the user. It's not a perfect system, but it seems to work fairly well. The negative for you, if you are running geographic-targeted ads, is that you can only see yours ads in Google if you are actually sitting in the market in which your ads are running.

But Google provides a way for you to test your geo-targeted ads:

Visit Google.com/adpreview

This page will let you select a specific market in which to view search results pages and ads. Just type your search phrase (one of your campaign keywords), select a market, and then do the search. This will let you actually verify for yourself that your ads are running in your target markets.

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

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

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Advanced Bid Changes in Google AdWords Editor

In Google AdWords Editor, when you are on the Ad Groups screen/tab, there are two options for making bulk bid changes: Advanced Bid Changes and Advanced Content Bid Changes. They accomplish exactly the same thing for search and content bids, respectively.

Clicking one of the buttons brings up the Advanced Bid Changes popup screen. The tool allows you to increase or decrease bids for the selected ad groups by a particular percentage or dollar amount. You can also set a ceiling or floor for bids.

For instance, if you want to raise all of your bids by 10% but bid no more than $2 in any particular ad group, you would select the "Increase bids by:" radio button, type "10" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "percent". Then you would click the checkbox labeled "Set bids no higher than:" and type "2" in the text box. Then click the "Change Bids" button.

Alternately, if you want to decrease all bids by $.50 but want to maintain a minimum bid of $1, you would click the "Decrease bids by:" radio button, type ".50" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "USD". Then you would click the "Set bids no lower than:" radio button and type "1" in the text box.

If you are on the Keywords screen, you have a similar option (also labeled "Advanced Bid Changes") that does the same thing for keyword bids, but it also has a couple of extra options. One option is to raise the minimum cost per click for selected keywords that are inactive to the minimum for activation. The other option is to remove keyword-level maximum CPCs and use the default ad group bid. There is also an additional constraint option to disallow setting keyword maximum CPCs to values lower than their minimum CPC bids.

If you could use some help actively 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, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Monday, September 10, 2007

Google AdWords Editor: Replace Text & Advanced URL Changes

When working with text ads (in the Text Ads tab) in Google AdWords Editor, at the very bottom of the screen are two very handy functions - Replace Text and Advanced URL Changes.

Replace Text does just what it says - it replaces text. It works just like find/replace functionality in word processing software. First you select an ad or a group of ads, then click the "Replace Text" link. In the box that appears, type the text you want to replace in the "Find text" text box and the text you would like to replace it with in the "Replace with" text box. You can specify whether to replace text in all of the ad fields, or in a particular one such as the headline, display URL, or one of the description lines. When you are ready to run the replace function, just click the "Find Matches" button. A popup box will appear that will require you to confirm the replace if any matches are found.

The Advanced URL Changes function allows you to do the following for a single ad or a group of selected ads:

Change the URL. To do this, type the desired URL in the "Set each URL to:" box.

Append a text string to each URL. To do this, type the string in the text box labeled "Append this text to each URL:". This is a very handy function if you want to append a parameter to a set of ads for tracking purposes. For instance, if you want to append a parameter to each URL so that you can identify the source ad group that generated traffic to your site, you could set the string to something like "?Source=Google-Ad_Group_Name". Then when you look at the analytics for your site, you can identify the traffic that originated from the ad group because it will have the ad group name appended to the end of the URL.

Remove a parameter from each URL. To do this, type the parameter name in the text box labeled "Remove URL parameter with this name". Continuing with the example above, if each URL already has the Source parameter but you want to remove it, you could type "Source" into the text box to remove it from a set of ads at once. To remove it from all ads, you would need to make sure that all ads were selected.

These functions let you make changes to your destination URL in bulk, which can save you a lot of time. Play around with them and see what uses you can come up with.

For help making the most of your Google AdWords campaign, please 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, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Friday, September 07, 2007

Making Use of the Google AdWords Editor Tools Menu

The Google AdWords Editor has a Tools link on the main menu that has four options: Find Duplicate Keywords, Keyword Grouper, Show Ads with Selected Images, and Settings.

Find Duplicate Keywords is a very useful function for making sure you are not duplicating keywords across ad groups. To use it, select Tools/Find Duplicate Keywords, then select strict or loose word order (whether or not the separate words in the keyword have to be in the same order), whether to search for duplicates account-wide or within a specific campaign or ad group, and whether or not the keywords have to have the same match type to qualify as duplicates. Then click the "Find Duplicate Keywords" button.

