Masterful Marketing » pay-per-click advertising

Search Engine Marketing is not a Commodity Product

Debra — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:24:47 +0000

Another week and another client calls me to ask about yet another company claiming they can optimize his website and guarantee first page placement on Google. After doing my usual research, I find a Ripoff Report by an unhappy customer who felt they were taken for a lot of money. One unhappy customer does not make the company bad. But this exercise got me wondering about why so many of these SEO and PPC companies have so many complaints posted all over the Web?

SEO and PPC are Not Commodity Products

These companies that call small business owners trying to sell them their software to manage their SEO and PPC activities are trying to treat Search Engine Marketing as a commodity – a one size fits all so to speak. This is absolutely not the case and most likely the wrong business model for success.

Each of my client’s search engine marketing strategy is unique. It takes a deep understanding of their business, their customers and what they are trying to accomplish with their online marketing. It takes creating relevant content that appeals to their prospects and attracts them to their Website. And, what works for one company may not necessarily work for another.

Are there common elements to setting up search engine optimization or a pay-per-click advertising campaign? Absolutely. But what is a common exercise is just a piece of the search engine marketing puzzle.

Take Ownership for Your Online Marketing Success

The following will help you get the most out of your online marketing effort.

Do:

Remember that search engine optimization, pay-per-click campaigns and social media activities are all marketing activities. If you are looking for someone to help you, make sure these people understand basic marketing principals. The technology is a tool – the means to an end – not the end itself. Those who spew technical jargon to confuse you should be suspect.
Find someone with whom you can develop a long term relationship. This doesn’t mean hiring a consultant on a retainer, but it does mean having someone you can call and pay to help you when you need it.
Understand that search engine marketing requires a long-term commitment by you to make it work for you. Your site will get better rankings in search engines if you write content regularly, keep your social media outposts updated and active and you monitor your progress and understand what works and what does not.

Don’t:

Hire a company that requires they take over your website, makes a copy of your website, replaces your phone number with theirs (to track phone calls as well as clicks) or transfers your domain to their control! Your domain name, website and content are assets of your company and you need to remain in control of your assets and your brand.
Respond to emails that say they can optimize your site and guarantee that they can get your site on the first page of Google. If you notice, all the emails say the same thing exactly – they just get sent from different fake email accounts. These hopefully go into your SPAM folder and should stay there.
Believe any sales call that claims that their SEO software can get your site top rankings ever will. Although it may work for some small businesses depending on where they are located and how competitive their industry is, most small businesses in and around major cities or in very competitive fields (like plumbing, remodeling or roofing) will never achieve their claimed results. Find someone who can help you with your overall marketing effort to differentiate yourself from your competition.

Matt McGee wrote a very good article on How to Get Started with SEO that can provide a starting point for those interested in learning more. And although most small businesses may not need the $500 – $1000 per hour SEO consultant, you should plan to invest in someone who can help you do it right. At this point there are too many horror stories of small businesses being scammed out of a lot of money, time and visibility on the Web to not take this seriously.

What do you think? Can SEO and PPC be automated with software and become a commodity?

Why You Should Control Your Online Marketing

Debra — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:49:38 +0000

I got a call from a small business owner yesterday that reminds me why I focus on helping small business owners market their businesses. It disheartens me when someone spends a substantial amount of money with a company for pay-per-click or SEO services that do not get them any results. These companies charge $500 – $3000 per month for these services of which only a percentage of it is applied to your actual campaign. The rest goes into their pockets. They also redirect your website to a copy that they maintain, replace your phone number with one of theirs (to measure phone calls from their services along with clicks) and basically eliminate any ranking you may have in the search engines. They basically hold you hostage.

In most cases, what they actually provide can be done yourself with a little knowledge or with someone who can help you get your advertising off the ground for a lot less. Here is how you get started.

Determining Your Keywords

Finding your keywords are easy to do yourself with tools such as Google AdWords External Keyword Tool or the Google Search-based Keyword Tool. Both enable you to plug in your website and they return keywords that they associate with your website. They provide search volume and competition for the keywords. The Google Search-based Keyword Tool also provides a suggested bid price if you want to set up an AdWords campaign. These keywords can be exported so you can organize them into groups for optimizing your pages of your website or to build your pay-per-click campaigns.

Taking Care of Your Online Marketing

Before you rush into implementing a pay-per-click advertising campaign on any of the search engines, you want to make sure your website is optimized first. I just recently wrote a post on Five Easy Tips to Optimize Your WordPress Website so make sure you’ve implemented those tips and let your website get indexed by all three search engines.

Next, you want to set up your local listings in all three search engines local business centers. To make this effort easier, create a profile that contains the following information: name, address, phone numbers (office and mobile if you want folks to know it), web site address, contact email, hours of operation if relevant, payment methods, description of your business, products, services, brands and specialties, certifications, company logo, and a half dozen photos of your work if relevant. Put the content in a document where you can cut and paste it as necessary and have your images available for uploading. Then create your local business listing in Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Best of the Web. Here are the links to all three:

Bing Local Listing Center - Log in with a Windows Live ID to create your listing.
Yahoo! Local Listing – Log in with your Yahoo! ID to create your free listing. Yahoo! also offers enhanced and featured listings, but wait to sign up for those until you get all your free listings established.
Google Local Business Center – Log in with your Google account to create your free listing. Google provides a dashboard that enables you to manage your listing. It gives you simple analytic data about activity and search queries used when people saw your listing. They also enable you to offer coupons with your business listing and post a message to your place page.
Best of the Web – Create an account and submit your free listing.

I usually like to get the above done and let the search engines “do their thing” with indexing your site. Give them time to position your site for your major keywords. Then, if you still are looking for more traffic to your website, now consider creating a pay-per-click campaign. Google, Yahoo and Bing all have pay-per-click advertising that enable you to set up your campaign, manage your daily budget and monitor its progress. Setting up your campaign is simple in all cases. I usually recommend that small businesses start with a low budget and watch how the campaign sets itself up by monitoring your analytics information. You can see where your traffic is coming from, how the search engines are delivering visitors to you, which sites are referral sites and how many people come to your site directly.

In many cases, small business owners don’t really want to do this themselves. But if someone calls you with something that sounds too good to be true, most likely it is. Before you spend your money on these types of services, buyer beware – do your homework. Search the web for these businesses, looking for reviews by other small business owners before you give them your money. Better yet, consult with someone you trust to work with you on your online marketing efforts. You won’t be sorry.

Have you received these types of sales calls? How did you handle them?