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Archives for July 2007

Professional PPC Management – Best ROI For Your Business

July 31, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

If you are running your business online, and are tempted to dive into search engine marketing (SEM), we strongly recommend that you choose a professional pay-per-click (PPC) management firm instead of trying to run the campaigns yourself. There are going to be some rare cases when having a great deal of expertise in the setup and maintenance of SEM campaigns and landing pages will not be necessary, but a reputable PPC marketing company will set up your accounts properly, ensure that you aren’t wasting your money, and are targeting the traffic that is going to get you the best possible return on investment (ROI).

If you want to run the campaigns yourself, at least have a marketing firm set up the accounts for you. Their thousands of hours of trial and error with marketing campaigns will help you immensely from the targeting of the best keywords for your business to the creation of offer-specific landing pages which are built with the latest in marketing techniques and layouts.

If you feel totally comfortable setting up and running the campaigns on your own, then do yourself a favor and at least have some professionally designed landing pages or landing sites set up. They will maximize the number of conversions from your PPC/SEM traffic.

For more information on professional PPC management practices and services, please contact us using the forms on this site; we will happily provide you with a free initial consultation.

Filed Under: Paid Search Marketing

Blog Site Setup – Fast and Easy Business Websites

July 30, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

When businesses come to us looking for marketing, and don’t have an existing site, they need a place to start. The first question we ask many business owners is “do you really even need a website?” If spending thousands on website design and development isn’t within their means, or even justified for the small size of their business, then blog sites are the way to go. The are not only quick to set up and customize, they are super SEO-friendly, and can be updated very easily. Here’s a breakdown on the process of a blog site setup (which is usually much faster than a website):

1. Selection of domain name and host.

This process can take as little as a half hour to do.

2. Setup of blog software.

In most cases, the host already has WordPress or another blog program already installed on your hosted domain; it’s just a matter of turning it on!

3. Selection of design template.

Blog software like WordPress make it so easy to pick out a template and apply it to your site.

4. Customization of widgets.

Widgets can be just as easy to set up, requiring just a basic knowledge of how FTP clients work to install.

5. Launch!

Of course if you have a trained professional setting up your blog site it will perform better with the search engines. Should you need our assistance, we are happy to provide a free initial consultation.

Filed Under: Blogging

Landing Site Design – Giving Your Visitors More Freedom to Convert

July 27, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

Landing pages are of course a vital part to any SEM/PPC campaign, but one thing that can be limiting with them is that they are very specific and need to be simple so that the visitor is given exactly what they are searching for. But what about cases where your Pay Per Click traffic is of a more general nature, or you’re unsure as to which “call to action” is going to be the most effective for your business? Well, then you’re probably going to be better off setting up what’s called a landing site instead.

Landing sites are simple websites, with several pages, that present the visitor with several opportunities to convert. Much like a landing page, in order to access the full site, the visitor must at least opt into taking the first step in converting for you. The multiple pages will contain information tied to specific offers, and forms custom created for those offers. You can still put a healthy amount of information on these pages and give your visitors some navigation choices, but ultimately they must start to convert for you to see the full site.

These landing sites work extremely well with people looking to buy expensive items, as the multiple pages give you several chances to establish yourself as an authority on what you’re selling. These pricey products often carry a lengthy research phase with them, so having the extra marketing real estate to deliver that info really helps gain the trust of potential clients.

Should you have any specific questions about landing site design, how it can drive you more business, and examples, we would be happy to provide you with a free initial consultation.

Filed Under: Paid Search Marketing

Domain Name Consultation; Picking The Best URL For Search Engines

July 26, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

There are several things that will help your cause with Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines when you are picking out a domain name. There are also a number of things that are critical to consider for your branding. Marrying these two sometimes contradictory marketing facets can be tough. Ultimately, your domain will probably embody more branding or SEO optimization, but the best names do both. Here are four guidelines to help you ensure that when you pick a domain, you choose having taken both sides into consideration.

1. Is the domain name short?

The shorter your domain name, the more likely it is that it is easier to remember, quicker to type in, and faster for the search engines to see your content. Every character counts! Make your domain compact.