The keywords found to be duplicate are listed in the Keywords screen/tab, grouped together by ad group. To eliminate any duplicates, you can select the keyword, then delete it, or right-click/cut, or set its status to Paused. We recommend pausing them, just in case you decide to use it again later.

The Keyword Grouper tool will automatically divide a set of keywords in an ad group into many smaller, more specific groups. One of the keys to successful pay-per-click campaign management is having ad groups devoted to a specific, finite set of keywords so there is tight congruency between the keywords and ads. The Keyword Grouper tool makes this easy because it does the work for you. It is often the case that an AdWords account begins with just a few ad groups which each contain lots of keywords. This helps keep things manageable and makes it easier to launch the campaign. But over time, as more time is devoted to the campaign, it becomes clear that there are sets of keywords that would probably perform better if they were broken out into their own ad groups.

To use the Keyword Grouper tool, select Tools/Keyword Grouper from the main menu. Then select the campaign and ad group within the campaign you would like to break up. Then click the "Generate common terms" button. This will extract the keywords from the specified ad group. To focus the generated keyword list, you can type words that should not appear in any of the returned keywords by typing them into the "Ignore these words" text box. Then click "Next".

AdWords Editor will then show you a preview of new ad groups it would create from the list, based on common terms shared among groups of the keywords. If you plan on creating new ads from scratch for all of the new ad groups, check the radio button that says "No, don't create any text ads...". However, it will probably save you some time to check the radio button that says "Yes, copy text ads..." This will automatically populate the ad groups with the same ads used in the original source ad group (or another ad group that you specify). Then you can go back through each new ad group and modify the ads as necessary. Finally, click the "Finish" button.

The Settings option on the Tools menu lets you specify various options, such as whether to hide deleted campaigns, ad groups, or ads. You can also specify if you want to download deleted and ended campaigns and ad groups. You also have the option to connect to an HTTP proxy and the account language.

The Tools menu contains some powerful features that can save you a lot of time. Get to know it - it could become your best friend.

If you could use some time-saving help for managing your 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, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Google AdWords Editor: Importing and Exporting Data

Google AdWords Editor lets you export AdWords account data in several different formats - as a CSV file, as an AdWords Editor archive file, as an AdWords Editor sharing file, and as an HTML file. File exporting options are available via the File link on the main menu at the top of the interface, or by right-clicking on an account, campaign, or ad group name.

The "Export for Archiving" and "Export for Sharing" options do essentially the same thing. They both export AdWords Editor data in a format that can be re-opened in AdWords Editor. For example, if you wanted to move your account and data settings from one instance of AdWords Editor to another, you could export the account data with the Export for Archiving option, save the file (a .aea file) to your computer, then move the file to another computer. On the new computer, you would use the File/Import Account Snapshot links to import the data into AdWords Editor. Imported data can be in either the .aea or .aes file format. The .aes files are created by using the "Export for Sharing" option to export your data, rather than "Export for Archiving".

The other two export options, "Export to CSV" and "Export to HTML" are for exporting the data to look at in other programs. The CSV option creates tab-delimited text files which can be opened up in spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. This is useful for analytical types that like having all the data displayed for them in one big file.

The HTML option creates a nicely-formatted HTML option that can be viewed in a web browser. This option is useful for creating a file that can be easily viewed by anyone. If you have clients or other interested parties who want to see the keywords and ads that comprise an ad group or campaign, you can create an HTML file and give them exactly the information they need. Work Media has used this option on numerous occasions to get client approval for the keywords and ads we are using before launching a campaign.

What exactly you can export depends on what is selected in the left-hand side of the screen. For instance, if the account name is selected, from the File menu you have options to export the entire account or export the current view (if exporting to CSV). If a campaign is selected, you have options to export the entire account or the currently selected campaign. If an ad group is selected, you have options to export the account, current campaign, or the current ad group.

Using AdWords Editor's file exporting options, you have a lot of freedom to export all or part of your AdWords account in several different formats - either for data movement purposes or account viewing purposes.

