Posted by
admin in
internet marketing
Nov 30th, 2009
Post written by Dana Prince
If you want to make money online, PPC (pay per click) advertising is one way to do it. Most people who surf the web are very familiar with advertisements that turn up on search engine results pages, on blogs, and even in their free e-mail inbox. When you click those ads, someone is paying money for your clicks so that they can have an opportunity to market to you. If you sign up for a pay per click advertising campaign, you could bring interested traffic to your monetized website.
Just like companies pay to advertise on the TV, on the radio, and in newspapers and magazines, companies and entrepreneurs can also pay to advertise on websites. Google, for instance, offers the Google Adwords program, which gives website owners the opportunity to get the attention of people who may be interested in what they have to sell.
Google Pay Per Click Ads
A Google sponsored advertisement can appear on websites and in search engines. If you have a Gmail account, for instance, you’ll probably notice that advertisements are regularly displayed horizontally across the top of your screen. Those ads typically relate to your email subject matter. Google software eavesdrops on your conversations in order to present topically relevant advertisement that may interest you.
The same thing happens when you’re surfing the search engines for something. Google presents organic listings of what it believes you are looking for and you’ll notice that both horizontally as well as vertically on search engine results pages page you’ll also see sponsored advertisements that relate to your search engine phrases as well. Website owners subscribe to particular words and phrases and if you click those ads, the advertiser pays a fee for getting your attention.
Contextual Advertising
Web publishers who have websites and blogs can also display contextual sponsored advertisements so if you participate in a PPC campaign, your ad could be displayed on a site that gets a lot of traffic on a daily basis. Google’s software reads the page and then based on the words and phrases in the page, it determines which relevant ads to display. Website owners that participate in pay per click campaigns have a lot of opportunities to get the attention of interested prospective customers.
How do you Create a Profitable PPC campaign?
PPC ads can be very profitable but they can also be very expensive and it can be a bit like taking a gamble. But you can get educated so that you’re taking a more calculated risk, rather than playing a game of roulette.
It’s important that you recognize that it may cost you money in order to get a sale. If you’re selling a product on your website that’s $30.00, it may cost you only $0.25 to get that sale. But it could also cost you more than $30 to get a sale so learning PPC strategies and preparing for your campaign is important.
Here are some tips for maximizing the potential of your pay per click campaign:
- Look for information that helps you learn PPC strategies before you get started. Taking time to get acquainted with this type of advertising will help you earn a better return on your advertising dollar.
- Carefully set your budget. Analyze the cost of the click against the profit for the product you’re selling. An average conversion rate from visitors to customers is often about 2% if a website has a product people want and good sales copy so factor in the cost of 100 clicks equating to about two sales. (The numbers aren’t guaranteed but this can be an average to keep in mind). In this case, for example, twenty-five cents per click is probably too high of a fee for a thirty-dollar commission.
- Do keyword research. Choosing the right keywords in PPC advertising is vital. Because you’re paying per click, you want to pay for words that can have a good chance of converting to a sale so that you attract people who are ready to buy. The goal is to look for highly searched terms that aren’t highly competitive (whenever possible).
- Work at achieving as high a Google quality score as possible. Your quality score is assigned based on several factors including: how relevant your landing page is to your advertisement, whether or not your domain name uses keywords in it, and several other factors. By learning about these factors you can get better page placement for your ad as well as pay less for each click.
- Search engine optimization is also important for pay per click campaigns. Work on organically optimizing your site. Paid traffic is nice but optimization for natural site indexing is a good idea as well. Not only will it bring you free traffic but this, too, will up your Google quality score.
- Learn to write compelling ads. In order to get people to click your ad, the text in the ad has to be attention-grabbing. You have just two small lines of text to do so, so it’s a good idea to analyze other pay per click ads to help you come up with ideas.
- Analyze your reports faithfully. By regularly looking at your pay per click reports and website analytics you’ll be able to see what’s working, what’s not, and adjust your campaign(s) accordingly. This information can help you tweak your sales copy, adjust your keywords, and replicate campaigns that are successful.
The more qualified traffic you get to your site, the better. There are a lot of ways to do that in internet marketing and pay per click campaigns can be very profitable if you learn how to maximize their potential.
Posted by
admin in
internet marketing
Nov 30th, 2009
Post written by Dana Prince
If you want to learn SEO basics, you’ll definitely have more success in internet marketing than someone who jumps into online commerce without taking the time to become educated on how successful marketers have achieved their success.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the foundation of marketing through search engines. Optimizing a site for search engine placement will increase a website’s chances of success, especially in competitive niches.
