The Online Marketing Guy

In the past, I used to manage about $30,000 per month in pay per click (PPC) ad campaigns each month.Traffic was HUGE! Our average cost per click (CPC) was right around $0.12 per click - easily justifiable…or so I thought back then.Today, I view PPC as a tool for driving sales, not traffic. The bottom line is this: if there’s no conversion, there’s no ROI - it’s that simple. You can try to cut the water any way you like. Saying that page views ARE an ROI, or that ad impressions served IS an ROI. The cold hard fact is that they are not valid forms of ROIs, if you’re running an actual business.I make that claim because if you’re simply running something for fun, then you can claim an ROI as anything you wish. Businesses should be measuring success through viable key performance indicators (KPIs).Trying to say that spending $1,000 on PPC ads to drive traffic is paying dividends for you is like saying the dog is bald. Sure, you’ve said something, but it makes no sense…Now, if you’re actually selling products, PPC is your thing - in a big way.Just remember to explore all the long-tail type phrases so you can get ads running to capture all those incremental tidbits of traffic and sales your competitors might miss.The bottom line is this: If you’re going to spend money on advertising, make sure you have something worth spending the advertising money on. Your marketing budget is in place to help you reach specific goals - traffic may well be one of them, but it won’t be the only goal….and using PPC to drive traffic is mostly a dead end anyway - stop the campaign and watch what happens to your volume of inbound traffic - it’ll head downwards to pre-campaign levels again.

Tags: Pay Per Click (PPC) by searchgeek
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Now, right off the bat I’d forgive you if you said “Well, ranking well gets you traffic!”. While this is very technically true, tell me when the last time was you set out to rank # 1 for a phase, did it and saw huge amounts of traffic? I mean, “blow your mind” traffic - not an extra 10 visits per day. That’s right, 99% of the time the answer is, you didn’t. You didn’t rank # 1, so you didn’t see the huge amount of traffic. …and that disappointed you. No biggie, I say. Had you been watching your analytics like you should be every day, you may have noticed your traffic isn’t really coming from the phrases you thought you should chase. In fact, most of your traffic is coming from very obscure phrases that simply never occurred to you. These phrases are refered to as the “long tail” phrases. Individually they don’t bring in much traffic. Collectively, though, they can easily deliver more traffic that even the best phrase you’re chasing. Pay attention to these phrases and make sure you get some content up to target them directly. You might not be able to own that killer phrase and beat everyone to the punch, but you can own dozens of smaller-trafficed phrases and have more traffic, overall, than others. In the business of online ad revenue, more traffic means more money. Too many times I hear people say, even now, it’s important that they be number one for a certain phrase. In some cases, it’s a legitimate statement. If you target a specific niche deeply enough, it makes perfect sense. If your sole product is “Lead Free Red Tractor Paint”, and there’s an ongoing market for it, then ranking # 1 for the phrase makes sense and is likely easily achieved. If, however, you’re trying to ranking number 1 for “tractor”, you’ll be frustrated for sure. Best to step back, examine those long-tail phrases and scope out the real opportunities to grown incremental, long-term traffic. If you set your goals short-term, any success you enjoy will fizzle quickly for lack of long-term planning. Focusing on being # 1 is an outdated myth. Focusing on your analytics and growing your business by tracking real results, well, there’s gold in that plan.

Tags: Reality Check, Search Optimization by searchgeek
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Every day I help a dozen or so people learn how to optimize their website for search results. Other days, I help folks understand how to build effective online advertising campaigns. Regardless of their needs, folks usually start at a baseline and seek to learn more in response to a need. They want to make money with their website, so they need more traffic - that kind of thing. That’’s part of the reason why I have this site - to share my knowledge and understanding. There are plenty of other resources available, as well. Places listed here, are a great start. You can also look to join selected organizations such as SEMPO. The Search Engine Marketing Professional’s Organization offers white papers and learning tools to members. They are non-agency focused. As full disclosure, I'’ll state I am a member and Co-Chair for the In-House SEM Committee at SEMPO. On a local level, there are more local groups starting up all the time. I know that in Dallas/Fort Worth, there’’s an active SEM group that meets frequently. These types of groups are springing up all over the place - and if one doesn’t exist in your area, you could start one. Reading some books can be a useful way to learn the basic skills used by professional SEMs as well. Plenty of texts exist on all facets of search marketing. One of my faves is Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. It’s clearly written, easy to use as a reference and easy to find. There are online courses available these days, from companies such as Sitepoint and Bruce Clay. Sitepoint’s kit is very indepth and covers everything you’re likely to need to know. It’s written for folks who have some basic understanding of SEO, though, so it’s not for folks who overheard the phrases somewhere and suddenly want a career in it. I personally have this kit and still use it as a reference guide. There’s a great section on how to best operate your own agency, too - with realistic info on what to expect and how to deal with it. It’s not a “franchise” book, but it’’s the best I'’ve yet to encounter at explaining what I know to be the reality of things. Bruce Clay’’s company offers on-site training. To be clear, the training is focused mostly on Bruce Clay’’s system tools, rather than “in general” type stuff. Plus, on-site means you must travel to California for the training. So, it’s much more costly. That said, I’ve spoken to Bruce personally and had considered going. Still haven’t done so yet, but I’m sure others have gone and benefited from the training. Finally, if time and resources permit, you can always start your own website and play with it as a means to learning the necessary skills. At some point you’ll need to actually work on a live site, so it might as well be your own. If it does well, it benefits you directly. If it does not do well, no one else has anything riding on it.

Tags: Learn SEO, Resources by searchgeek
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Contests can be a great way to generate interest in your site or product. They create buzz and get folks talking. A good contest can take a site or product from obscurity to fame in only a few weeks. But is it legal? Well, every state and country has it’s own rules on what’s legal in their own jurisdictions. In a very brief, non-fully-inclusive nutshell, here’s the safe route to going live with an online contest: ~ Keep the prize purse below $5,000 USD ~ Limit the entires to only residents of the US or Canada ~ Expressly exclude residents of the Province of Quebec in Canada If your prize purse exceeds $5,000, you’ll have to register the contest with Florida, New York and Rhode Island, or exclude their residents. Florida and New York states require a bond, as well. It’ll be equal to the amount of the prize purse. You pay a percentage of the bond value to a bond issuing company - it’s like insurance, basically. You do not pay the full value equal to your prize purse. This protection is held to ensure the citizens of these states are protected should you decide to cut & run before paying out the prizes. Florida requires a minimum of 7 business days notice before a contest begins, New York looks for 30 days notice. The difference being that Florida will definitely fine you for breaking the rule, whereas New York, though it reserves the right to, tends not to fine folks for breaking their 30 day rule. Fines typically are about $1,000 USD. Each state application must be accompanied by the state’s administration fee as well. And, as if all that weren’t enough red tape to jump over, you must submit a copy of your contest guidelines for approval - and they’d better pass muster, or the whole thing gets kicked and your money is NOT refunded. Truly, your best bet for contests running larger prize purses is to partner with a company like http://www.scapromotions.com/ who can manage it all for a fee. It’s easily worth their time and your money. …and if you’re wondering why 99% of all contests exclude citizens of Quebec, well, that province requires all the details a couple months in advance of your contest start date. They also reserve the right to have the final say on how and what type of prizes can be awarded to their province’s residents. That’s way too much for most companies, so they exclude residents of Quebec. If a resident of Quebec is travelling outside their province, though, and they win a prize in a contest, they can keep it and take it home. So, contests can be useful tools for gaining exposure, but they require a serious review from a business perspective to make sure you are not leaving yourself exposed.

Tags: Contests by searchgeek
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