If you would like 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, search marketing, sem, web marketing, web site marketing

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

A Walkthrough of the Google AdWords Editor Tabs

We thought we would step back a moment in this blog post and discuss each of the tabbed sections on the right-hand side of the Google AdWords interface.

The right-hand side of the Google AdWords Editor is divided into eight different screens, with tabs at the top to move from one screen to the next. The screens/tabs are: Keywords, Sites, Negatives, Text Ads, Image Ads, Mobile Ads, Ad Groups, and Campaigns. Following is a description of each screen.

Keywords. The Keywords screen displays all the keywords for the campaign or for a specific ad group, if an ad group is selected on the left-hand screen. By default, the information displayed for each keyword is the type, status, minimum CPC, and destination URL. If stats are turned on, then it also displays average CPC, total cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

Sites. The Sites screen is only enabled for site-targeted campaigns. By default, it displays the site URL, status, maximum CPC, and destination URL for each site in the campaign. If stats are enabled, it also shows the clicks, impressions, click-through rate, average CPM (cost per thousand impressions), cost, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for each site.

Negatives. The Negatives screen shows negative keywords or sites for a campaign. It also displays the type.

Text Ads. The Text Ads screen shows the headline, first line description, second line description, display URL, destination URL, and status for each text ad in an account, campaign or ad group. If stats are enabled, then it also shows the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, Average CPM, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for each text ad.

Image Ads. The Image Ads screen shows the image, name, dimensions, display URL, destination URL, and status for each image ad in the account, campaign, or ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

Mobile Ads. The Mobile Ads screen displays the headline, description, business name, business phone, country, display URL, destination URL, markup language, status, and mobile ad type for each mobile ad in the account, campaign, or ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate and cost per conversion.

Ad Groups. The Ad Groups screen displays the ad group name, status, maximum CPC, maximum content CPC, and maximum CPM for each ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate and cost per conversion.

Campaigns. The Campaigns screen shows the campaign name, status, daily budget, start date, end date, whether or not search or content is used, whether or not specific content bids are set, and if budget optimizer is turned on for each campaign. If stats are enabled, it also displays clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

For each screen described above, clicking on an item in the data section displays details/options about that item in the box below. For example, clicking on a campaign name on the Campaigns screen results in the display of a series of text boxes that contain the campaign name, daily budget, status, search or content networks, and the start and end dates for the campaign. You also have options to edit the language and geographic targeting of the campaign.

Now that we have described each screen in detail, we advise you to just click around the AdWords Editor interface to get comfortable with it.

And, as always, please call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net if there is anything we can do to help your paid search campaigns be successful.

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

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Creating Draft Campaigns in Google AdWords Editor

Google AdWords Editor lets you create draft accounts, which are accounts that do not get uploaded when you click the button to post selected changes. The reasons you would want to set up a draft account are numerous, including:

You want to build out a new campaign and set everything up before actually adding the campaign to your account.

You want to build out new ad groups while maintaining existing ad groups through AdWords Editor.

You have a planned schedule of campaigns or ad groups and want to work ahead and to build out the campaigns without adding them to the account.

Or maybe you just want to practice building campaigns without risking negative effects on the account.

Whatever your reasons, AdWords Editor makes it easy. Here's how. Right-click on the account name on the left-hand side of the screen and click either "Add Draft Keyword-targeted Campaign" or "Add Draft Site-targeted Campaign". Or you can click the Data button on the top menu, then Campaigns, then the link to create a keyword or site-targeted campaign.

Once you create the campaign, you do the same thing you do with any campaign - specify the campaign name, daily budget, status, start/end dates, and whether the campaign is for search, content, or both. You can also specify the language and geographic targeting. The first time you set the campaign details, you will also have a form below that to add your first ad group. Type in a name and maximum cost per click, then click the Create Ad Group and Go to Keywords button.

When the time comes that the campaign is ready to be launched, all you have to do is change its status to active or paused.

Work Media is here to help you maximize the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. Call us today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Creating Site-Targeted Campaigns with Google AdWords Editor

Continuing with our Google Power Users series focusing on the Google AdWords Editor...

Google AdWords Editor can be used to quickly set up site-targeted campaigns. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the account name in the left-hand menu.
2. Click "Add Site-targeted Campaign".

