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><channel><title>Yield Software &#187; PPC</title> <atom:link href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/tag/ppc/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com</link> <description>Web Marketing Made Easy</description> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 21:57:31 +0000</lastBuildDate> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=abc</generator> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <item><title>Introducing Power Editing and Custom Reporting</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/10/introducing-power-editing-and-custom-reporting/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/10/introducing-power-editing-and-custom-reporting/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:06:36 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Matt Malden</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Yield Software News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Campaign Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Custom Reporting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[paid search]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Power Editing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC measurement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[reporting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Yield Web Marketing Suite]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2824</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>New Advanced Features Make PPC Campaign Creation, Active Campaign Editing and Reporting More Flexible, Efficient and Effective for both Business and Agency SEM Managers</h3><p
style="text-align: left;">As our customer base has grown from mainly smaller business to larger and more complex enterprises and&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>New Advanced Features Make PPC Campaign Creation, Active Campaign Editing and Reporting More Flexible, Efficient and Effective for both Business and Agency SEM Managers</h3><p
style="text-align: left;">As our customer base has grown from mainly smaller business to larger and more complex enterprises and agencies who conduct equally complex search marketing campaigns, the team here at Yield Software responded with the creation of two new features, which I think you&#8217;ll love instantly: Power Editing and Custom Reporting.  Now, those who manage more sophisticated search marketing campaigns are able to leverage the many features and options already available to them in the Yield Web Marketing Suite, but with even greater speed and efficiency.</p><p>Power Editing is a new part of the Paid Search Optimizer module in the <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="New Custom Reporting expands on the already robust tracking and reporting infrastructure in the Yield Web Marketing Suite.  Search engine marketers can now customize reports to display exactly the data and analytics they need to be successful in every aspect of their search marketing and search engine optimization efforts.    Yield Software Custom Reporting enables users of the Yield Web Marketing Suite to design reports; save those report definitions;  share reports; generate reports; and schedule reports to be delivered via email on a periodic basis. " target="_self">Yield Web Marketing Suite</a>.  It enables managers of PPC campaigns to quickly and efficiently establish and then edit very large, complex campaigns of up to thousands of ad groups, with multiple ads in each group targeting many thousands of keywords or more across Google, Yahoo and Bing.</p><p>New Custom Reporting expands on the already robust tracking and reporting infrastructure in the Yield Web Marketing Suite.  Search engine marketers can now customize reports to display exactly the data and analytics they need to be successful in every aspect of their search marketing and search engine optimization efforts.</p><p>Yield Software Custom Reporting enables users of the Yield Web Marketing Suite to design reports; save those report definitions;  share reports; generate reports; and schedule reports to be delivered via email on a periodic basis.  I know many of our agency customers, in particular, have been anxiously awaiting this new feature and I look forward to hearing how you like it.</p><p>If you have any questions about these new features or would like to see a demonstration of how to put them to best use, don&#8217;t hesitate to contact a customer success rep either at <strong>support[at]yieldsoftware[dot]com</strong> or 1-877-943-5379.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/10/introducing-power-editing-and-custom-reporting/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Five Ways to Sky Rocket your CTR Over Lunch</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/4-ways-to-improve-your-ctr/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/4-ways-to-improve-your-ctr/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:58:25 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Adwords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Campaign Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[CTR]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2758</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p
style="text-align: center;"><strong> </strong><strong> </strong></p><p
style="text-align: left;"></p><p
style="text-align: left;"><strong>Are you satisfied with the click-through rate of your Google Adwords campaign?</strong></p><p>If you’ve taken the time to target relevant keywords and feel you have a compelling offer in your ad copy, it can be incredibly frustrating when the CTR for&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p
style="text-align: center;"><strong> </strong><strong> </strong></p><p
style="text-align: left;"><p
style="text-align: left;"><strong>Are you satisfied with the click-through rate of your Google Adwords campaign?</strong></p><p>If you’ve taken the time to target relevant keywords and feel you have a compelling offer in your ad copy, it can be incredibly frustrating when the CTR for your campaign just isn’t at an acceptable level.</p><p>If you want to give your click-through rate on Google AdWords a boost, here are five super fast moves you can make:</p><blockquote><p>1)      <strong>Try out Modified Broad Match.</strong> Look for keywords with a low CTR that are on broad match.  Start using modified broad match for these keywords.  You can do this by putting a + sign before the most important words in the keyword phrase.  Here’s more on how it works from <a
href="http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=175280" target="_blank">Google AdWords</a>.</p><p>2)      <strong>Target the same geographic area, but at a lower level.</strong> Target all the individual states instead of the United States, or target all the individual cities instead of a state.  This will get you an extra line on your ad copy and make you appear more relevant to searchers.</p><p><img
