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It is easy enough to figure out who occupies a dominant search position with a clear competitive advantage for a number of pivotal phrases in your industry. What may not be clear is how they got there or how they maintain that position.

It is important to know your enemy, and it is not always the competition.Those who blindly base their existing marketing campaigns on ghosts from the past are facing a harsh online reality (dwindling sales, a minuscule online presence & mounting tension and frustration).

The mere thought of your competitors dominating prime online real estate unchecked is enough to light a fire under companies still entrenched in traditional marketing channels (Television, Radio, Print).

The time has come for off-line giants and small businesses alike to embrace internet marketing and what intrinsic value it provides as an alternative, or at least hire an SEO company to represent their interests online. Success in one arena does not guarantee results in another.

Colossal corporations that thrived in the past using traditional marketing channels are now seeing many of those wells run dry. Faced with opportunity and the potential to hone their wares online, many are jumping into internet marketing with both feet.

Unfortunately, not all off-line efforts translate into online success stories, as appeasing the new breed of target consumers is not as easy as their predecessors. This can be a challenge for larger enterprise clients, who are more likely to spend more to brand, rather than create content that bridges a gap to engage their target audience.

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Tags: Marketing

This is the first in a series of articles intended to convey my personal impressions of managing PPC through Google Adwords, Yahoo Panama and MSN Adcenter. Each engine has its pluses and minuses and I thought I would write a short blurb describing my experiences using the interface for each of these. The first engine I will be looking at is the lesser utilized of the three, MSN Adcenter. Interface One of the things I like about working within Adcenter is the clean look. Although from time to time I wonder if the uncluttered interface is more a product of its relative youth, there’s no denying it’s easier on the eyes than either of its competitors. In part, this appears to be due to the lack of clutter that plagues both Panama and AdWords. Perhaps Microsoft hasn’t had time to fill every gap on each page as seems to be the case with the others. Part of the reason however, is the use of bullet links. More often than not, clicking on these causes the additional information to appear in place, without having to navigate to another page. This is a refreshing change, as most of my time using these seems to be spent hitting my back button and waiting for complete pages to load. The layout of subsections is based on 4 tabs; Campaigns, Accounts & Billing, Research and Reports. Clicking on these takes you to exactly what you would expect, no more no less. Everything is laid out in a logical format and it’s pretty quick and easy to find what you’re looking for. After struggling to navigate through Panama in particular, I find this refreshingly simple. Campaign Setup Setting up is a 5 step process.

1. First off, you lay out your basic campaign structure by naming the campaign and initial ad group. One of the nifty features at this stage is a checkbox allowing you to copy an existing ad group. I have found this can be a useful time saving feature. Network targeting, campaign scheduling, language and regional targeting can all be set up on this same page. Also, conversion tracking can either be set up here or later in the campaign interface with a single click.
2. The next step is writing ad copy. The biggest advantage I have found in this stage is that the interface allows you to paste the entire ad description in one line rather than having to fuss with the character limitations for 2 lines of ad text, such as in both Google and Yahoo.
3. Now you can add your keywords. This is a very straightforward process, You have the option to add your own pre-made list of keywords and/or using a keyword tool that scans a site, or the ad destination URLs. This tool can generate a list of synonyms based on a suggested term, including the number of searches conducted in the previous month.
4. The last main step is to determine pricing settings. This includes setting a budget (see annoyances and oddities section), bidding and setting bidding options, such as incremental bidding. Here also you can set bids specifically targeting for location, day, time, age, or gender.
5. The final step is simply a review of all the information entered to this point and the option to change settings. I find this a bit annoying, as opting to change anything takes you back to that stage and after making your adjustment you have to cycle back through the entire process to the review page once again.

Keywords The only tool this interface has at the moment is the keyword research tool. This can be accessed under the research tab or when editing keyword settings. I have found this far less awkward and time consuming to use than either of the other 2 engines. One thing to note about adjusting keyword settings is how robust the options are generally. When adjusting existing keywords it is simple to add negative keywords to individual keywords, as well as adjust the match types and specific destination URLs by keyword. Another interesting feature is the trend charts, viewable by keyword. With this handy feature you can view individual keyword trends by age and gender, geographical location, social class and affluence. One major difference with keywords between MSN and the others is the level of editorial control exerted. Recently I was managing a campaign with a particular ad group that had quite a few different ads. Some keywords were reported by MSN as being declined for certain ads, but approved for others. This is certainly a departure from my experiences with either AdWords or Panama, where if a keyword is declined for any reason, that’s that. Reports The reporting feature is also quite robust. One can run single use reports or create saved templates for performance, accounting or targeting. It allows for quite a number of specific report types from account overview down to specific ad or keyword performance. A report can be set to display information from hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Additionally, filters can be set to customize reports to only display information you wish to view. Automated report scheduling is also an option if you wish to receive emails periodically, without having to fetch them personally. The format for these reports are limited. Currently downloading one gets you a zipped csv file. Hopefully they’ll expand that to allow options for other file formats. Annoyances and Oddities These are some of the gripes I have with Adcenter.

