ROI: How Hard is Your Web Site Working?

ROI: How Hard is Your Web Site Working?

An effective web site requires an ongoing investment, but with a good ROI strategy it doesn’t have to costs you.

Every web site needs to provide a tangible and timely return on investment (ROI). Your company’s web site should be one of the most active and accountable members of its marketing team.

Accountability is a good thing — as long as it’s based on sound objectives. ROI objectives can represent tangible things such as cost savings and intangible tings such as the projected impact your Web site will have on customer perception and behavior. They identify how you plan to use the Internet recover your financial investment and to achieve some specific communication goals and marketing efforts.

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The First Critical Steps To Waging A Profitable AdWords Campaign

The First Critical Steps To Waging A Profitable AdWords Campaign

The past few years have witnessed the morphing of search engine optimization (SEO) into search engine marketing (SEM). And, as you are undoubtedly aware, SEM is a multi-faceted endeavor that demands careful integration of online marketing strategies. Today’s astute SE marketer knows that page optimization, inbound linking strategies, and paid placements all dovetail together to form the winning combinations that drive traffic to sites that generate profits.

Of course, one of the cornerstones of SEM is Google’s AdWords Program. However, unlike traditional pay-per-click advertising where the top placement is awarded to the top bidder, AdWords uses a formula that allows the underdog to triumph over advertising behemoths who might otherwise just buy the top ranking. On AdWords, one can rise to the top of the listings with a lesser bid by simply offering a more compelling ad that motivates visitors to “click” more often.
Perhaps you already know all that – but, what you may not already know are the various ways to beat the competition by making some lesser known, but very smart, choices within your AdWords setup and your keyword selections.

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ABCs of ROI

ABCs of ROI
You can track the history of online advertising by the alphabetical soup and the buzzwords of the day.
Along with the first banners, in came fashionable-sounding CPM and “eyeballs”. For some weird reason, “eyeballs” failed to produce sales, and the attention shifted to CTR. Then Amazon.com introduced affiliates and CPA. A short while later, Goto.com introduced CPC, or PPC, and the world of online advertising has pretty much acquired its present shape. Not much has changed until the very recent advent of good old ROI in the vocabulary of every self-respecting e-marketer. ROI means “return on investment”. ROI is where the money is.

With a little perseverance, almost no investment, lots of time and a little luck, anybody can achieve higher ROI. There are three major areas to pay attention to, all well within means and abilities of any webmaster and online marketer: keyword selection, listing title and description; landing page content; and overall site navigation. Whether you buy 100 or 100,000 clicks per day, there are no excuses for not making each click more effective and increasing the likelihood of its conversion into a sale. Just borrow creatively from the sidebar tips and examples in this article, and your ROI will go up before you can say “ROI”.

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Search Engine Submission Techniques on Google

Search Engine Submission Techniques on Google

The orientation guide for businesses getting started online

Over the years of its existence Google gained a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for internet users. Providing a comprehensive coverage of the web and returning searched queries with great relevancy in less than a second, Google certainly is the internet’s front door.

Because of the popularity of this search engine, it is critical to get your website listed in Google and achieve a high ranking in search results. There are two types of listing you will find in Google search results: free listings and sponsored listings.

» Free listings

To have your website listed on Google search results for free you firstly need to submit your website to be indexed at http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html. Google is a spider-based search engine that automatically visits web pages to compile its database. After you submit your web site, your site will be first stored in a “temporary” database. Then Google will send a “spider” in a regular time to “visit” your web site to decide whether it should be indexed. This process is called Search Engine Submission.

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Paid Search Advertising Campaigns that Delivers Maximum ROI

Paid Search Advertising Campaigns that Delivers Maximum ROI

Paid Search Advertising (also Pay-Per-Click, PPC) has gained a significant influence in the search engine industry over past couple of years. Whilst a traditional search engine optimisation still remains the online marketing strategy number one, more and more e-marketers discovering the potential of online advertising campaigns. Properly designed and managed, PPC campaign can deliver highly qualified visitors to your online shop.

Quick Overview
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engines are built on the similar principle as auctions. The difference is that you bid on keywords — terms people use when they search for stuff on the internet.

The concept of PPC bidding is rather simple: you buy (= bid on) keywords that relate to your product. The highest bidder gets placed at the top of the search results, the second highest bidder gets the next listing and so on. Every time someone clicks through to your website, you pay the amount you bid on that particular search term.