Search engines send traffic to optimized websites so the quite simply…if you learn SEO you increase your chances of succeeding online. Even if your website is beautifully designed and your copywriting skills will convert a high number of visitors into customers, SEO is pivotal in getting traffic to your site so that you can wow customers with your sales copy and site layout.
There are a lot of different parts of an optimized website and by learning about those individual areas, you can improve your chances of being successful. The more optimization that’s done, the more likely the site will get organic search engine traffic.
What’s meant by organic? Sites that get organic traffic do so without having to pay for listings because search engines see their optimization efforts and send interested traffic their way. The search engines deem the people searching for specific words and phrases to be interested in what your website contains due to several factors. Learning about those factors and how to apply the right strategies to them will help you devise a well-rounded search engine optimization strategy.
Not only is knowledge of how search engines work important for organic SEO but even if you’re paying for clicks through Google Adwords pay per click campaigns, the layout and optimization of your site is still vital. In fact, well-optimized websites pay less per click than non-optimized sites and get better sponsored ad placement as well. So, whether you’re planning on attracting the majority of your site’s traffic organically or through sponsored ads, learning to think like the search engines is going to benefit you substantially.
Core SEO components to learn include:
- SEO’s Relation to Internet Marketing and How Search Engines “Think”
- Keywords
- On-Page Strategies
- Off-Page Strategies
Let’s look at an overview of each of these components and how learning about them can help you succeed:
General Online Marketing and SEO Knowledge
Having a foundation of internet marketing knowledge will help you in all facets of search engine optimization. Knowing how SEO relates to internet marketing and online commerce is essential.
You’ll also need to develop a basic understanding of how search engines work. This doesn’t require a specialized degree in computer science but it does require taking the time and energy to learn what search engines look for when making their decisions about website indexing. Search engine algorithms do change but a basic understanding of how they grade a website is essential in grasping important concepts required for success in online commerce.
Researching Keywords and Results
Possessing research skills for your website is an essential aspect of search engine optimization. Learning how to do the research and then knowing how to apply the data you’ve found to your website is important. Why? It helps you to create a search engine optimization strategy can help you not only get traffic but get traffic that converts from a visitor to a customer.
Assuming you already have a website that you want to market, things you’ll need to know include: which keyword phrases are highly searched in your niche market, which keywords may be too competitive, the difference between optimization for local search markets versus national or global search, and other areas as well.
Once you’ve begun optimization, you’ll also need to learn how to research your website’s analytics so that you can determine whether various efforts are successful or whether targeted keywords and other strategies need to be tweaked.
On-Page Search Engine Optimization Strategies
Search engines look at each page on your website to help them make a determination on what the site is about. Various aspects of your site’s pages need optimizing and learning about these aspects will help you do things in a way that will provide you with maximum free exposure to the type of traffic you’re looking for. If you think of on-page SEO in terms of grading, the more components you optimize, the higher your score.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
What’s perplexing to some new internet marketers is how to optimize a website beyond the pages that exist on their domain. In fact, off-page optimization is almost as important as on-page optimization because things that you do outside your website could bring people and search engines to your website plus increase your levels of traffic dramatically. There is a score here as well. It’s associated with your off-page SEO and it can increase or decrease based on several variables. An increased score can mean increased free traffic to the site.
How to Learn SEO
Learning about search engine optimization is vital to success of anyone who wants to use the internet either for business or to enhance their business. Successful internet marketing professionals who learn SEO learn how to create and maintain a website that naturally attracts high volumes of the desired type of traffic. Not all traffic is equal and search engines look for many things when grading a website. More people than ever are seeking a professional education so that they can truly excel in this important area of online business.
Posted by
admin in
internet marketing
Nov 30th, 2009
Post written by Dana Prince
SEM stands for search engine marketing and it’s an essential part of internet marketing. By learning how to do effective search engine marketing with the top search engines, you can market to people that use search engines to find things they want and need. How many people use search engines when they want to buy something? A lot!
There are a lot of career opportunities for people who know how to market with search engines. You can be an online entrepreneur, you can be a marketing consultant, and you can work for companies who want to improve their online presence. Learning to unleash the power of marketing with search engines could be a very lucrative proposition.
What is SEM?
Search engine marketing encompasses several areas, such as SEO (search engine optimization) and pay per click advertising. Getting a solid SEM education is a smart idea. Not all search engines operate the same and there are things you can learn to help you maximize the potential of achieving success with internet marketing.
What is SEO?
SEO is the act of optimizing a website so that it will rise to the top of search engine results pages for keywords you’d like to rank for. If you sell a particular item, you’d optimize your website so that it would (hopefully) come up high in results for people searching for phrases related to that word. That way the web site would get traffic and the traffic would be people that are actually interested in buying what the site is selling.