class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2802" title="geographic-target-in-ppc-ad" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/extra-target-line.JPG" alt="geographic-target-in-ppc-ad" width="202" height="70" /></p><p>3)      <strong>Add in Negative Keywords.</strong> Weed out irrelevant impressions by adding in negative keywords.  Go to Keywords – See Search Terms.  Identify any words that aren’t relevant and add them in as negative keywords.</p><p><img
class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2803" title="adwords-search-terms" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/see-search-terms.png" alt="adwords-search-terms" width="361" height="168" /></p><p>4)      <strong>Fine-tune where your ads display. </strong>Change your campaign settings to show ads on Search network only (rather than Search &amp; Content network).  Also, set your campaign device setting to show your ads on computers only instead of computers and mobile devices.</p><p><img
class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2806" title="campaign-settings" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/campaign-settings.JPG" alt="campaign-settings" width="230" height="58" /></p><p>5)      <strong>Give your ad some more bold.</strong> Copy your best performing ad.  Add it to the ad group with keywords with the lowest CTR.  Put the main keywords from the ad group into the page title, once in the description lines and preceding or trailing the URL display (separated by dashes.)  After adding in this ad, pause the worst-performing ad in the ad group.</p><p><img
class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2805" title="ad-with-keywords-repeated" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/keywords-3-times1.JPG" alt="ad-with-keywords-repeated" width="198" height="57" /></p></blockquote><p>Improving your CTR has a direct impact on your quality score and therefore your ad position and cost you pay per click.  So it’s important to shoot for the moon by making regular adjustments to continually improve your performance.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/4-ways-to-improve-your-ctr/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Agency Tips: Taking On a Client’s PPC Campaign</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/taking-over-a-client%e2%80%99s-ppc-campaign/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/taking-over-a-client%e2%80%99s-ppc-campaign/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:44:31 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Agencies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Campaign Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Adwords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[client campaigns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[clients ppc]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC campaigns]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2591</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Seven Easy Steps to Get the Job Done Fast</h3><p>Let&#8217;s face it: taking on a client&#8217;s legacy pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is a little like the tortures of the damned.  Most agencies starting with a new client will instinctively want to just&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Seven Easy Steps to Get the Job Done Fast</h3><p>Let&#8217;s face it: taking on a client&#8217;s legacy pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is a little like the tortures of the damned.  Most agencies starting with a new client will instinctively want to just start fresh &#8212; make a clean break from the past and just build something perfect from the word go.</p><p>But remember the old adage &#8220;no pain, no gain.&#8221;</p><p>Even though your client’s old, poorly-built pay-per-click campaign may cause a gag reflex, an &#8220;incremental improvement&#8221; approach is still best.  Making incremental changes provides the ability to effectively track the impact of each one while avoiding the kinds of radical end-results that may feel too extreme to the client.  This approach also clearly demonstrates your value to the client.</p><p>Here&#8217;s some rules we&#8217;ve learned along the way to on-board your new client&#8217;s PPC campaigns smoothly and efficiently:</p><p>1)  <strong>Set expectations.</strong> Unrealistic expectations pertaining to online advertising still abound.  Many clients expect extremely low click costs and 100 percent of visitors to their website to convert.  Make sure to at least do level-setting on cost, conversions and how long it will take before the campaign will get to target goals.</p><p>2) <strong>Set-up campaign monitoring and review schedules.</strong> Unrealistic expectations about PPC advertising are usually accompanied by ignorance on how to view and judge campaign performance.  Create custom reports for your clients to keep them focused on the same metrics you’ll be focusing on.  It’s also helpful to set up frequent review calls initially to guide the client on how to interpret results.</p><p>3)  <strong>Adjust the campaign settings.</strong> This is an easy place to start after importing a client&#8217;s campaign and is an important foundation to have in place before attempting other optimizations.  Some common mistakes we see in the settings are targeting in the search and content networks, targeting computers and mobile devices, targeting more than one language, targeting too big of a geographic area and not taking advantage of ad extensions. Here’s a blog post on some commonly overlooked <a
href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/ppc-campaign-settings-networks-devices-ad-extensions-ad-scheduling/" target="_blank">PPC campaign settings</a> that will help make an impact.</p><p>4)  <strong>Build-out an exhaustive negative keywords list.</strong> This is another crucial element to have in place before you start to judge the performance of other keywords.  One easy place to start to find negative keywords (aside from our own <a
href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/agencies/">Yield Web Marketing Suite for Agencies</a> application) is to look inside of AdWords at the keyword list and clicking the &#8220;See Search Terms&#8221; button.  This shows all of the actual search queries that triggered an ad and then a click.   Having negative keyword lists of at least several hundred (if not a couple thousand) keywords is most effective.</p><p>5)  <strong>Turn off poor performing keywords.</strong> Get rid of the low hanging fruit.  Usually we’ll find some single term keywords set to broad match with a horrible quality score, low CTR, poor traffic quality, no assists and really high cost per conversion.  Eliminate all the budget hogs that just don’t deliver.  (Watch this carefully, however.  Many poorly-built campaigns may, nevertheless, have been delivering traffic that converts by phone or upon repeat visits that don&#8217;t show up in conversion reports.  If you delete what appears to be a poor-performing keyword and traffic or offline conversions tank, be the first to spot this and make corrections as appropriate!)</p><p>6)  <strong>Organize tight-knit ad groups with highly relevant ad copy and landing pages.</strong> Organize the “keeper” keywords from the campaign into very small ad groups.  