Paid search is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to our site from the major search engines. It can also suck our marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be us or the search engines? The goal of the search engines is more clicks. The more people click on our ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible within our budget are willing to do that all day long. The real goal should be “fewer clicks, lower cost with more conversions”. Let’s take a few minutes to look at some strategies that should make a difference in our campaigns.

1. Do not use Content Network in Google when you first set up a campaign default setting is set “on”. There are two things that you need to consider before turning on the content match. The first is: “The website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad”. Most click fraud happens is when an owner of a site clicks on these ads. The second is: “Individuals who click on these ads are most often, at the research end of the buying cycle. Limit those who click on your ads to those who are on the buying side of the cycle.

2. Use the most specific terms possible. In most cases the more general the term, less qualified the lead and the more the cost. Try to figure out which terms work best to get the ideal customer to the site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing creatives (ad copy). Use the following in your “headline” box: {keyword: “your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. You want to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer) so be specific. Add at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Landing pages require a great deal of thought. Landing page have one purpus, answer the questions that are on the mind of the searcher, the reason for the search. He entered his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution or is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. You must show him that you possess the answers to his needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. Tracking. Finally, track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at least weekly in order to catch market changes. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

Paid search is a great marketing tool, if used correctly. It can also, as stated earlier; dry up your budget in a heartbeat. It is a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing and does this day in and day out to help you than it is to lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

SEO which is short for Search Engine Optimization is the use of a key phrase in writing again and again in such a manner that they are in enough times, so that the search engine can easily identify it from a number writings with similar keywords. An Freelance SEO content writer writes the contents of the page in a web in such a manner that it will look very convincing to the search engine. There should no more usage of keywords and also low usage of key words.

A searcher will search in the search engines with keywords or key phrase of the matter they want to know. Search engines usually will rank the links according the keywords in which they contain. So in order to get top of the search engine results, the web pages have the most appropriate text and key words. Here is the importance of the job of an SEO writer, which is to write the contents that it will appear top in the searches of search engines. The job of an SEO content writer is to write the contents of the page in a manner that is very convincing to the search engine.

What an SEO content writer should be:

Broadly speaking the SEO writer not only has to satisfy the search engine by optimization of key words, but also have to make sense among the readers who read the contents. An SEO writer should know how to write using the key word again and again without an unnecessary keyword stuffing.

Necessarily an SEO content writer needs to be a good writer. Not only that, he should have some technical knowledge of how the source of the web page appears to the search engines. It is not necessary that an SEO writer to be an expert in creating web page, but a fair knowledge of XHTML and knowledge about aspects like rudimentary tags are necessary. An SEO content writer should be able to write the contents to the point, not just to write, in a clear literary form and in concise. The writer should not go for writing very rigid stuff, but be able to know the sense of the reader. The success of an SEO writer is bring in business to the website, rather than only bringing in tones of traffic.

Freelance SEO writers:

A content writer is one who is general about the content and is not bothered about the optimal use of key words in their content, where as an SEO writer is one who specializes in writing contents in such a manner that it best suits to the popular search engines. An SEO writer understands the importance of key words that it plays a major role for higher rankings in search to enable increased website traffic. A professional SEO writer can help to select to write the contents highly competitive keywords that tend to catch the attention of search engines while indexing, that a content writer can’t able to provide. An SEO writer can assure the required percentage of key word density to the contents of your website.

Marketing your small business on the Internet does not need to be expensive, nor does it need to be complicated. However, there is still a lot of confusion (and the associated mis-information) about how to market a bricks and mortar business on the net. Most small businesses continue to ignore the Internet as a promotional medium thinking that it does not apply to them. They continue to do this at their own peril.

And, just like in the real world, there are many small business marketing options available to you.

For small businesses Internet marketing can be a surprisingly low-cost way of promoting your local small business. This promotion can be targeted locally, regionally or across the globe.

So, these Internet marketing strategies are? How are they applied?

There are numerous approaches, and this is where most people get confused. In essence there are THREE main approaches to small business Internet marketing, being…

1. PPC marketing (Pay per click marketing, e.g. Google Adwords), and… 2. Information link marketing (linked via content on a specific topic), and… 3. Educational search marketing (all involving original content that educates).