2. Is it easy to remember?

This kinda goes hand in hand with the first consideration. Still, there will be cases where your short domain is just tough to remember. Avoid abbreviating words in your domain name; that’s a common way to make short domains harder to remember than they need to be. Also, dashes can make the difference between someone finding you or finding your competition (by using the non-dashed version)! So if your domain contains dashes… well it better have some PRIME keywords in it to justify the damage it will do to people trying to find your site for a second time or off the top of their heads from a radio ad you placed.

3. Does it contain highly relevant keywords?

This is the most important thing from a search engine optimization standpoint. If your domain contains your most important search phrase, it already sets you up as a potential authority on whatever it is you’re in business for.

4. Is it an established domain?

This is often overlooked, but those who spend the time to hunt down an existing relevant domain (or entire site) with existing links and buy it out will be handsomely rewarded. Your new content will get indexed faster because of the trust built up with that domain to the search engines.

Hopefully these tips help you land that dynamite domain name you have been looking for that will not only brand you well, but also help drive some free natural traffic your way through SEO. If you have any questions, we do offer domain name consultation as a service to our clients. We’ll give you a free initial consultation if you fill out one of our forms.

Filed Under: SEO Tips

Inbound Linking Strategies For SEO That Work

July 25, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

The debate on whether SEO content or inbound linking matters more when it comes to getting your site ranked rages on. Bottom line though is that you’re looking at 1A and 1B. No other site factors are even close. So you simply must devote adequate budget to address both in order to climb up the SERP.

There are a lot of online resources on inbound linking, but we haven’t seen any that cover all the different ways to attack getting them in one post. That’s what we’re going to do here. Here are (drum roll, please…) the strategies we’ve found useful in generating helpful inbound links for our sites:

Posting Content To Article Submission Sites

Link Baiting

Negotiating With Webmasters

Pay For Quality Links

Submitting Your Site To Web Directories

Distribute Your RSS Feed

Blast Out An Online Press Release

Triangulating For Inbound Links

Build A High Quality Website And Get Links Naturally

Filed Under: Link Building

Why Can’t I Have Built-In Validation On All Lead Generation Forms?

July 24, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

Clients will often ask us whether we can set it up so that the contact forms on their lead generation landing pages have built-in validation to keep “fake” or “bogus” leads out of their contact management system (CMS).

We don’t filter leads because it can cause more people to bounce off the landing page (in other words, “abort mission”) if they have to validate their information. So even if our clients have to sort through the ‘bogus’ leads, it’s going to be better for them to get every possible lead than to lose a significant percentage who are not into filling out an entire form or fixing their form errors.

What’s the best way to address this? Well, having a great email drip marketing campaign that you can just drop your leads into is the easiest way to manage large numbers of leads. It certainly makes following up on “bad” ones less of a chore. It also delivers the best long-term ROI since leads in many industries have a longer research phase before they reach a buying decision. Also making your forms as concise as possible will limit the amount of false information. There’s no sense in asking for more from your visitors than is absolutely necessary for them to take the next step in the buying process with you. Make those forms as easy to fill out as possible, and that’s another thing you can do to limit the “bogus” leads.

For a thorough analysis of your lead-generation program, our experts can assist you in making the right decisions when retooling your search marketing campaigns. For a free initial consultation, please use our form and one of our certified internet marketing experts will be in touch with you shortly.

Filed Under: Paid Search Marketing

Many “Bogus” Real Estate Leads Aren’t Bogus!

July 23, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

Probably the most common question we get from real estate clients is: my website’s marketing is not working for me in terms of leads. I am getting leads but they are bogus or I contact them and they never call or email me back. Should I cancel my service?

Get out of your real estate agent shoes and into the shoes of a buyer or seller prospect. You are thinking of a real estate transaction sometime in the future and want to do some preliminary research.

You might be six months to even a couple of years away from buying or selling, but you really want to get an idea of what’s ahead in this very large financial transaction. So you go to the web, where you always find all the information you want on just about every product that you buy. It’s a fairly large city, and your search on “yourtown real estate” turns up a huge number of web sites. As you check them out, some require sign-up to look at listings and some do not. At this stage, you’re not really ready to divulge your identity just to get some basic information, so you try a few “no registration” listing searches on different sites.