As part of this process, we re-write the ads for each ad group using basic, solid copy along with snippets that have performed well in the past.  Tailor the ad copy and landing pages for each of the ad groups as much as practicable.</p><p>7)  <strong>Expand on keyword areas that perform.</strong> Now that all the ducks are in a row, you can start to build out robust keyword lists for the areas that have shown performance potential.  This can include adding new match types and singular / plural variations into the ad groups you set up in step 5, or expanding in new directions for performing keyword themes and with new ad groups.</p><p>Once you’re done, you’ll have a campaign that is delivering results, and easy to monitor and continually improve.  And you&#8217;ll also have a client who remained heart attack-free throughout the process!</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/taking-over-a-client%e2%80%99s-ppc-campaign/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Yield Software CEO Interviewed at SES-San Francisco</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/yield-software-ceo-interviewed-at-ses-san-francisco/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/yield-software-ceo-interviewed-at-ses-san-francisco/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:53:18 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Yield Software News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jamie O'Donnell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[landing page optimization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Matt Malden]]></category> <category><![CDATA[natural search]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO-PR]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SES San Francisco 2010]]></category> <category><![CDATA[web marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Yield Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Yield Web Marketing Suite]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2479</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Explaining the Yield Web Marketing Suite</h3><p></p><p>Jamie O&#8217;Donnell of SEO-PR interviews Matt Malden, CEO of Yield Software and an exhibitor at last month&#8217;s SES San Francisco 2010.  Here&#8217;s a synopsys of Jamie&#8217;s reporting:</p><p>Yield Software&#8217;s <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/product-overview/" target="_self">Yield Web Marketing Suite</a> handles three aspects of&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Explaining the Yield Web Marketing Suite</h3><p><object
classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="580" height="325" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param
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type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="580" height="325" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DgsqP_bhfcA?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p><p>Jamie O&#8217;Donnell of SEO-PR interviews Matt Malden, CEO of Yield Software and an exhibitor at last month&#8217;s SES San Francisco 2010.  Here&#8217;s a synopsys of Jamie&#8217;s reporting:</p><p>Yield Software&#8217;s <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/product-overview/" target="_self">Yield Web Marketing Suite</a> handles three aspects of automated web marketing. It has a pay-per-click (PPC) bid management module that includes spending on the three major search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  Second, the Yield Web Marketing Suite offers automated SEO or natural search engine optimization. Using the Yield Web Marketing Suite, Web marketers can get higher organic search rankings for their important keywords and learn how to improve their landing pages, link building, on-page and off-page optimization. Finally, the Yield Web Marketing Suite offers Web marketers a landing page optimization module. Using Yield, marketers can conduct complex multivariate testing of landing pages, using a visual drag and drop interface to automatically implement recommendations.</p><p>Yield Software is great for advertisers who want to be more effective in the search space, particularly medium and large-sized companies. Yield Software has also been adopted by digital and interactive media agencies that are conducting bid management, natural search optimization and email campaigns in order to help them generate better search marketing results.</p><p>Yield Software empowers any organization in the world to attract high-value customers at the lowest cost. Using advanced algorithms and techniques, the Yield Web Marketing Suite optimizes internet marketing expenditures, attracts visitors to a web site and tunes web page content to have the greatest impact.</p><p>For more information about exhibiting at SES, please visit: <a
style="outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 12px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; color: #0033cc; text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" title="http://searchenginestrategies.com" dir="ltr" rel="nofollow" href="http://searchenginestrategies.com/" target="_blank">http://searchenginestrategies.com</a></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/09/yield-software-ceo-interviewed-at-ses-san-francisco/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Announcing Our New PPC Bid Management Offering</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/announcing-our-new-ppc-bid-management-offering/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/announcing-our-new-ppc-bid-management-offering/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:11:51 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Matt Malden</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Campaign Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Yield Software News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[free]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEM]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2344</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite Debuts</h3><p>We&#8217;ve been busy at Yield Software &#8212; this is the second <a
title="Yield Software-Marchex Integration" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/call-tracking-enabled-in-yield-web-marketing-suite/" target="_self">big announcement</a> in as many weeks, and there&#8217;s more to come &#8212; and today&#8217;s announcement is going to make a lot of businesses happy.  Today&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite Debuts</h3><p>We&#8217;ve been busy at Yield Software &#8212; this is the second <a