The new campaign will appear in the campaigns list. Click the Campaigns tab to set the attributes of the campaign, such as campaign name, daily budget, status, and start and end dates.

To set the sites where your ads will run, do the following:

1. Click the Sites tab.
2. If you have a single site to add, click the Add Site button.
3. If you have multiple sites to add (which is more likely), click the Make Multiple Changes button, then "Add/Update Multiple Sites".

If you opt to select multiple sites, a popup box will appear in which you type in or paste multiple URLs. With regard to adding sites, the AdWords Editor is lacking because you do not have any way to research sites. So for this, you will probably want to begin the process of setting up a site-targeted campaign in Google to generate a list of strong sites to run your ads. Or you can add sites discovered from other sources and let Google tell you if they are members of the Google content network.

If you could use some help with your Google AdWords management, 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, search marketing, sem, web marketing

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Using Google AdWords Editor to Quickly Set Up Separate Search and Content Campaigns

Here is a quick tip on using AdWords Editor for setting up separate search and content campaigns.

Google's AdWords Editor application is not without its bugs. One thing we would really like to be able to quickly do is create a copy of a campaign and then change it from a search campaign to a content campaign. We talked in a previous post about the advantage of splitting your content campaigns from your search campaigns in order to give each its own budget. Ideally, we should be able to make a copy of a campaign in AdWords Editor, make one a search campaign and the other a content campaign, and be done with it.

But it just doesn't work. At least not as of the time of this writing. The AdWords Editor throws errors when this is done.

But there is a sort-of work around that cuts at least some time out of the process.

What you have to do is create the shell of the content campaign in the AdWords online interface. It can have a single ad group, a single ad and a single keyword. Just enough to get it started. Then open up AdWords Editor and use the Get Recent Changes button to pull down the new campaign.

Once you have the shell of the campaign downloaded into AdWords Editor, you can use the editor's copy/paste functionality to add the ad groups from the corresponding search campaign. Since you can copy an entire ad group, you will automatically add all of the ads and keywords for each ad group. You will also need to check the settings for the campaign you copied to create the content campaign to make sure it is set for search only; otherwise, you will have duplicate settings.

If you need some help implementing an effective Google AdWords campaign, 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

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Google AdWords Editor: Cut & Pasting Ad Groups

The AdWords Editor makes it very easy to set up new ad groups, ads or keywords based on ones that already exist. This is particularly helpful in two situations: when you require ad groups that are very similar except for some kind of central concept, and when you want to create similar yet slightly different ads for split-testing purposes. It makes it easy by giving you the ability to copy and paste items.

For example, an automobile dealer might require ad groups for different models of cars. The ad groups would likely be very similar, but would contain ads and keywords that used the name of a particular model. So there might be a Ford F-150 ad group and a Ford Ranger ad group. If you already have a Ford F-150 ad group set up, then you can make a copy of it and then change the name, ads, and keywords of the copied ad group to use the word "Ranger" instead of "F-150".

From an ad perspective, it is often desirable to split-test the same ad with different headlines. In AdWords Editor, you can simply make a copy of the ad and then change the headline in the copied ad.

You can even create a copy of an entire campaign, if you have need to do so. Another interesting option on the right-hand menu is "Copy Campaign Targeting", which lets you quickly apply the targeting criteria of one campaign to another.

Just like any standard program, AdWords Editor has a right-click menu that gives you access to a copy option. It is often necessary to use the File link on the top menu to paste items. Cutting and pasting items in AdWords Editor is MUCH quicker than manually building all your ads or ad groups from scratch.

If you need some help implementing an effective Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Friday, August 24, 2007

Generating Stats with Google AdWords Editor

Performance statistics for your Google campaign can be obtained directly from the AdWords Editor interface. To turn on statistics, click the Data button on the main menu, then Stats, then one of the pre-selected date ranges or the Create Custom Date Range button to create a custom view. You can also click the button with the graph labeled "Showing stats for:" at the top of the page and select a date range. Statistics can be viewed at the account level, the campaign level, the ad group level, or for individual ad group elements such as keywords and ads. To view statistics for each level, click the appropriate link on the left-hand menu.

