Last night I read an article about American Express. Apparently, it is becoming a bank holding company, which will allow it to take deposits as well as give it access to government rescue programs. Isn’t that nice?

They also laid off 7 thousand workers last month. So yeah, American Express is going down the toilet, and based on the way the company treats its customers, I’m fine with it. Like I said yesterday, we will no longer do business with American Express. I advise you to do the same, lest you get screwed like we did.

OK, now we’ll talk about something related to Internet marketing.

Most businesses really don’t understand the concept of targeting as it applies to search engine marketing. SEM is a science of specificity. Forget about hoping that your web site just magically appears for any search related to your business. You have to choose specific keywords and then do specific things to cause your site to appear for those keywords.

The rule of specificity also applies to paid search. Don’t just run your PPC campaigns wide open, all the time, to every possible set of eyeballs. Pick your battles. You have lots of targeting options: by time of day, day of week, by geographic market. For content ads, you can even target by things like age and gender. The more finely you target your paid search campaigns, the better will be your results.

So don’t think in terms of generalities. Think in terms of specifics. You will get much better results and a higher return on your investment.

Here are a couple of articles that deal with PPC targeting in relation to the promotion of law firm web sites:

http://targeting-search-marketing-attorney.wetpaint.com/

http://www.zimbio.com/sem-lawyer-targeting/articles/2/Using+Targeting+Improve+Attorney+Search+Engine