title="Yield Software-Marchex Integration" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/call-tracking-enabled-in-yield-web-marketing-suite/" target="_self">big announcement</a> in as many weeks, and there&#8217;s more to come &#8212; and today&#8217;s announcement is going to make a lot of businesses happy.  Today we released the newest version of our flagship offering, which we&#8217;re calling <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/lite/" target="_self">Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite</a>.  It&#8217;s a completely free version focused just on PPC campaign management for smaller budgets.</p><p>Advertisers continue to shift from more traditional advertising channels, such as direct mail, spot cable, radio, and print ads, to online marketing channels, especially search engine marketing (SEM).  However, many are unsuccessful in their SEM efforts and fail to generate the desired returns from their marketing campaigns.</p><p>Search engine marketing is a competitive and dynamic marketplace.  Manually managing SEM campaigns requires significant domain knowledge and expertise, including understanding bid and competitive dynamics, keyword selection, geo-targeting, conversion tracking, traffic analytics and many other factors.</p><p>The Yield Web Marketing Suite automates SEM campaigns using our proprietary bid optimization algorithm, enabling businesses to better compete in PPC advertising.  With the introduction of Yield Web Marketing Suite Lite, it’s now also the only algorithmically-driven bid management solution that optimizes campaigns across all three major search engines simultaneously and is completely free.  Advertisers can manage up to $500 per month in PPC advertising at no charge.  For those who choose to increase their monthly ad budgets or who wish to also use the other two modules in the Yield Web Marketing Suite (Natural Search Optimizer and Landing Page Optimizer) can simply upgrade to our standard system.  Together with our <a
title="Free SEO Analyzer" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/seo-analyzer/" target="_self">free SEO Analyzer</a>, companies operating under tight marketing budgets now have two important tools to better their web marketing performance at no cost to them.</p><p>Check it out and let us know what you think.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/announcing-our-new-ppc-bid-management-offering/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Call Tracking Enabled in Yield Web Marketing Suite</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/call-tracking-enabled-in-yield-web-marketing-suite/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/call-tracking-enabled-in-yield-web-marketing-suite/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:19:10 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Matt Malden</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Yield Software News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Call Tracking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conversion events]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conversions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marchex]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ROI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEM]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2309</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Marchex Integration Now Live and Available</h3><p>This morning we officially announced the availability of a new call tracking feature in our Yield Web Marketing Suite for <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/product-overview/" target="_self">Advertisers</a> and for <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite for Agencies" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/agencies/" target="_self">Agencies</a> through an integration with <a
title="Marchex" href="http://www.marchex.com/" target="_blank">Marchex</a> Call Analytics.  This is a feature many of our&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Marchex Integration Now Live and Available</h3><p>This morning we officially announced the availability of a new call tracking feature in our Yield Web Marketing Suite for <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/product-overview/" target="_self">Advertisers</a> and for <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite for Agencies" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/agencies/" target="_self">Agencies</a> through an integration with <a
title="Marchex" href="http://www.marchex.com/" target="_blank">Marchex</a> Call Analytics.  This is a feature many of our users have been eagerly awaiting so we&#8217;re pretty excited to announce that it&#8217;s live for all users.  For those who don&#8217;t know about Marchex, what this means is search marketers and their agencies can now track and optimize sales  and conversions from search engine pay-per-click (PPC) ads or natural search results that lead to a telephone call as opposed to an online transaction.</p><p>For many of our users, a call to a telephone number is the  conversion event inspired by their search engine ad or natural search result.  By integrating with Marchex, the  leader in call analytics, search marketing professionals or their agencies managing  campaigns in the Yield Web Marketing Suite are now able to effectively  track and evaluate the efficacy of their search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns with a call conversion  event.  Many of you have told us the reason your company or agency clients love PPC advertising is the ability  to effectively track ROI on campaigns, but, of course, those who’ve relied on telephone  calls as the conversion event have often been frustrated at the  inability to attribute those calls to the advertising source.  The Yield  Software–Marchex integration eliminates this ROI tracking gap in SEM.</p><p>One of our customers, Michael Cody at <a
href="http://www.yellowpagehelp.com/"><span
style="text-decoration: underline;">Directory Assistants</span></a>, Inc., was a beta-tester of the new feature and here&#8217;s the feedback he gave me:</p><blockquote><p>&#8220;As specialists in search and directional marketing for small and  mid-size businesses, a disproportionate number of our clients rely on  calls as their conversion event for PPC advertising.  Now we’re able to effectively manage PPC campaigns across  Google, Yahoo! and Bing search engines on behalf of our clients while  accurately attributing each conversion – no matter how those might occur  – to the right campaign source.&#8221;</p></blockquote><p>We&#8217;ve also included built-in reporting tools and analyses in the Yield Web Marketing Suite, so both our advertiser and agency customers now have greater visibility into the  impact of your marketing initiatives, which means you can more effectively  leverage SEM as a key component of your larger marketing  mix.</p><p>For current subscribers to the Yield Web Marketing Suite, simply:</p><ol><blockquote><li>Login.</li><li>Click on either the Paid Search Optimizer tab.</li><li>In the Paid Search Optimizer module, click into an existing campaign or set up a new campaign.</li><li>Under &#8220;Quick Links&#8221; in the right-hand column, click on &#8220;Set Up Conversion Events&#8221;.</li><li>In the Conversion Events page, scroll down to the &#8220;Marchex Conversion Events&#8221; section and click on &#8220;Create a Marchex Conversion Event&#8221; link.</li><li>Follow the simple instructions; once your conversion event is set up, you&#8217;ll be able to track all your call conversion events in the Reports tab, along side all your other conversion event tracking data.</li></blockquote></ol><p>As always, our customer success reps are available to help you out if you questions or require assistance.  