For instance, to get a quick overview of keyword performance (to see what keywords are costing the most money, and which ones are making the most money), click an ad group name on the left-hand menu. You will then be shown the average cost per click, total cost, conversion rate, and cost per conversion (if conversion calculation has been enabled in the account), among other values, for each keyword. You can then scroll down the list to see which keywords are converting the most or at the lowest cost per conversion. And you can see which ones are costing the most money yet generating few conversions.

You can also quickly see which keywords (or ads, or whatever) are performing the best by sorting them. To sort, just click the header of the column you want to sort by. To see which ones are costing the most per conversion, for example, click the Cost/Conversion column header. It is likely that many of the keywords or ads have no conversions, so this will group the ones that do have conversions together.

The advantage of using the AdWords Editor to view statistics is that it is a much quicker process than using the AdWords online interface, or generating reports through AdWords. As you scan through the list, you can make adjustments on the fly - increasing bids where necessary, turning keywords off, etc. - and then upload your changes.

If you could use some help maximizing the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Google Campaign Management: an Introduction to AdWords Editor

AdWords Editor is a client-side program released by Google to allow for off-line AdWords account management. "Client-side" means that the program is installed and runs on your hard drive, rather than from a web site. The advantage of the program is that it is much quicker to use than Google's AdWords web site. The disadvantage is that it is much less user-friendly. It doesn't walk you through anything like the AdWords web site. If you can get comfortable using it, however, it can save you a ton of time.

To get the AdWords Editor program, log into your account, then click the Tools link. Near the bottom of the page is a link that says "Download AdWords Editor".

The AdWords Editor user interface is fairly sparse, with a spreadsheet-like appearance. The interface is divided into two vertical sections - the left side is a list of folders and objects that represent the campaigns and ad groups in the account. The right side is the information associated with each object. It is tab-divided into eight sections: Keywords, Sites, Negatives, Text Ads, Image Ads, Mobile Ads, Ad Groups, and Campaigns. Beneath the tabs is a spreadsheet-looking window that displays data. Clicking on an object on the left side changes the information on the right.

For instance, clicking on an ad group on the left, and then clicking the Keywords tab on the right, changes the information display to show the keyword data for that ad group. By default, the information displayed for each keyword is the type, status, minimum CPC, maximum CPC, and destination URL. You can also change the data display to show statistical information (this will be discussed in a subsequent post). Clicking on an item in the data screen displays details about it (in editable text boxes) in a section of the screen below.

Above the tabs is a dropdown list labeled "View:" which changes the data shown. By default, View is set to "All". One interesting option on the View menu is "Duplicate keywords", which will show you keywords that are repeated across or among ad groups. You can also use it to view unposted local changes.

When you first start using AdWords Editor, you use the File/Open Account menu option to access a particular AdWords account. The first time, you will pull down the entire account. After that, you will use the Get Recent Changes option each time you start up AdWords Editor. The exception is if you are definitely the only person ever working on the account, and you always use AdWords Editor to make all account changes. Otherwise, ALWAYS use the Get Recent Changes option before you start working or you might end up overwriting work that has already been done.

There is no "save" functionality in the program. Once you have made your account changes and are ready to post them to the account, you click the Post Changes button. Easy.

The reason that using AdWords Editor is so much faster than the online AdWords interface is that all of the information is right in front of you, and you don't have to wait for various screens to load in your browser to make changes. Similar to working with a spreadsheet, you just type your changes in the appropriate places in the data screen - no loading or waiting required - then upload all of your changes at once in bulk.

There is much more to know about AdWords Editor, and we will expand on this discussion greatly in the coming days and weeks.

If you could use some help maximizing the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Monday, August 13, 2007

Work Media's Business Expansion

Work Media has opened up shop at our new offices on 2nd Ave. in Nashville. We have a "sister company" now, in Frank/Best International ("FBI"), a successful advertising agency with some very large clients that include Honda Power Equipment and AKG Microphones. Our relationship with FBI allows us to offer a full array of services, including:

Search engine optimization

Paid search marketing

Public relations campaigns (both online and offline)

Online Video advertising

TV advertising

Print ad campaigns

In other words, we are now a full-service shop. We can accommodate all of your needs. We believe the next wave to hit the advertising industry will be integrated shops that can provide clients with both offline and online advertising services. Work Media is proud to be one of the first (if not THE first) companies in Nashville to be on the cutting edge of the advertising industry. We have access to not only the technology to create cross-media campaigns, but also to the brain power of advertising industry veterans with years of experience creating successful campaigns for some of the world's largest companies.