• For some reason, they’ve incorporated the option to select campaign settings for either daily budgeting or monthly. While this isn’t really a bad thing, if you select daily budgeting, it requires you to set a monthly budget as well. In my experience, doing this seems to have little effect on the amount spent on a given day. For example, I had set a daily budget of $10.00 while selecting a monthly cap of $310.00 to reflect 31 days in a month. Day by day this particular campaign was spending regularly up to and in excess of $20.00 daily. No amount of fiddling seemed to change that behavior, so consequently the monthly budget was used up in half the time.
• Normally, when optimizing ads and keywords, I like to pause poorly performing ads. Pausing them, rather than deleting them, allows me to retain the statistics for later viewing. This is handy because sometimes I do not wish to drop an ad or a keyword entirely, but just want to turn it off for a time, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, there is no option to pause either an ad or a specific keyword. There is no way short of deletion to stop displaying a specific ad and the only way to “pause” a keyword without deleting it, is to drop the max CPC to the absolute minimum.
• There is a limitation on viewing data at campaign, ad group or even ad or keyword level. One can only view yesterday, this month, last month, this year, last year or entire time. I find it very strange that unlike anywhere else in this interface, you cannot specify a custom date range. To get around this, you have to go to reports and create and run a report specifying what start and end date you wish to view data for. This can be time consuming and is an obvious flaw that will hopefully be worked out soon.
• The timeout is quite short. Many times while working in Adcenter, I’ve tabbed back after only several minutes, only to find the system has logged me out and I have to re-login and navigate back to what I’d been working on.

Summary Overall, I’d have to say that MSN Adcenter is quite easy to use. Although MSN gets the least amount of traffic of the 3 engines, this isn’t entirely disadvantageous. One result of this disparity is that spend for a given campaign is generally significantly less than in either Adwords or Panama. Given that, when a conversion is achieved the difference in ROI is notable. This engine is certainly worth advertising on and with some improvements will be a fine choice.

Tim Rule is a PPC Specialist at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Tim’s articles and those of the StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com/, Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198

Tags: Marketing, ppc

Fed up with wasting money on ads that don’t work? Here are some killer ways to turn things around and get writing ads that pull in the clicks, visitors and sales in droves.

1. Reverse Psychology

This is where you encourage people to do the opposite of what you really do want them to. For instance, if you want them to sign up for your marketing newsletter say something like “If you’ve got all the sales, visitors and profits you need, don’t sign up for our SuccessNewsletter”. Just remember that people don’t want to be told what to do, or what not to do, so out of sheer cussedness, and a helping of curiosity they will click.

2. Use exciting and appealing words

People respond best to words that appeal to their emotions and to their desire for money, so use words that aim at these two aspects of the human psyche. Use words such as You, Ultimate, Free, Master, Power, Discovery, Easy, Guaranteed, Love, Money, New, Scientific, Profits, Proven, Results, Incredible, Discover, Breakthrough, Secret, Private, Cash, Shocked, Shocking, Revealed, Uncovered, Hidden, Exciting, Sizzling, Hot and so on. Be careful not to overdo it as less is more when it comes to emotive words.

3. Offer a discount

The Internet started out as the place to get things free. Usually this meant information in the early days, so capitalise on this basic human instinct of wanting ’something for nothing’ and offer your visitors a discount if they buy NOW! Alternatively off a free bonus. Make it compatible with the product you’re selling so that they both form a useful combo.

4. Include testimonials

If you have people write or email you thanking you for your product, get back to them and ask if you can quote them in your advertising. Mostly they will be happy for you to do so. This lets prospective buyers know that a real person has got a real benefit from your product or eBook etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for a testimonial. Send buyers a follow-up email to see if they have benefited from your product and ask them to tell you why (if they have). Testimonials are one of the most persuasive tactics there are.

5. Use a guarantee

Always use a strong guarantee in your ad. One guarantee you often see on downloadable products is ‘Try this eBook for 8 Weeks’ because this is now the length of time ClickBank will offer an automatic money back facility. Other payment providers may differ. Include the guarantee in your headline: ‘Our eBook Will Save You Money - Guaranteed!’