Let us know what you think of this new feature&#8211;we built it for you and hope you get great results from it.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/call-tracking-enabled-in-yield-web-marketing-suite/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Get the Most from Google AdWords Sitelinks</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/get-the-most-from-google-adwords-sitelinks/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/get-the-most-from-google-adwords-sitelinks/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:29:35 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Adwords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Campaign Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Google]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ad extensions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[click-through rate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[CTR]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sitelinks]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2286</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3><strong>Some How-to&#8217;s for Increasing CTRs<br
/> </strong></h3><p>First off, just in case you are not yet using them, <a
href="http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38;answer=164778">Sitelinks ad extensions</a> are now available to all AdWords advertisers.   These extra links to your website display with your ad when 1) your keyword and ad&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3><strong>Some How-to&#8217;s for Increasing CTRs<br
/> </strong></h3><p>First off, just in case you are not yet using them, <a
href="http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=164778">Sitelinks ad extensions</a> are now available to all AdWords advertisers.   These extra links to your website display with your ad when 1) your keyword and ad combo has an awesome quality score and 2) your ad appears in the top positions of the search page.</p><p>Google, and many others have seen <a
href="http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/06/ad-sitelinks-now-available-for-any.html">CTRs increase an average of 30%</a> with Sitelinks, so they are really an incredible opportunity to boost the performance of your AdWords advertising.</p><p><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2291" title="sitelinks-screenshot" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sitelinks-screenshot.jpg" alt="sitelinks-screenshot" width="563" height="159" /></p><p>AdWords allows you to enter up to 10 additional Sitelinks.  When creating your Sitelinks, it’s important to be mindful of the order in which you enter them.  The first two that you enter will get the most impressions, so be sure to make those your most compelling.  It’s also quite rare to see more than 4-6 display with an ad, so there’s no need to spend much effort going beyond six links.</p><p>In analyzing how Sitelinks are being used, many advertisers have started out by just including category type links highlighting different sections of their website.</p><p><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2290" title="sears-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sears-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="sears-sitelink-example" width="458" height="68" /></p><p>These ads still stand out more than the average ad due to their increased size and coloring.  But, we are advertisers after all, so why miss out on an additional opportunity to advertise and sell, sell, sell!</p><p>Each of the Sitelinks can include up to 35 characters, so this is not an advertising opportunity to take lightly.  Here are some tips on how to put those Sitelinks to strong advertising use:</p><ul><blockquote><li><strong>Incorporate offers</strong>.   Not only does it make the offers and ads stand out, but it’s also super easy to maintain.  Be sure when the searcher clicks on link they are taken to a page that includes the promotional offer.</li></blockquote></ul><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2289" title="macys-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/macys-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="macys-sitelink-example" width="470" height="63" /></p><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2292" title="t-mobile-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/t-mobile-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="t-mobile-sitelink-example" width="471" height="48" /></p><ul><blockquote><li><strong>Include your phone number.</strong> Numbers always stand out in ads and on search pages, so why not have your phone number in bright blue directly underneath your ad?  This is a good opportunity to link to your contact us page.</li></blockquote></ul><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2294" title="oceanplaza-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oceanplaza-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="oceanplaza-sitelink-example" width="466" height="50" /></p><blockquote><ul><li><strong>Offers with numbers.</strong> While we are on the subject of numbers, incorporating the details of your offer in numbers can really stand out.  Here we see some repetition that makes the ad stand out quite a bit.</li></ul></blockquote><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2293" title="travelzoo-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/travelzoo-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="travelzoo-sitelink-example" width="470" height="42" /></p><blockquote><ul><li><strong>Incorporate all ad best practices</strong>.  Initial caps, strong calls to action, exclamation points, numbers… this is just another place to use all those <a
href="../../2010/04/adding-flair-to-ppc-ads/">pieces of flair</a> that have been successful in your text ads in the past.</li></ul></blockquote><p>A few words of caution:</p><blockquote><ul><li><strong>Less can be more.</strong> While advertisers jump at the chance for all this extra ad text, going overboard can end up making your ad be too hard to digest in the split second that a searcher wants to dedicate to deciphering if it’s worth a click.</li></ul></blockquote><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2287" title="jcpenney-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/jcpenney-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="jcpenney-sitelink-example" width="462" height="62" /></p><blockquote><ul><li><strong>Stay current.</strong> Keep Sitelinks up to date for the season and current offers.</li></ul></blockquote><p
style="padding-left: 60px;"><img
