In case you didn’t know, we’re in tough economic times.  These economic conditions have drastically cut budgets across the nation and world, leaving meager allowances for marketing and advertising in its wake.

Nonetheless, expectations for 2010 remain optimistic.  In a new study released yesterday, StrongMail reveals nine out of ten business executives plan to maintain or increase their marketing budgets.  Execs aren’t thinking conventionally for the new decade either, instead the survey’s respondents indicated they were open to marketing strategies that utilize the Internet and maximize their dollar.  Next year, 69 and 59 percent of business executives anticipate increasing their email and social media marketing, respectively. Another 42 percent claimed they expect to spend more on search engine initiatives, such as SEO and PPC.  The survey’s results indicate a migration to internet marketing tactics, as advertising and direct mailing initiatives are expected by less than 30 percent of execs.

Furthermore, the study showed a desire among business executives to combine the tested and proven tactics of emailing potential customers with social media.  Execs did not, however, demonstrate uniform confidence about how they would go about implementing such strategies in the upcoming year.  Instead, one out of five executives claimed they had no idea where to begin.  With more businesses seeking to establish an online presence in hopes of finding cheaper alternatives to conventional advertising, it is certain that social media marketing and search engine initiatives will play integral roles in the year 2010.

Pay Per Click advertising is of course one of the fastest ways to achieve quick results in the search engines.  Natually, we all want our sites to be number one in Google organic rankings for all our most popular search terms but that just isn’t realistic.  PPC campaigns are a great way to bridge that gap while waiting for more natural rankings (assuming your are properly optimizing your site with SEO) or to launch a specific online ad campaign centered around a specific product launch, event, etc.

Part of the job of a qualified Internet marketing company is to educate the client on how their PPC campaign should be run, what keywords will be most effective, and how to acheive the best ROI.  Yes, we all want the best ROI possible but there are many subtle variations in every campaign that can save (or waste) tons of money.  Here are a few tips on how to put together a reasonable campaign with a limited budget in a highly competitive industry.  Keep in mind, these days, the more competitive the industry is out in the “real” world, the more competitive it usually is in the “virtual” world.

Don’t Be Unrealistic: This is where the education piece comes into play.  The first part of putting together an effective PPC campaign within a given daily/monthly/weekly budget is to research and analyze the industry and keywords associated.  The keywords searched the most each month will usually have the highest cost per click.  If you are in fact in a very competitive industry with terms running at $3 per click and up, you may want to consider starting with broader “long tail” keywords that focus on a specific niche within your industry.  Long tail keywords are generally searched less but are more specific and can actually result in a better conversion.  The keywords searched the most may drive tons of traffic but you have to then have the ability to maintain visibility for your listings and convert what traffic you do get to decrease the overall cost per conversion.

For example, if you only set a budget of $20 per day for a popular key term your campaign might reach its limit by 10 am and then you are done for the day!  Another aspect to consider is that if you are a little fish in a big pond, and your product does not compare well with the giants in the industry you may want to take that into consideration.  I am not saying don’t go for it, because I am extremely competitive by nature.  However, research where your competition falls short (and you excell) and consider starting there first.

So the bottom line is to be realistic in your choices of keywords at first.  Go after ones you can afford and follow some of the additional steps in order to use those less expensive key words to generate conversions (sales) and use that revenue to go after some of the more expensive terms.

Create a Budget and Stay Committed to it: If you are not the one directly handling the campaign, you may have hired a PPC management company or Internet marketing firm to do the job.  But you should know the details so you can plan accordingly.  If you are in a competitive industry with expensive keywords you need to consider what budget you allocate to the PPC effort.  Sometimes people are just way too unrealistic and commit only a small amount of money.  This is important to note because you need to consider all the aspects of a good PPC camapign:  research, website preparation (landing pages), implementation, analysis, adjustments, and more analysis.

If you are bidding $3 per click but selling a $5 item, it may not be worth it.  Ongoing analysis of the bounce rates and conversion rates will help with this process.  Additionally, continually monitoring your titles and descriptions is important for seeing which keywords are giving you the best return.  Sticking to the budget can be difficult if you are not seeing the ROI you want immediately but it takes some time to analyze the results before you can make adjustments that will improve those results.

The Six P’s: I am prior military and this might not be a common saying among civilians, but I know some of you have heard it.  Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.  It can never be more true than when spending money on PPC.  Let’s face it, organic SEO is much more of an “investment” as it takes time to see results.  PPC may take time to assess conversions and increased revenue but the visibiltiy in the SERPs happens at the flip of a swicth.

When I refer to planning I am really referring to the development of solid landing pages that will help convert that user who clicked on your PPC ad into a sale.  A landing page is basically a page on your site that is very specific to the ad and has very ovbious calls to action.  For example, if your ad appears for the term “Wedding Invitations” then your landing page should be specific ONLY to your wedding invitation products and services with calls to action like “BUY NOW”…you get the idea.  Sending specific PPC ads to your home page (especially the long tail terms mentioned above) will not result in good conversions as it requires too much extra effort for the user to find what you want them to find.

