Archive for the ‘Ethical Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Is PPC Advertising Worth the Money?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

money-bag-save-moneyIt seems the more money I try to save, the more I am asked to spend. Does this sound true for your business? We know we need to “spend a little to make a little,” but how much should a company be spending on PPC advertising and is it really worth the money to be seen both in PPC and organic search results?

While there are many different opinions as well as ad agencies willing to take your money to “get you on the first page of Google,” there isn’t one strategy that will work for every company. As an ethical SEO company, Search Circus carefully analyzes your business, your budget as well as which online marketing strategies would work best for each type of industry.

I can give you the Cliff notes on paid advertising strategies from several PPC marketing experts .

1. Don’t just “throw together something” when you want to increase your online presence. It’s best to do the research or ask your ethical SEM team to do the research for the best strategy to use PPC advertising, which search engines, how much and how often. It’s best to look at your competitors and their paid online marketing tactics.

2. Don’t try to do too much with not enough. Have you ever overbooked your day or tried to stuff that one last item in a drawer then come back to find the drawer’s contents all over the floor or worse the entire drawer? PPC advertising is like that. Adding too many keywords or ads or types of markets in one campaign is not how you can test and measure the effectiveness of the campaign itself.

3. Think before you act. What are your goals for creating an effective PPC advertising campaign? Who is your audience? What do they want? Each PPC campaign should target one specific audience or geographic location. Then each campaign can have different ad groups with its own products or services. Keep it simple, clean and organized.

4. Follow your competitors. Do your competitors appear on the first page for each niche audience, product or service? Follow their lead, but do it better.

5. Only run your ads as much as your targeted audience is likely to see them. If your audience is not likely to be online between midnight and 6 am, then do not have your ads running during these times.

If you want to gain an edge over your competitors, do something that they aren’t or do it better.

Give your PPC advertising time to capture attention. Oftentimes it takes a few months to several months to see whether it is an effective online advertising strategy. If your sales are not increasing, calls aren’t coming in any more than before starting PPC advertising, then make a few changes, but don’t call it quits all at once.

Not sure if PPC advertising is worth the money for company, contact the online advertising team at SearchCircus.com for the best advice.

Website Optimization and Promotion: The Secret to Effective URLs Names

Monday, February 8th, 2010

websitepromotionThere’s a lot that goes into effective website optimization and promotion. But for a lot of people just learning about optimizing their website forget one important rule: when developing URL names, it pays to plan ahead.

Why? It’s because planning ahead will almost always save you time-consuming problems related to your website’s structure. No matter what kind of site you have, the best way to achieve effective website optimization and promotion is to create URLs that can be easily read. URL names that are too long and too complex won’t achieve maximum optimization. Here are the two basic rules of creating URLs that search engines will love.

Make your URL as short as possible. Keeping URLs short will make it easy for your customers to remember, and easy for them to type.

Use keywords. One great thing about using keywords in your URL names isn’t just that they help with website optimization and promotion on search engines, but they’re also usually easy to remember, which makes them user friendly as well.

There are more advanced website optimization and promotion strategies for crafting effective URLs, but there’s really nothing more powerful that these two tips when it comes to the best optimization practices. These are the two rules all other URL optimization efforts should stem from.

Web and Internet Marketing Trends: Will the iPad Change the Way We Search?

Monday, February 1st, 2010

webinternetmarketingNow that the dust has settled after last week’s announcement of Apple’s iPad, we can get down to what’s really important, at least for those of us involved in Web and Internet marketing: how will the iPad change online search?

The truth is, the jury’s still out on whether the iPad will be another revolutionary device along the lines of the iPod and iPhone, or if it will suffer a similar fate to Apple’s first major tablet idea, the Newton.

Plenty of Web and Internet marketing professionals have already weighed in on the pros and cons of the iPad, so we’re not going to do that here. Instead, we’d like to focus on the iPad’s strengths and explore how it may affect the way we use online search.

While a lot of people, Web and Internet marketing professionals included, aren’t fully convinced that the iPad will completely replace the good old-fashioned book, it’s effectiveness as a reference tool seems pretty solid. The iPad will make it easy for users to access an online dictionary and thesaurus. Users will also be able to look up topics on Wikipedia. Imagine that you’re reading an ebook about Italy and the city of Genoa is mentioned. Not sure where Genoa is? Use your iPad with Google Maps to locate it. Then look it up on Wikipedia and get a quick rundown of the city’s history.

The second thing the iPad could change the way people search is through what we’ll call the rise of kitchen computing. The Internet has been a boon to chefs. There are thousands, actually hundreds of thousands of recipes, online. But right now getting a recipe online means one of three compromises is necessary. You’ll either have to print out the recipe, bring your laptop into the kitchen, or keep running back and forth between your desktop computer and the kitchen. But with the iPad, it will be simple to access an online recipe and prop up your iPad in a convenient corner of the kitchen. Web and Internet marketing professionals should take note: the iPad could signal an increase in searches for “how to” or “service” articles. Now that people can carry their iPad to their car, down to their basement or into their backyard, one can expect car repair, home repair and yard maintenance instructionals to become even more popular.

Even if the iPad does become a common accessory, it probably won’t completely replace the desktop PC or the laptop. That means Web and Internet marketing experts should still optimize their Websites for traditional search. But the potential for a new facet of online search is definitely possible. Web and Internet marketing professionals would be wise to pay attention to the iPad’s impact so they can get in early on this burgeoning market.