Time for Internet Marketing

Internet marketing takes time. Let’s say you started a new site today, including getting a new URL. It will be some time - weeks or months - before Google even indexes your site. It could be the greatest web site in cyber history - no matter, it will take time for the search engines to check out your site, make sure it’s legit and start presenting it in search results.

Your next step should be SEO and PPC. They take time. Many regard PPC as instant gratification internet marketing; it can get you on the front page of search results in no time. While that is true, only between 20% and 30% of surfers choose from paid search results. You need SEO and SEO takes time.

Other internet marketing methods take time too. Have you heard a lot about social media marketing? It takes time. Blogging? More time. Researching ways to optimize your social media and blogging campaigns? Full time.

Who has time for internet marketing? You do. Time is money. The more time you spend on your internet marketing – all of it, from SEO to participating in forums – the better the payoff will be.

You can hire others to do it, but that costs money. Get through the mystique of internet marketing, and you’ll find it’s DIY friendly. Indeed, you’re probably the best person to do it. If you have the time.

Where will you find the time? You’ll make time. Set it aside; regularly; daily; without fail. Do so, give your internet marketing enough time and you’ll start to be found, make contacts and generate business.

By Stephen Da Cambra

Insulate Your Home, Not Your Web Site

We recently finished developing a web site for a customer who, long after he approved designs and layouts, would still point out other sites that he thought had some redeeming feature.

Without fail, within seconds of seeing the other sites, we were able to point out why his site design will be far better at generating business. 

Fortunately, the customer understands that generating new business on the internet means driving traffic to his web site.  He has contracted us to carry out SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click advertising) campaigns, both of which will get him lots of traffic.

So, how can we tell, from only a quick glance at a homepage, that another site will probably not generate as much business as his?  (Even if they do lots of SEO and PPC.)

Our customer’s product helps to insulate homes and that’s what the other sites were doing – OK, they didn’t increase the R-value in anyone’s house - but they insulated their web visitors from a call to action.

None of the other sites had a contact telephone number, or even an email address, plainly visible on the homepage.  There were a few nice designs (some almost as good as ours!), but still, web visitors would have to click on the “Contact Us” page, or scroll deeper in the homepage, to find a number to call or some other way of converting.

These extra steps are like layers of insulation between your customer and the most important information on your site.

The more “insulation” on your site, the less chance you have of converting your hard-earned visitors.

Driving traffic to your site isn’t an end, it’s a beginning.  Once you get them there, you should make it as easy as possible for web site visitors to become customers.

By Stephen Da Cambra

The Shocking Truth About Google Ranking

If you have any interest in internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and/or pay-per-click advertising (PPC), you know how important it is to get a high ranking in search results when customers search the net for companies and products like yours.

An examination of the exact numbers, as published by SEOBook.com, really drives home the point.  Without further delay….

The Distribution Of Clicks According to Search Ranking

          Rank Position      % of Clicks         

1                                                  42.13%                

2                                                        11.9

3                                                     8.5

4                                                         6.06

5                                                        4.92

6                                                        4.05

7                                                       3.41

8                                                         3.01

9                                                       2.85

10                                                     2.9

2^nd page +                10.18

 

While the bare numbers are incredible, a closer look really shows what the difference in moving a single position can mean for your web results.

Right off the top, there is an almost 400% increase in clicks between second and top spot.  Imagine getting four times the web results you get now.

On first glance, the difference between subsequent ranking positions does not seem very profound.  However, when you consider that you would get an immediate 19% increase in clicks if you managed to move your site from seventh to sixth – and a 33% increase from fourth to third, all of a sudden you realize there’s a lot at stake between almost every rank position.

There are two important points to be taken from this information. 

First, if you are not on the first page of search results, you are invisible to 90% of your potential customers (and probably more, because a large percentage of those going to the second page and lower are conducting non-business related research.) 

Second, if you’ve managed to get your site onto the first page that’s good, but you shouldn't stop trying for a higher rank.  You can increase your business exponentially each step you take up the ladder to number one. 

So start climbing!

By Stephen Da Cambra

The Story of SEO & PPC

You may wonder whether SEO or PPC is better for achieving your business goals.  Their purposes are the same – to get your site listed on the top pages of search results.

As with most internet marketing, there are few rules to follow in making a choice.  Many companies rely on the “quick to the top” guaranteed rankings that come with PPC advertising.  Others prefer to avoid the click charges and concentrate on the “natural” rankings that SEO produces.

As with most internet marketing, you go with what works for you.  But don’t let what works for you blind you to what can work better. 

As with most internet marketing, there are downsides to individual tactics.  PPC ads will get your site listed on top search results pages almost instantly, but most surfers are aware that PPC ads are paid advertising and prefer to choose from the natural rankings. 

SEO will get you those coveted natural rankings, but it will take a long time and concerted effort to do so.

To avoid the downsides of SEO and PPC, and take advantage of the upsides, use them together.

If you have a long-term internet marketing plan, and you should, make sure it includes a concerted SEO and PPC strategy. 

The real beauty of a combined SEO/PPC strategy is that the advantages of one counteract the disadvantages of the other.

If a first page natural search ranking is your goal, there is little chance of getting there quickly.  Especially with a new web site, the search engines have to find the site, register it and then monitor it for legitimacy and relevance.  Unless you use buckets of cash, it can take many months or more than a year to get a decent natural search ranking. 

That’s where PPC comes in.  PPC immediately puts your site on the first page of search results, so it get’s exposure while you build the site’s reputation naturally with SEO.

When you start seeing decent rankings from your SEO efforts, you can start reducing your PPC spend until the natural rankings are where you want them to be.

By Stephen Da Cambra

The M.O. of PPC

Let’s say you woke up this morning with a sure-fire idea for a new product or business.  How long do you think it will take to generate sales?

A year?  6 months?  1 month?

How about this morning?  Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements are those links that appear along the top and right side of your Google results page, under a “Sponsored Links” heading.  PPC advertisers pay for the ads according to the number of times the ads are clicked.

In the time it takes to set up a Google Adwords account, PPC ads put your message in front of web surfers who are looking for products and services like yours.

(Actually, you’ll also need some kind of web presence, even a single page, for people to land on when they click your PPC ad, but, if you don’t sleep-in too long, you should still be able to have lunch while selling your new product online.)

Admittedly, this is not a typical scenario, but it is quite possible and anyone can do it from the comfort of his or her nearest computer.

Whether you take the quickie route, or execute a more planned PPC campaign, much of its success depends on one thing:

Writing.

There is only one measure of success for a PPC campaign. (yes, it’s another acronym)  CTR, or Click Through Rate, is the number of times your ad is clicked versus the number of times it appears in search results.  The higher your CTR, the more successful your PPC campaign.

In the absence of graphics and any real design, the only way a surfer can judge a PPC ad is by its words – and how they are written.

As the PPC marketing world becomes more crowded, PPC ad writing becomes more important.  There is perhaps no other part of internet marketing where so much depends on so few words.  (For the record, the title, or first line of your PPC ad must be 25 characters or less and the subsequent two lines must each be 35 characters or less – and you thought Twitter was stingy! – try selling a car in that time!)

For a quick lesson in good and bad PPC ad writing, think of something you would like to buy, be as specific as possible, and search for it on Google.  You might have to try a couple times, but pay attention to those PPC ads you find most appealing – then pay attention to why.

By Stephen Da Cambra