Timing is Everything: During the research process and throughout the whole campaign you need to research the best times of day for when people are searching for your product or service.  You may notice for example during the campaign that your click through rates are higher from 11 am to 2 pm and then pick up again at 7 PM.  Whatever it turns out to be, turn off the campaigns during the dead times so your visibiltiy will be more prominent during the more active hours.

Location, Location, Location: The great thing about Internet marketing using PPC is that you can further dial down on your target audience and stretch your budget using GEO-targeting.  For example, if you are a flower shop in downtown Chicago and only targeting people who live and work in the city, you probably do not want to run a competitive national campaign for “flowers”.  You can GEO-target the campaign so that only people within a given mile radius see the ads.  That way you are not wasting clicks on people who will most likely not be your customers.

All of these tips can be useful for any campaign…but are most useful when launching a campaign in a competitive industry.  Keep in mind for the most part pay per click marketing will only get more expensive, so plan accordingly.  Happy bidding!

One can embark on the most aggressive Internet marketing campaign utilizing targeted Pay-Per-Click and organic SEO implementation. However, these efforts are futile if your website is not structured for conversions. Proper website site structure begins and ends with the customer being guided through the website to reach the final ending point, the conversion (sale, lead, etc).

Here I have listed a few key points to improve the conversion rate on your website:

Place text on the left – This sounds strange but as we read books from left to right, so we view web pages. By placing attention grabbing and informative content on the left the user will naturally follow the flow of the page and take in the information

Calls-to-Action – These are the “Buy Now”, “Sign-Up” or “Join Now” buttons that enable the user to immediately convert. However, these titles are less effective than they used to be. Users are attracted to unique or specific content. A better call-to-action would be “Add ***** to your shopping cart” or “Check Out.” These titles are newer selling catch phrases, compared to the older phrases that have come become less trusted. Theses phrases should be placed strategically throughout the site in bold coloring and font.

Internal linking – Placing links to internal pages within the content of the page allows the user to immediately access the subject that was mentioned. Instead of having to scroll back and forth through pages this saves the user time and frustration getting to where he wants. Internally linking the pages of your site provides another form of navigation and leads the user to reaching the final ending point quicker.

Add a sitemap – During Web 1.0 the site map was not important. Users did not scroll down as much and computer screens were smaller. Now, part of Web 2.0 the sitemap has becoming the favored place to find everything contained in the site. This is usually a last ditch effort for the user to find what he is looking for. Not including a sitemap can aggravate and turn away a user who gives up and leaves your site.

There are many more aspects to consider. One should consult and Internet marketing company to fully optimize the conversion rate of your website.

Some of this blog will play on the concepts of my previous blog when discussing the topic of conversion rates and maximizing ROI.  Search engine marketing (or PPC) is one of the most important Internet marketing campaigns where ROI needs to be addressed constantly.  I know many companies that have spent upwards of $40,000 per month but achieved bounce rates of 96%!  That is basically like flushing tens of thousands of dollars down the toilet.  The reason they had such horrible results was because their campaigns were not optimized well, they used no landing pages, and all ads went to a slowly loading flash page with no calls to action of any kind.

With PPC, you really need to watch where every dollar goes.  Many Internet marketing companies will use Bid Management tools to effectively manage larger campaigns.  There have been many debates as to the effectiveness of Bid Management tools.  Some experts are for them, and some against.  In my opinion they are are an important part of the PPC tool kit for large ongoing PPC campaigns.  However, there are some good arguments against them that need to be kept in mind when managing campaigns.

First, bid management tools do provide a great resource for ongoing keyword research and effectiveness.  Second, they can help you really scale out large campaigns where you might be using 100,000 keyword variations.  Even a large Internet marketing company would not usually put a whole team in place to manage this without using some kind of Bid Management software.

On the other hand, some of the most important aspects of an effective PPC campaign happen outside the bid management software and require the “human” marketing touch.  Properly optimized landing pages and ad copy need to be continually monitored for effectiveness.  If a marketer just drops all the desired keywords into the bid management tool and lets it go, you will not achieve the best results.

Many times, companies like to use broad search terms and keywords associated with their brand that will drive traffic.  Many times, these keywords are great for traffic but do not perform well for conversions.  Conversions usually happen with much more targeted keywords.  Without monitoring the performance, some bid management tools might just shut off some of the most important keywords that the client wants to appear for.  Again, this is where the human touch needs to be applied.

The conclusion in my opinion is that bid management tools are very important for large campaigns but need to be used in conjunction with proper project management techniques by skilled marketers.

More on this later…