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2288" title="lowes-sitelink-example" src="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/lowes-sitelink-example.jpg" alt="lowes-sitelink-example" width="463" height="64" /></p><p>While in the beginning of summer grills, patio furniture and air conditioners were hot items, as fall approaches these might be what the searcher is most interested in.</p><p>Start getting crafty with your Sitelinks today and watch your CTRs climb.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/get-the-most-from-google-adwords-sitelinks/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Divining the Importance of a PPC Bid</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/divining-the-importance-of-a-ppc-bid/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/divining-the-importance-of-a-ppc-bid/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:07:14 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Google]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Planning and Budgeting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bid strategy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bids]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Quality Score]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2272</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Goldilocks Syndrome or How to Find the Porridge that is Just Right</h3><p>Most companies we talk to spend their time coming up with keyword lists and writing ads.  But when it comes time to setting bids, they either don’t have the&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Goldilocks Syndrome or How to Find the Porridge that is Just Right</h3><p>Most companies we talk to spend their time coming up with keyword lists and writing ads.  But when it comes time to setting bids, they either don’t have the time or knowledge to come up with the best bids.</p><p>A typical account we look at has set the same bid for almost all of their keywords (with maybe a handful of higher bids for super important keywords).  They randomly pick how much they think a click should cost and then wait for Google to perform.  Usually anger ensues if performance does not occur immediately.</p><p>Let’s analyze what happens to accounts that don’t have an optimal bid established for their keywords.</p><p><strong>What is the cost of a bid that is too low? </strong></p><p>Interestingly enough, a bid that is below its optimum is much more detrimental to your account than a bid that is too high.  Bidding too low can actually end up sabotaging your entire account if you let it.</p><p>Here are the negative repercussions of a bid that’s too low:</p><ul><blockquote><li><strong>Lost impressions due to rank.</strong> If your bid can’t get you into a reasonable rank on the first page, your ad won’t appear every time a searcher is looking for what you have to offer.  You can add this column to your Campaigns view in Google AdWords to see if you are losing impressions due to rank.</li><li><strong>Quality Score Death Spiral.</strong> Your ongoing CTR is one of the biggest drivers of your quality score.  While Google technically says it tempers its expectations by ad position, we find that it can have pretty outrageous expectations for lower positions.  Almost every time we see a campaign with keyword running in the lower ad positions for a length of period of time, we usually see quality scores of 2-4 throughout the account.  Which is a truly horrible hole to dig yourself out of.  Quality scores this low, make it almost impossible for an advertiser to get into the higher ad positions without forking over a lot more money.</li><li><strong>Not the best position for conversions.</strong> When thinking about your bid, think about the ad position that gets you the best results.  This is where you want your ad to appear.  For most advertisers we work with, this is above the fold on the first page of the results.</li><li><strong>Losing leads to competition.</strong> When your bid is too low, odds are your competition is out there with higher bids.  So, not only are you not getting found, but you are losing business to your competition.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>What is the cost of a big that’s too high?</strong></p><p>While a bid that is too low is quite damaging, we are not by any means suggesting that you overspend!</p><ul><blockquote><li><strong>Paying for unnecessary clicks.</strong> Lots of searchers are known to just click on the top result if it looks anywhere near relevant.  If your ad position is too high, especially for broad head terms, you are likely to pay for a bunch of clicks that will just turn into bounces.</li><li><strong>Not the best position for conversions.</strong> Same story as with a bid that’s too low, you need to determine the ad positions where you perform best as related to your bottom line.  That might not be ad position #1.</li><li><strong>Double high presence.</strong> We usually find that having a double presence (a paid and natural search listing) on a page has a strong benefit.  However, if you have a very high natural search presence, you might not need to be bidding for the very top paid search position as well.</li><li><strong>Paying too much per click.</strong> Do you get as good of performance (CTR and conversions) in ad position 3 as you do in ad position 1?  Then no need to overpay!</li><li><strong>Lost impressions due to budget.</strong> If you have all of your bids set too high, many times your budget won’t be able to support all the possible clicks your campaign might receive.  In this case, your ad won’t be able to appear all the time for your keywords since it will be limited by the budget.  You don’t want to miss out on impressions for top performing keywords, so it’s not good to lose impressions due to your budget.</li></blockquote></ul><p>In summary, it&#8217;s a little like what poor Goldilocks struggled with: how to find that bowl of porridge that is just right.  In terms of your PPC bids, too low is very bad and too high is no good either.  You literally need a bid that is just right.  Having bids that are just right can be a key determining factor in whether or not your PPC campaigns deliver ROI.  How to manage that?  You can start to review your analytics and adjust bids yourself, you can try out some of the bid optimization capabilities built directly into the search engines, or you can sign-up for a third-party <a
title="Yield Web Marketing Suite" href="http://www.yieldsoftware.com/product/product-overview/" target="_self">bid management software like Yield Software</a>, which does all the work for you.</p><p>But don’t stop there.  It’s very easy these days to set up advanced bidding, especially with the much better AdWords reporting now available inside of Google Analytics.  You can very quickly get a feel for days of the week and day part performance without having to create custom reports.</p><p>In AdWords, pause or lower your bids for lesser performing segments and increase your bids for the days and times that bring you the most benefit.  Give it a try – you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to set up!</p><p>If you have some positions that you know work to bring you the best results, you can also use the campaign position preference settings to fine-tune where your ads will appear.</p><p>Happy Just Right Bidding!