So what can we do for you? Call us today at 888-299-4837 or stop by our offices at 705 2nd Ave. S. in Nashville. The Work brothers (and our new partners) are ready to go to work for you.

Labels: advertising, internet marketing, marketing, Nashville, paid search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Friday, July 20, 2007

Lack of Originality Hurts Internet Marketers

LowerMyBills.com has raised quite a stir in the world of online advertising the last few years for its crazy ads featuring people dancing or creatures acting goofy. The company spends $80 million/year online running those ads. But it has paid off because the company (from what we understand) is very successful.

The company's ads often feature several identical shaded-in figures who are dancing in sync. The ads are annoying but they have accomplished their goal of getting the attention of the viewer.

Recently, we have noticed that other companies have started running ads that are almost exactly the same - shaded in figures dancing in sync. Personally, when I see the ads, I think of LowerMyBills. They've been so aggressive in running those ads that just seeing that style of ad automatically triggers thoughts of the company. Which completely defeats the purpose of having another company run the ad.

In our opinion, you do no good for your company by copying ads from already established ad campaigns. If you want to borrow the general idea, then that's fine - but you need to mix things up! Create your own wacky characters. Create your own style. Because if all you are doing is perfectly copying highly successful ads from another company, really all you're doing is emphasizing the success of the original company.

So think of your own ideas. Or if you're going to borrow ideas from others, give it your own touch. Put some effort into your marketing, and you will be much more successful in the long-term.

If you need help implementing an online marketing campaign for your business, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, banner ads, branding, internet marketing, online branding, search engine marketing, search marketing

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Problems With Google Reporting

There seem to be some technical issues going on at Google related to reporting. We have one client who is unable to change the range of data reported in his control panel. To see a specific range of data, he has to go through the full process of creating a report. Here is Google's response to the problem:

Thank you for your response. We do have a workaround for this issue for you to create a report. Please follow the instructions given below to create a report on demand:
1) Sign into your AdWords account.
2) Go to the 'Reports' tab.
3) Click on ' Create a Report Now ' link and create a report following the instructions given.
Please continue to manually generate reports until we find a solution to this issue. Also, our engineers are currently working towards resolving this issue. I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

And we have another client for whom conversion data is being reported incorrectly. This is a serious problem since we use conversion data as the basis for our actions. Conversion rate is a much stronger basis for determining the success of a keyword or ad than click-through rate. So the lesson here is to make sure you double check the data in your reports. And if you are having trouble (with date ranges, conversion data, or anything else) make sure you contact Google AdWords customer support (there is a contact link inside the control panel). We have found Google to be fairly responsive when it comes to these issues. Which you would expect them to be since having people run ads is how they make their money!

If you need any help managing your Google AdWords campaign, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web marketing

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Scripting to Improve Conversions from Natural Search

One of the most important rules of paid search marketing is that there must be a strong connection between the search phrase used in the search engine and what is shown on the page when the visitor arrives. In other words, if a person clicks on your search engine ad after searching for "binoculars", then, if possible, he should arrive at a page that talks about binoculars. This will tend to greatly increase your conversion rates.

The same concept holds true for natural search rankings. If that same person searching for binoculars clicks on your organic search engine listing, then you have a better chance of doing business with the person if he arrives at a page about binoculars. The problem is that organic search engine rankings are much more mysterious and out of your control than paid listings. And generally, the page on your site that is listed in the search engine results will be your front page.

So how do you create this same kind of congruency between the search phrase and the web page content? The answer is to use scripting to detect the source search phrase, parse it out, and then display custom content based on that phrase. For example, keeping with the same example, if the search phrase was "bargain binoculars", then your web page script would parse out each word and compare it to some kind of database table of pre-populated words. So when the script makes a match with the word "binoculars", it would display whatever content is indicated in the database table.

The specifics of how to do this are beyond what we can go into in this article, but if you discuss this idea with a competent web programmer (not a "designer", but a real programmer), he should be able to figure out how to do it.