One or more sites seem to stand out with a lot of free and detailed information about real estate in the area. Over a few months you get closer to buying or listing, and then you want to get more detailed information in your research. One site offers statistics and other detailed reports via email registration. This site has been one you’ve visited over the last months and found quite helpful, so you sign up for a few reports. You get what you expected and it’s helpful. Over the next month or so you get a few emails with more detailed information and links to helpful resources.

Whose client is this going to be?

Filed Under: Real Estate Internet Marketing

Are My Big-Ticket Leads Dead?

July 23, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

When working with a lead generation program for big-ticket items like cars, houses, jewelry, etc. some high-end clients will question the value of their leads. Some express frustration that those who submit their forms are not ready to do business right away, and a few even pull the plug on things, completely prematurely. How can you tell if a luxury or high-dollar item lead is dead?

We can safely say that unless the person on your drip campaign opts out, you shouldn’t stop contacting them for at least six months, and you should make sure to send out at least 30 attempts at communication over that time span. Why be so aggressive? Because people who buy high-priced items are much more likely to be careful and perform a lot of research before buying. That’s a fact, so you need to be more consultative while they are in their research mode. Offer them plenty of attractive, specific offers, but also provide them with tons of free information in the form of helpful articles on the industry, a newsletter, updates on the industry, webinars, etc.

If you can prove to them that you are not just interested in a short-term sale, and can deliver to them over the long haul timely information that helps them make the best overall decision, you will win over a lucrative segment of less-impulsive shoppers. So give them a little long-term hand-holding, won’t you?

We can help you set up your lead generation campaigns from start to finish if you’re too busy to handle these time-consuming, yet crucial search marketing tactics; please contact us for a free initial consultation.

Filed Under: Real Estate Internet Marketing

What’s The Point In Using A Landing Page?

July 23, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

This question comes up all the time in the search marketing industry: why should I even bother setting up a landing page for my pay-per-click account? Doesn’t my home page have all the information anyone could need?

The funny thing is that the second question actually answers the first question. Let us explain: if the entire point of a SEM account is to drive traffic to your site in order to generate leads and sales, then we want to get them from point A to point B as quickly as possible. If you have all the information they could need at their entry point, then there are too many choices for them to pick from; many of them having nothing to do with generating a lead or sale. So in most cases, more information and navigational choice is the last thing you want at the entry point to a site.

What you do want is a place where your visitors can instantly make a decision on an appealing offer that is specific to their search phrase. If they have this, they can only choose to accept, decline, or bounce. That’s a lot fewer choices than your home page would present, and since you place the offer prominently on the page, it’s nearly guaranteed that they will at least consider the offer. We’ve seen cases where using a specific landing page will literally multiply the number of leads and sales you generate online, so definitely utilize one!

Should you need professional assistance setting up a landing page, please don’t hesitate to contact us today for a free initial internet marketing consultation. We’ve set up literally hundreds of successful pages, and can easily do so for you.

BigSERP.Com: We Make Great Landing Pages.

Filed Under: Paid Search Marketing

Should I Target my SEO Content Towards Small Niches?

July 19, 2007 by Vinny Leave a Comment

Question: Should I Target my SEO Content Towards Small Niches?

Answer: It depends. Especially with phrases that don’t return a high number of pages (under 500,000 results), content aggressively targeting these specific niche key phrases can make a big difference. The only thing that’s important after considering that; do these phrases also yield a high enough search volume that they will generate consistent useful traffic? That’s a more difficult answer to ascertain, as some phrases will generate a high ROI but very low search volume, while others are the other way around. We recommend going for the phrases that yield a larger search volume first while still making sure they are highly relevant to your business. You can always add additional content later to continue to build your site as an authority on the niche you serve.

For professional assistance with setting up the SEO content on your website, please contact us; we’re happy to provide a free initial consultation on your marketing.

SEO Content Targeting Niche Demographics by BigSERP.Com

Filed Under: SEO Tips

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