So, with these different approaches, what are the pros and cons?

1. PAID SEARCH MARKETING:

Paid search marketing is paid advertising. You pay for your ad to be placed before people searching on specific keyterms. The effectiveness of your PPC campaign is directly related to the keyterms you chose to use, as well as the sales path you set up on your landing page (where people land when they click on your PPC link).

The PROS: You get your ad before prospects quickly.

The CONS: A) Specialist skills required. And, you can lose a lot of money, fast! B) PPC specialists are not cheap. C) You continually need to run your ads. D) Can be very costly (especially for commercial keyterms). You only get to play as long as you continue to pay.

2. CONTEXT within CONTEXT LINK MARKETING:

By utilizing other people’s keyword focused and existing content you’re able to promote your local business (say you’re an accountant) via other people’s focused content. This is a commercial pay per click arrangement between the content creator, yourself (the advertiser) and the in-context web system that matches the two parties in the arrangement.

The PROS: Information is the currency of the Internet. When you use these embedded hyperlinked, and within context ads correctly they can be a very effective advertising medium for small business. The clickthroughs may be lower than the PPC model, but the quality of visitor is usually much higher.

The CONS: A) Competition for commercial keyterms is fierce. This continually drives your costs up. And, you only get to play as long as you continue to pay. B) You have limited control over where these hyperlinks are placed, because it’s the In-Context advertising system that places these links in the participating publisher’s content for you. C) To get best results here one needs to utilize specific landing pages for the clickthroughs from your different ads. This is called the search path, and again it’s a specialist skill that’s needed to set up good search path landing pages.

3. NATURAL SEARCH MARKETING:

Think about this. How do YOU use the web? I’ll guarantee you that if you’re looking for a solution to a problem that you do what millions of other people do everyday. You go to your favorite search engine (usually Google) and type in your problem (a.k.a. keyphrase). Then, your search engine presents you will likely answers. When a small business interfaces with the fundamental reality of the way people use the Internet THEY win.

Note: It’s important to understand that search marketing is different from SEO. SEO is a term used to describe the optimization of a web site and its pages for the search engines to be able to spider pages correctly.

The PROS: With natural search marketing tactics properly applied to the marketing of a small business it has a distinct advantage on the net. Why? Well, marketing analysis has determined that people purchase 90% of their needs from within a 10 miles radius of where they actually physically live. As people use the web more and more in daily life it is natural that if these same people find YOUR local business when they search the web for a solution to a problem that YOU then become their chosen solution. This is search marketing in action, locally.

The CONS: A) Search marketing strategies take longer to mature than the other methods discussed, however the cost-effectiveness and long-term results are better. C) The commitment must be to the continual addition of fresh content to the keyword-focused, theme-related content systems developed. However, for any business owner who knows their business and loves it this is never an onerous task.

And so, to summarize… There is great divide between those business who understand the web and how to market on it and those who don’t. However, your opportunity to market your own small business on the web is now, while this confusion still exists in the marketplace.

In very simply words, link popularity refers to the number and quality of the links that are pointing to your site. In the engine’s view, your site is considered important as well. These other sites consider your site important enough to link to. What is meant by link popularity can get much more complex, which is discussed further in this article. Now that we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get down to business: learning ways to increase the link popularity of our sites.

However, one of the most difficult areas of SEO services is building link popularity. Try those strategies now and you can easily find yourself booted out of an engine. Solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with the search engines. In SEO, factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. Why? Because the engines don’t want artificially created links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link building exchange programs are over.

Rather, the engines want links from authoritative sites, or links from sites that share the same focus as your site. After each strategy, we briefly attributed it to the SEO who sent it to us, and then we provided a list of all contributors along with their companies and URL’s at the end of the article. To write this article, we went to professional search engine optimizers for their ideas. But besides the link popularity you gain by getting an authoritative site to link to you, you also gain additional visibility for your Web site. So, if you work on building link popularity, don’t forget those two basic reasons and details for requesting links.

If you use them as recommended in this article, you will have no problems. Keep in mind that these strategies aren’t in any particular order. When looking through this links, you may find strategies that are subject to abuse. Also, keep in mind that though it isn’t always stated explicitly, we’re always referring to related and important or authoritative sites as our targets.