If you need help thinking up or implementing strategies to generate search engine rankings and improve conversions on your web site, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: conversion strategy, internet marketing, scripting, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, seo, web site marketing

Friday, July 13, 2007

Google's New Geographic Ad Preview

Well, we've done it - we went a whole month between blog posts. I am definitely not proud of that fact. Hey, business is good, but that's no excuse to let our blog die. So let's try this again.

One problem we've had with Google up to this point is that if you ran geographically targeted ads, and you were physically located outside of the area, you had no way to preview your ads. There was no geographically-based preview.

Fortunately, Google has changed that. Check out the following URL:

https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

This page lets you type in a keyword and then specify a geographic location for which to view ads that are currently running for that keyword. Finally, you have the ability to run specific ad campaigns in different geographic areas other than your own and actually verify that your ads are running and see how they look. You can even specify particular geographic coordinates if you need that level of detail.

So that is today's Google power tip. Hopefully we'll find the time starting next week to get back on a regular schedule, bringing you tips and information you need to be successful with your online marketing.

If there is ever anything we can do to help you in your online marketing efforts, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

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

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Fine Tuning Your Google AdWords Keywords with the Search Query Performance Report

We are running a large campaign for a software company that sales design-related products. A lot of our time thus far on the project has been devoted to ad group "expansion" (that is, expanding the number of keywords and ads in each ad group). It is a multi-stage project, and the first stage is basically to start generating as much traffic as possible, and then later stages will be devoted to improving the quality of the traffic and increasing conversions.

We've been working on the project for a few weeks, and have begun generating a fair amount of traffic. So we decided it was time to take a look at the search traffic that was generating clicks and see what it looked like. We did this by generating a Search Query Performance Report from the AdWords Reports tab. The results were very enlightening.

What we discovered was that we were getting lots of traffic from completely irrelevant searches. We are using broad match, in order to maximize ad impressions, but we discovered that our ads are being triggered by way too many searches that are unrelated to the products we're selling. Despite ad copy that clearly states the nature of our client's business and its products, people are still clicking on the ads even if it is not relevant to what they are looking for.

The solution is to add negative keywords to the ad groups to prevent our ad from being displayed by all of the irrelevant searches. After generating the Search Query Performance report (with the data divided up by ad group), we pulled out bad search terms that had triggered clicks and added those as negative keywords to the proper ad groups. As a result, we should greatly cut down on the number of irrelevant impressions and clicks, which should result in improvement in our conversion rate. And that's the ultimate goal.

So the negative for us is that now we're going to have to do more keyword research to try and generate as much traffic as we can. But we're pretty sure our client will be happy at the prospect of paying much less for conversions. After we add another round of keywords, we'll have to repeat the whole process, generating reports to look for irrelevant search terms that are triggering our ads. But that's what it's all about - iterative improvements over time that maximize account performance.

If you would like Work Media to help you manage or improve the performance of your Google AdWords (or other search engine) campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, pay-per-click, ppc, reporting, search engine marketing, search marketing, search query performance, sem

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Google AdWords Power Management: the AdWords Editor

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

Monday, May 21, 2007

Google QuickTip: Watch Your Dashes

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

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Blogging for Search Engine Rankings - the Local Perspective

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

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Preferred Cost - Using Google's New Ad Pricing Technique to Reduce Your Risk

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

Thursday, April 26, 2007

LookSmart Expands Its Paid Ad Offerings with Contextual Targeting

LookSmart is a lower tier search network that has a pay-per-click advertising model similar to the major search engines. The disadvantage of using LookSmart is that it has only a fraction of the penetration of Google or Yahoo (or even MSN, for that matter). The advantage is that, in general, clicks can be purchased for much less than the big search engines. Work Media has tinkered around with LookSmart in the past. Our initial results were not all that favorable, as conversions were very low. In all fairness, however, we really haven't done enough with LookSmart to draw any kind of valid conclusions.

LookSmart has just launched a contextual targeted distribution model through which you can place paid ads on its FindArticles web site. FindArticles is an interesting site that has (so it claims, at least) 10 million articles from magazines, newspapers, and other sources stored in a searchable database. Some of the articles are free, some of them are considered premium content that requires payment. With LookSmart's new advertising option, you can place relevant ads on articles that pertain to your industry.