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Overture: So Much More Than Pay Per Click

Overture: So Much More Than Pay Per Click
Overture is known for being the Leader in “Pay Per Click” (PPC).Owned by Yahoo, Overture advertisers can reach over 80% of Internet users. If you take a closer look and pop the hood, you’ll find a whole suite of useful tools for Marketers.

1) Precision Match: This is where Overture began, back when it was known as GoTo.com. Precision Match is the original “bid for keyword” search engine, and it’s still a core utility for Overture users. You select your keywords/phrases and the amount you want to pay per click and you are only charged that amount when someone clicks through to your website.

Overture has relationships with Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Infospace and others. By bidding into the top three positions, you’ll also enjoy exposure on those top search engines as well under what’s called “Sponsored Listings.” For more, see:
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/index.jhtml

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The Strategy Of Search

The Strategy Of Search
There’s a reason not every chess piece moves the same way. Together, you can use the tactical advantages of a knight, a queen or a rook to execute your strategy. There are chess players that react to every move as it comes, playing the game at a purely tactical level. This is the way most of us start (and pretty much still the way I play). You don’t think ahead to what the next move could be. Strategy plays no part. Each turn, you look at the board and make what appears to be the best move.

Now, if your heart is set on becoming a competitive chess player, you probably won’t go too far with this tactical approach. At some point, you’ll have to start playing the game at the strategic level. You will need to look at the big picture, and explore the possible impact of all your opponent’s future moves.

In my opinion, search marketing is a game that’s been played at the tactical level for the past 8 years. Strategy hasn’t really been part of the game. That’s going to have to change.

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Managing a Search Advertising Budget

Managing a Search Advertising Budget

You want top search result positions now, and you’re willing to pay for them. But is your paid listing launch on hold until you can justify a budget and demonstrate ROI goals?
“A special report from the Search Engine Strategies 2004 Conference, March 1-4, New York.”

Perhaps you are already spending money, but without a budgeting strategy in place. How do you know if your campaign is providing sufficient return to justify the amount of ad spend? In the “Setting and Managing Your Ad Budget” session, a panel of experts shared tips on getting the budget you need and making it work more efficiently for you.

Let’s start with getting budget approval for paid listings. In-house search engine marketers, or marketing agencies, often find themselves competing for part of the company’s marketing budget. Mike Moran, manager of IBM.com site architecture and design, began with a pivotal argument marketers can use in budget negotiations, “If consumers can’t find our product, they can’t buy it.” Moran then recommended that marketers prepare the following data as a persuasive case for budget allocation and increases:

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Targeted Traffic With Pay Per Click’s

Targeted Traffic With Pay Per Click’s

In order for your online business to succeed you must get targeted traffic to your website. No matter what product or service you are selling, if you don’t make sales you won’t be in business for very long!

One of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your website is through Pay Per Click Ads. If you have spent any time surfing the world wide web or used search engines to seek out a particular keyword or phrase then you have more than likely seen Pay Per Click (PPC) ads. Two of the most popular PPC’s are Google Ad words http://www.google.com which are featured prominently on many websites on the net and Overture http://www.overture.com which list sites in search engine results like Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN, etc, across the net. However, there are literally thousands of PPC search engines on the web today to choose from.

PPC ads offer a way to attract relatively cheap targeted traffic to your website and product or service. Here is how PPC ads work.

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Paid Search Programs Finally Growing Up

Paid Search Programs Finally Growing Up

The search industry has come a long way since the days of running poorly targeted banner advertisements on search results pages. Enhanced keyword targeting capabilities and powerful new bidding and ROI analysis tools have raised the value of search as a promotional channel for online — and increasingly offline — merchants.

Yet with all of the progress to date, paid search programs are still in their infancy and their rapid evolution continues. Two fundamental changes currently underway are blurring the traditional metrics and definitions that have divided paid listing and paid inclusion programs.

Evolution Toward a Common Metric: ROI
Today’s marketers, helped by a variety of sophisticated automated bidding and analysis tools, are becoming increasingly savvy in calculating the performance of their search marketing initiatives. Some of the new technologies that are enabling ever more precise targeting of listings to maximize ROI include:

       Keyword research: This concept — long an integral part of search marketing campaigns — is expanding to include match type flexibility, exact terms, phrases, broad matching, and keyword exclusion features.

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