6. Tell your customers what to do

People will often act on an instruction such as ‘Click Here Now’. It may be stating the obvious but this is again the psychology of the prospect. They often need just that little nudge to make them take action.

7. State the major benefit of your product or website

Make sure you tell people what the major benefit of your product is. Even in a classified ad you must answer the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ With some products this is not difficult. For instance if you product is a cure for acne, make you can say something like ‘Our product can cure your acne in 21 days’. If you are selling something less obvious you could say ‘Our Nirvana CDs will soothe and relax you after a hard day’. Make it clear what benefit your product or website has to offer.

Now take a good look at your current ads and apply one or more of the tactics given above and you will begin to see some real results. When you do, why not email me and let me know? I like to get testimonials too!

Mervyn Love writes articles on various aspects of Internet Marketing, and his website - http://www.fortresspublishing.com - has a wealth of resources and information on all aspects of starting and running an online business. Sign up for his newsletter here: http://www.fortresspublishing.com/MPNsplash.html

Tags: adwords, Marketing

It comes as no surprise that when a good thing is made available to the masses, there is always going to be some people who want to game the system. Instead of playing by the rules, they use illegal methods in an attempt to jump to the head of the line. SEO Marketing is no different

Since the majority of website traffic comes from places like The Google and Yahoo, it was only a matter of time before the people who dwell in moral twilight figured out some techniques to cheat their way to a better ranking for their website The problem is these people lose track of the real objective. Wendy Boswell at About.com writes, “Black hat SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem.”

Yes blackhatters get a quick boost in site ranking and more than likely make a fast buck (their goal anyway) but over the long term they run the risk of being banned by the very search engines that could really grow their business into a traffic generating, money making dynamo that last for years.

Want to play Russian roulette with the search engines? Try these techniques:

1. Link Farming

You have probably seen those sites with a directory page that contains hundreds of links. The problem is they bear no relation to what the actual website is all about. Putting up links about mortgage loans, acne, the history of wastebaskets etc when your site is about the quality of fishing in Great Falls Montana would be an example of link farming. There was a time when the search engines were okay with this but as is usually the case, people went overboard with it.

Make sure the links on your directory page relate directly or indirectly to the content on your website. In fact save yourself the time and effort by focusing on getting one way links to your site. A couple of quality one way links are worth way more than thousands of links unrelated to your niche.

2. The Sybil Attack

One of the most famous TV movies of all time is Sybil: The Girl with 16 Different Personalities starring Sally Field. This is the blackhat foundation for setting up mirror sites.

By creating multiple web sites with the exact same content but different domain addresses, blackhatters are able to trick the search engines into ranking their main website higher. Sybil attacks can also turn quite nasty and take control of large scale computer networks including peer to peer systems which are quite vulnerable.

3. Cloaking

Cloaking software was an underground rage a few years back. The concept is to present two types of content: One for the actual visitors to your website, the other was for the search engine spiders that crawl your web pages looking for updating content that has been keyword optimized. This was an elaborate way of getting the search engines to show a page they normally would not.

All of this may sound ridiculous and totally unnecessary. Yes on both counts. The easiest way to stay on the good side of the search engines is to give them exactly what they want; namely a website with good content (preferably unique) that grows at a more natural pace.

This maybe a slow way to success for some people but it’s safe and it works. You are building a business which hopefully will be successful for a very long time. Do not let anyone talk you into putting it at risk by using blackhat techniques.

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Daryl Campbell - The Internet Marketing Guide. Over 85% of your website traffic will come from the search engines. For that reason alone, you do not want to take any chances that will put your site at risk. To find out more go to SEO Optimization

Tags: Marketing, seo

Gone are the days of running an ad in the yellow pages or local newspaper and crossing your fingers that the right eyes would pass over it. Your customers look to the instant gratification of online search, sometimes even through their mobile phones, when they’re ready to make a purchase. Implementing local search best practices will ensure that these qualified customers find you.

In a 2007 Nielsen and WebVisible, Inc. survey of people who had searched for a local service vendor in the last 90 days, 6% reported they would visit a vendor in-person, 11% would make contact through a website form, 16% would write to an email address and 68% use a phone number posted on a website to contact the vendor. Make your phone number and contact information highly visible on your website, and assign trackable URLs and phone numbers to each advertising referrer that you use. Keep track of what’s working and what isn’t in an analytics program. This allows you to keep your program measurable and to continually optimize for leads and conversions.

Here are the tactics (and measurement methods) that turn a local marketing effort into a lead generation machine:

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Tags: local search, Marketing