You won't generate nearly the amount of traffic you will through the Google or Yahoo content networks, but the traffic will likely cost you much less on a per-click basis. It's definitely another component you might consider for your search strategy as a way to increase your reach and generate cheap traffic. As always, the quality of this traffic should be measured in terms of conversions over some period of time to see if it is worth spending your money on. If it generates a positive return on investment, then stick with it. If not, abandon it.

If you are already a LookSmart advertiser, you should be aware that your ads will automatically begin being displayed on FindArticles beginning in May, unless you specifically opt out of this option.

For help integrating LookSmart or other lower tier search engines into your search marketing strategy, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: content network, internet marketing, LookSmart, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A Quick, Non-Mathematical Lesson on PPC Bidding Strategy

Here are some quick, non-mathematical thoughts regarding your bidding strategy.

There is a fair amount of research that indicated that, in general, the higher your ad ranking on a search engine results page, the higher your conversion rate. So there's one strategy - bid to get to the top. The problem, of course, is that you can end up in bidding wars which drive your bid prices way too high. Even if that does not happen, you could still end up damaging your return on ad spend by paying too much. It is a balancing act between paying a price that generates a reasonable ROAS and that generates enough conversions to make it worth doing to start with.

However...

There is also evidence that in some circumstances, especially with lower volume "long-tail" keywords, LOWER ad positions generate a higher conversion rate. So applying this to your overall strategy, you want to bid for higher rankings on your high volume, general purpose keywords and low for your low volume, more specific keywords.

Ultimately (as we have said many times), user behavior is completely unpredictable, so you won't know what works until you test different strategies and see.

If you would like some help with your pay-per-click bidding strategy, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Push Versus the Pull of Search Engine Marketing

While discussing the proper strategy for a new client who is in a brand new market, we realized that paid search would work, but that we would have to go about things a different way. The problem is there is no search traffic of any significance directly related to our client's business because noone even knows such a service exists. So how can you use paid search ads to get your message in front of your audience when there's no traffic to begin with?

Basically...you can't. At least not in the search engines. Not until some traffic materializes. In this instance, rather than try to display your ad to those already searching for you (the "pull"), you have to place your message on other properties where your target market lives, to make them aware that you exist (the "push").

In other words, rather than running search engine PPC ads, you need to use a site-targeted campaign to place your ads on web sites frequented by your target market. No matter how esoteric your offering, chances are very good that there are web sites that your market visits. That's how you can "push" your message, rather than trying to "pull" from existing search engine traffic. You should really do both, because there is the possibility that running your ads could create awareness of the existence of your offering, and your market might then begin searching for information about it, rather than clicking your ad. So hedge your bets.

We will discuss the specifics of implementing a site-targeted campaign in later posts, but we just wanted to point out that just because sufficient search traffic does not exist yet doesn't mean you can't still take advantage of paid traffic. It's the push versus the pull.

For help implementing an aggressive paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Friday, April 13, 2007

Managing Your Pay-Per-Click Spend When Funds Are Limited: Spend It or Save It?

If you are on a very limited search engine marketing budget, you face two options when it comes to budgeting: either spread your budget out over the whole month (divide your monthly budget by 30) or spend it until it's gone, regardless if you use up your budget before the end of the month. Intuitively, you might think it is better to spread it out, but in our opinion, this is not really the case. Why? One word: data.

When you spread a small budget over a month's time, you are going to generate very little data for any one day, and it will take the whole month to generate sufficient data to do any kind of analysis. What kind of data are we talking about? Performance data. As we have said before, you do not know what keywords, ad copy, landing page copy, etc. will work. It doesn't matter how smart you are. The only way to know what works is by testing.

So rather than spreading your budget out over a month, go ahead and run your campaign wide open (within the confines of a responsible biding strategy). You will most certainly burn through your budget quicker, but if the campaign generates quality leads or sales, who cares? Why wait to generate new business? Why generate business next week when you can generate it today?

It's also better to do be able to analyze your campaign performance sooner than later, because you can then make changes to the next round of your campaign based on what you learn. Your next round should perform better than your first because you will have an idea of what works.

So...don't think of your budget in terms of an amount to spend over a month's time. Just think of it in terms of generating data and conversions as quickly as possible.

If you would like some help managing your pay-per-click campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

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Work Media is located in the Ragan Arcade in historic downtown Dickson, about 30 minutes West of Nashville.

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