</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/divining-the-importance-of-a-ppc-bid/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Things You Can Learn from Social Media Monitoring</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/things-you-can-learn-from-social-media-monitoring/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/things-you-can-learn-from-social-media-monitoring/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:46:55 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Keyword Lists]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marketing Intelligence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Negative Keywords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Planning and Budgeting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO Strategies Series]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[competitive monitoring]]></category> <category><![CDATA[keyword discovery]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Keyword List Development]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Monitoring]]></category> <category><![CDATA[negative keyword recommendations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[negative keywords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2260</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>13 Truly Useful Tips!</h3><p>Everyone has gone social: you, your competitors, your partners, your customers, your leads, your friends–everyone.  So now what?</p><p>It’s time to set up a system to mine all of the qualitative data that is floating around out there&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>13 Truly Useful Tips!</h3><p>Everyone has gone social: you, your competitors, your partners, your customers, your leads, your friends–everyone.  So now what?</p><p>It’s time to set up a system to mine all of the qualitative data that is floating around out there and put it to good, practical use.  Try using this list of 13 truly useful things you can actively learn from monitoring social media:</p><p><strong>1. Who’s in bed with the competition? </strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Who’s blogging favorably about them?  Who’s providing them with good reviews?  Who’s following them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and active in their community?  Who’s presenting with them on webinars and co-sponsoring collateral with them?</li><li>Get some good monitoring going on around your competitors names, and keep an eye on their online reviews and their social media account followers and activities.</li><li>Find their biggest fans and start to court them away.  Everyone knows how big a competitive win is – but a competitive win who is loud in the social media world is the biggest competitive win of all.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>2. Who loves you?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Similar to above, who’s blogging about you? Tweeting about you? Commenting about you on Facebook? Giving you positive reviews?</li><li>It’s standard practice to reward someone who refers you new business, so make it standard practice to reward those who are essentially referring you to the masses.  Provide these “fans” with some appropriate reciprocal love.  Perhaps it’s a link back, or a coupon or some other offer.  But make sure you let anyone who speaks positively about you know that you are listening, you really appreciate it and you’d love it if they do more!</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>3. What do people love the most about you?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Monitor trends in positive mentions about you in reviews, blog posts and other social media channels such as Twitter.</li><li>Sometimes what we may think are our biggest selling points are not what people love us  for most.  Pay attention to what people like  best about you, and start to actively promote those.  One technique we like is to actively call them out in your search ads using quotations.  Quotations lend more trust than just touting yourself, plus it will be in your audience’s own words.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>4. What do people dislike the most about you?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>While you&#8217;re poring through all of your praise, also start to document trends about any negative comments, or “if they only had….” comments.</li><li>Use &#8220;if only they had&#8221; information to inform your product development, road map and / or inventory adjustments.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>5. What are your competitors hiring for?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Keep an active query in your reader (i.e., TweetDeck or HootSuite or Seesmic) that monitors job postings for your competitors.</li><li>One of the biggest hints about what they are up to next can be inside of those job postings.  Many companies are surprisingly candid about direction and weaknesses inside of their postings.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>6. What are your competitor’s future plans?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Along those same lines, keeping an active query in your reader that includes your competitors name along with the word plans or powerpoint or pdf docs.</li><li>Many companies are surprisingly lax about what gets out into the web, you’ll be surprised about how much free competitive intelligence will flow your way.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>7. Negative keywords for PPC campaigns.</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Keep a query of your head keyword terms inside of your reader and monitor the headlines and themes of blog postings and news articles that are coming in.</li><li>Add anything and everything that isn’t relevant to you as a negative keyword in your ppc advertising campaigns.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>8. New target keywords for PPC campaigns.</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Same query as above, but this time monitoring for new ways people are talking about your space, or new needs and reasons that are rising up.</li><li>Take advantage of these by adding them in as new target keywords to always have your PPC campaigns on top of current trends.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>9. Who are the influencers and thought leaders in your space / area?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Same head terms query – both of blogs and also of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.</li><li>Use this to identify who the big influencers are online in your space.  Then, make them your best friends and court them to talk about you.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>10.  Hot topics for blogging</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>With that same head terms query, you can easily get a pulse for what is trendy.</li><li>Use trends to write blog posts about with your own opinion, expertise, and helpful information.  When you promote trendy blog posts, they will garner you the most value.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>11.  Audience profiling</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Where is your audience and how do they participate?  Do they blog? Do they write reviews on local sites? Do they attend webinars?  Do they download podcasts? Are they active on FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo Questions or other communities?</li><li>Monitoring your audience’s activities and where they are most prevalent will help you figure out where to spend your precious marketing dollars and dedicate your marketing content and time.