Archive for the ‘Pay Per Click’ Category

Uncover Pay Per Click Internet Advertising to Obtain a Strong Presence Online

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 by Justin Severidt

mouse-with-dollar-signAmazingly, as the Internet continues to grow, many online business owners are not aware of the enormous advertising options available to them. One of the most recent and unique options is called pay per click Internet advertising. This form of advertising can offer extensive potential for online business owners. Some of the most well informed online business owners do not have a clear understanding of the difference between pay per click and search engine optimization. The two have proven to have impressive differences in the results one receives as to the traffic that is driven to their site. Successful businesses have a large presence online. Finding the best advertising option that will drive traffic to your site is paramount in how successful your business will eventually prove to be.

With most typical pay per click Internet advertising, the advertiser pays nothing up front to have their business advertisement appear on a specific page. They are only required to pay if someone actually clicks on their ad taking them to a landing page. If they do indeed click on the ad, then the advertiser will pay a predetermined amount per click. There are a large number of search engines that offer pay per click options. Some of the best known are Google and Yahoo. While these are well known, they are just a small percentage of those search engines available providing traffic from a wide range of other engines as well as tapping into niche engines providing an endless amount of possible traffic for all arms of online business.

As with any advertising campaign, there is a checklist that must be consulted to create the best ad for the business at hand. Budget is of course one of the main components in setting up a pay per click Internet advertising campaign. One must determine the amount of money they are willing to spend on advertising prior to choosing the path that will be taken. Big name search engines are going to be the safest option as far as obtaining traffic; however, they are also the most expensive. Keyword choice will also be an important factor when setting up your campaign. One great option is to use some of the free tools that can be found online to assist you in choosing the best keywords for your situation. Finally, you are ready to design your actual ad that will be posted on the various search engines and await the eventual flood of traffic.

Google is Upgrading Local AdWords Ads to Location Extensions

Sunday, May 16th, 2010 by Nikolas Severidt

Google is about to begin transitioning local business ads in AdWords accounts to ads that are compatible with the location extensions Google introduced last year.

“This feature allows you to include information such as your business name, address and phone number in your existing text ads,” explains Emily Williams of Google’s Inside AdWords crew. “When a potential customer performs a search, their location or search terms are dynamically matched to your business locations, and your most relevant location appears within your ad on Google.com and Google Maps.”

“We’ve heard from many of you who’ve already switched to location extensions that campaign management and attracting customers in your area is now simpler and more effective,” she says. “With location extensions, you can deliver more exposure and local relevance by using the same ads for all your business locations without the overhead of maintaining a different ad for each location.”

If you are unable to view the embedded video, click here.

Google is offering the option to upgrade your local business ads to text ads with location extensions, and to automatically transition your local business ads.  You can get a step by step guide here that walks you through the process.  Original local business ads will be deleted and recreated as local extensions with address overrides, so stats will be reset to zero.

via Top News - WebProNews

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Video Becomes Fastest Growing Website Feature for Small Businesses

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 by Nikolas Severidt

In the past year, small businesses have been adding video capabilities to their websites, as well as increasing their paid search advertising budget.  In a year when the economy wasn’t as strong as years passed and business owners looked for innovative ways to stay ahead, online advertising became a key component to most small business owners in the U.S.

In a recent study from local online advertising firm WebVisible, they examine trends among 12,000 small business advertisers, which represents around $22m in Q4 2009 U.S. small business advertiser spending.  Their report, “State of Small Business Online Advertising” detailed the data collected on video, search, click through rates, cost per click and conversion among many others.

Small Businesses are Using Video More and More

In Q4 2009 video was the fastest growing feature that small businesses added to their website.  In 2008 only 5% of small business websites had video capability, and that has now grown to 19%, which is an incredible 4 times over one year.  Small business owners are finding that online video is a great way to connect with current and potential customers.

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Small Business Embracing Paid Online Advertising

Small businesses are not only using Google for paid online advertising, but they are also leading the charge in using other sites such as, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.  The recent study found that of the businesses surveyed, most saw much better click through rates from Google’s competitors.

  • Google - CTR (up 32%)
  • Yahoo - CTR (up 123%)
  • Bing - CTR (up 109%)

Overall spending on search advertising grew to nearly $2,200 on average.

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Small Businesses are Seeing Higher Conversion Rates

As more and more small businesses use online advertising to market their small business, more and more customers are finding businesses through these various online channels.  The conversion rate found in this study was 35.5%, which is up from 26% a year ago.

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When it comes to advertising your small business, you can’t just throw things out there and hope they work, so that is why online advertising has become so popular with small businesses.  You are able to track exactly what is working and what is not and you are able to set budgets on a daily basis, where with traditional media you normally are paying for an entire month or more before you know if that advertising channel is going to work or not.  Is your business utilizing online advertising yet?  If so, what platforms are you using and what kind of results have you seen?

via ReelSEO

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To get a Free copy of our eBook, Leveraging Online Video to Grow Your Business, click here.

Google Releases AdWords Search Funnels

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 by Justin Severidt

Google is launching a new feature for AdWords today: Search Funnels.  This feature will allow you to see exactly what customers who arrived via a paid search ad saw or clicked before they made a purchase.  Right now Google AdWords only allows advertisers the ability to see the previous ad clicked before a purchase was made.

The reports will also allow advertisers the ability to see what other keywords were searched by people who ultimately ended up on their site.  The reports will include: Top Conversions, Assisted Conversions, First and Last Click Analysis, Time Lag and Path Length.  The data will be displayed for 30 days prior to conversion.  Below is a video from Google detailing the new Search Funnel feature.

If you are not able to view the embedded video, click here.

Google has tested the feature with advertisers including MetLife. MetLife’s CMO, Beth Hirschhorn, said the feature was useful:

“Search Funnel enables us to create a better experience for our customers by helping us understand how they search for our products. It is an important tool to help de-code consumer shopping habits and thought processes, which we can relate back to our online as well as offline advertising.”

The report set will be added to AdWords accounts under Reporting > Reporting. To see the data, however, you’ll have to track conversions with AdWords Conversion Tracking or import them from Google Analytics.

via Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

4 Online Channels to Market Your Real Estate Business

Friday, March 5th, 2010 by Justin Severidt

Online Marketing Channels

  • Pay Per Click Advertising
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Social Media
  • Online Video

When utilizing the internet to market your real estate business, the two most important aspects are:

  • Lead Capture
  • ROI

Without these two, your campaign cannot be effective.  This doesn’t mean you have to spam people to death.  You can still put out valuable content and engage people while capturing their information.  A great way to generate leads is to offer a free report on the current real estate market or to put together a video on the services you offer and what separates you from other agents.  This will allow people to give you their information and at the same time, they will see you as an expert in your real estate market.

For more information, click here.