When a person searches for a phrase, there can be thousands of results. Google, for instance, will list ten results per page. By being listed on the first page, you could receive traffic for people that search for words your site is ranked for. A big part of SEO is getting on that first page.
PPC
Pay per click is another aspect of search engine marketing. You can pay to be listed in search engines and contextually on websites related to a topic for particular search phrases with an advertisement that can drive qualified traffic to your website. Learning search engine marketing techniques can help the investment of pay per click pay off. Those who learn the principles behind successful search engine marketing can get a great return on that investment. The goal is to keep the cost per click low and the conversion per click high.
How do you learn effective search engine marketing?
Some people who aspire to be dot com millionaires have learned SEM on their own. The problem with going it alone is that you have to suffer through trial and error before you reach success. While this can be a valuable way to get an education, it can also be time consuming and cost prohibitive. With paid inclusion and other paid search engine marketing techniques, a mistake could cost you a lot of money before you realize that it’s not going to pay off. By learning in a formal environment, you can begin to do SEM when you’re knowledgeable and armed with skills and strategies that are proven as successful.
Internet Marketing Careers
Internet marketing skills are increasingly recognized in business and more careers than ever require skills in this area. Even local products and services businesses who don’t sell anything through the web are now looking to internet marketing specialists to work for them or to consult and help them achieve success. Search engine marketing knowledge could help you advance in your current career or seek a new opportunity in an exciting and lucrative field.
Searching for Your SEM Education – Internet Marketing Degree Programs
Because of the demand for knowledge and expertise in the world of internet-based marketing, there are now accredited Bachelors and Masters Degrees related to internet marketing. They can teach various aspects of marketing for internet audiences, which is very different from traditional marketing. Course areas covered in internet marketing degree programs include: SEM, SEO, PPC (pay per click), communicating online, legal issues surrounding internet marketing (which are increasingly important!), viral marketing, social marketing, and more. If you’re looking to receive a formal education, finding an accredited learning institution is essential and there are options for those who want to learn via distance learning.
By finding the right courses to help you learn search engine marketing and other aspects of internet commerce, you can shorten your learning curve, minimize the trials and errors, and shorten the journey between being a novice and being a success.
Posted by
admin in
internet marketing
Nov 25th, 2009
There are about as many ideas about good SEO as there are Internet marketing professionals. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard contradictory statements. Things like never buy links (text-link-ads, etc.) only to turn around and find links to the site hosting the article that are clearly paid links. So, as one of the many possible sources you can find on the Internet, consider these tips just more random thoughts about SEO. In the end, you are going to have to take your own experiences and gut feelings and run with them (or get some advice from as many experts as you can contact). NOTE: These tips assume that you want to keep your site for more than 3-6 months. If you are willing to let it crash and burn then feel free to try any and/or all of these tactics.
Tip 1 – Be very suspicious. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is… If you find a super quick way to get 1,000’s of links pointing to your site, chances are Google and others are already on to it so test carefully before taking too many shortcuts.
Tip 2 – Don’t use comment spam. Don’t use blackhat tools like xrumer or the ultimate wordpress comment spammer to drop links on unwilling blog and forum owners. This can bring you some great short-term link juice (if you are lucky), but eventually will catch up with you.
Tip 3 – Don’t buy text link ads. Ha! It’s like I set myself up for this in the introductory paragraph. While purchasing keyword rich text links is very easy, it can be the quickest way to get your domain filtered and/or banned by Google. It’s simply not worth the risk.
Tip 4 – Don’t excessively abuse social media networks. Don’t be a Twitter or FaceBook spammer, it’s bad karma and frankly just not going to help you much in the long run anyway.
Tip 5 – When link building, focus on do-follow links. If you come across a no-follow link, move on. It’s not worth your time or energy.
Tip 6 – Don’t join link exchanges. Reciprocal links are pretty much worthless. Much like no-follow links, they don’t hurt you but they also don’t help you. Don’t waste your time.
Tip 7 – Don’t focus solely on keyword search volume to pick keywords or domains that you are going after. Think about how you could monetize that traffic IF you were able to rank for the keyword. If you don’t have any ideas, don’t start… there is no point.
Tip 8 – Don’t try to game google with multiple doorway pages or large dynamically generated site directories. Google is very aware of both of these tactics and will eventually penalize you for them.
Basically, when you are setting out on an SEO campaign ask yourself if what you are doing is truly the intent of the Internet or site that you are working with. If you are not providing value, you are eventually going to have a problem. That’s why most people eventually come back to content being king. Make sure that you have great content, a great design, a great overall experience for your visitors, and your success will be great!