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>12.  What should your Sales Tools &amp; Collateral address?</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>What don’t they like about you? What is your competition promoting as their biggest advantages?  What are the current hot topics and needs?</li><li>Develop sale collateral around these so your sales force is always armed with the latest and greatest sales objections they are likely to run into and the most prevalent ways of discussing the current market climate and needs.</li></blockquote></ul><p><strong>13.  Link building opportunities</strong></p><ul><blockquote><li>Did someone mention you, but forgot to include a back link?</li><li>Reach out to them and kindly request that they add a link!</li></blockquote></ul><p>It’s all free data, so start to make social media one of your best sources of information today!</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/08/things-you-can-learn-from-social-media-monitoring/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Hiring Search Marketing Help</title><link>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/07/hiring-search-marketing-help/</link> <comments>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/07/hiring-search-marketing-help/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:54:49 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Derek Gordon</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Keyword Lists]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEM]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category> <category><![CDATA[keyword strategies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Keywords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pay-per-click keywords]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.yieldsoftware.com/?p=2230</guid> <description><![CDATA[<h3>Fancy Nancy vs. Redundant Rhonda</h3><p>When looking to hire or partner with someone to help with your search marketing, the traditional ideas of a fancy advertising agency tend to pop into people’s heads –fancy glass office, dressed fancy, talks fancy, creates&#8230;</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Fancy Nancy vs. Redundant Rhonda</h3><p>When looking to hire or partner with someone to help with your search marketing, the traditional ideas of a fancy advertising agency tend to pop into people’s heads –fancy glass office, dressed fancy, talks fancy, creates fancy messaging and images, etc.  However, when it comes to search marketing, Fancy Nancy isn’t likely to get you very far.</p><p>Her sophistication and wit will likely mean that her content won’t reach, attract or convert the average searcher you are seeking out.   For online marketing, you should be thinking about working with Redundant Rhonda.  Qualities you really want are redundant, simple, monotonous and patient.</p><p>Why am I advocating for Redundant Rhonda?  Who in their right mind wants a boring person to handle activities related to marketing and advertising?</p><p>Here’s why&#8230;</p><p><strong>Quality #1: Redundant</strong></p><p>Being successful online is all about keywords.  From search to social, SEO to paid, from your home page to your landing page, keywords (in your audience’s voice) are the heart and soul.</p><p>Keywords are not fancy.  These are basic phrases that your leads use to research your offering and find you.  Long tail keyword generation is helpful – there is nothing fancy about this – which is just different combinations of the exact same words or plurals, singulars, prepositions, etc.</p><p>Once you know your keyword targets, these keywords and their variations must be redundantly used everywhere you are online:</p><ul><blockquote><li>Pay-per-click keywords</li><li>SEO keywords</li><li>Website copy</li><li>Blog titles</li><li>Blog copy</li><li>Landing pages</li><li>Pay-per-click ads</li><li>Website URLs</li><li>Google Local profile</li><li>Twitter profile</li><li>Twitter handler</li><li>Facebook profile</li><li>Tweets on Twitter</li><li>Internal anchor text</li><li>Inbound link anchor text</li><li>Press releases</li><li>Videos</li><li>Photos and images</li></blockquote></ul><p>Getting the picture?</p><p>Just to clarify: I said <em>redundant </em>usage – which should not to be confused with <em>spammy</em> usage!  Redundantly use your keywords in natural ways that any average person reading the English language would expect to see.</p><p><strong>Quality #2: Simple</strong></p><p>While Fancy Nancy is likely to come up with some very catchy tag lines, online searches are less about award-winning copy and more about helping people weed through information overload to find you, quickly comprehend what you do and contact you. Fluff need not apply.</p><p>Your PPC ad copy (in addition to being redundant) needs to simply state what you do, why it’s better than anything else, and inspiring a click-through.</p><p>Your website copy (again, in addition to being redundant) needs to very simply state in easy-to-read copy what it is you do – and why it’s better – with a clear call to action indicating what the visitor should do next.</p><p>You only have a few seconds to get a searchers&#8217; attention and turn them into something valuable, so simple words lead to the fastest possible comprehension and action.</p><p><strong>Quality #3: Loves Monotony</strong></p><p>For managing and optimizing your search marketing, you will need a data geek who is happy with monotony.  My guess is Fancy Nancy would like to jump off the building at this point.  You’ll need someone who is happy pouring over tons of data, slicing and dicing it in oodles of formats, making some optimization adjustments based on the data, and then reviewing all of the metrics again.</p><p>The process goes like this: analyze, slice, dice, adjust, analyze, slice, dice, adjust, analyze, slice, adjust… there is no end game. (In the world of consumer products, it&#8217;s called &#8220;lather, rinse, repeat&#8221; &#8212; check your shampoo bottle!)  The world of search marketing is constantly changing, so the monotonous process will repeat itself again and again and again.</p><p><strong>Quality #4: Patient</strong></p><p>While some aspects of search marketing, like pay-per-click, carry with them some instant gratification, the process of getting to great results whether on PPC, SEO, landing pages or social takes time and patience.  Fancy Nancy is likely to want some immediate accolades for a campaign that is launched, but in the world of search, great downstream benefits can take quite a bit of time and stick-to-it-ness.  It can take quite a while to find pockets of great success – which may not last long before the world changes and you need to find new pockets of success.</p><p>So, as you think about your search marketing support system, remember this: forget the glamour, the glitter and the fluff and seek out someone who understands how to get you found, keep attention and create real results online.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/07/hiring-search-marketing-help/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>
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