New eBook on Link Economy Debuts

Comprehensive Strategies for Growth

All of us here at Yield Software have worked hard to provide useful, easy-to-understand information on the full range of Web marketing possibilities on this blog, through our tweets on Twitter and the like. And, based on feedback, it seems the many small and growing businesses we serve (and tons more we don’t) really appreciate the information.

Which is why we were inspired to pull together our first eBook, “The Link Economy and Why It Matters to Small and Growing Businesses,” a limited-edition print run of which will be distributed from our booth at the annual Search Engine Strategies (SES) 2009 Conference & Expo August 11 and 12, 2009 at the San Jose Convention Center.

Addressing the concerns of business leaders who have limited or no experience with Web marketing, our new eBook provides an…

It’s New to You Series: Setting up PPC Campaigns

Best Practice Tips for Newbies

Whether you run pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google only or across the three major U.S. search engines (including Yahoo! Search and Microsoft’s Bing until the two merge their platforms), setting up a pay-per-click campaign is fairly straight-forward. That is, until you have the campaign up and running and realize you’re shelling out a ton of money for little or no return.

Because we work so often with small and mid-sized businesses just beginning to dip their toes into the PPC waters, we’re introducing a new series — the “It’s New to You” Series — and we’ll be covering how to set up a campaign for the first time, including methods for getting started, making keyword lists, developing your first ads, setting up groups, and how to focus on keywords in each group.

There are a number…

Why the Cost-per-Click Metric Can Be the Wrong Metric to Measure

…and an Argument for Measuring CPA

My co-worker, Jenae, recently sent me this email:

“I can’t tell you how many calls I have with folks who are hung up on cost per click (CPC). It’s the main metric they focus on when they start to dig into their campaigns and what they think they want to use Yield Software to optimize. It takes me a couple of discussions and lots of detailed examples to help them understand that while CPC is a tempting metric, having a low CPC doesn’t necessarily translate into a successful campaign — especially if you want conversions or are more ROI-driven.”

Search engine marketing comprises a number of tactics – online and offline – including pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, organic search, branding, and the various methods used to funnel traffic to your Website landing pages.

Too…

Add Muscle to Your Landing Page Headlines

Five Easy-to-Implement Strategies

In my last blog post, I covered how to develop a landing page that increases conversions by limiting people’s options to explore other areas of your Website.  As I discussed in the post, you have many elements on the landing page that can make or break conversion rates, and one of those elements is the headline.

In his book, Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples explains why headlines are so important:

“In most advertisements, no matter how striking the illustration, the headlines are critically important. The majority of the public reads little else when deciding whether or not they are interested.”

The same holds true for landing pages – which are basically direct response ads designed to get people to take some sort of action.

So how do you add some muscle to your flabby headlines? Whole books have…

Increase Landing Page Conversions: Limit Options to “Explore”

Four Steps Toward Better Conversion Rates

Transactional landing pages have one purpose only: to get people to take one specific action, whether it’s filling out a form for a white paper, purchasing a product, or even subscribing to an e-newsletter.

Yet many companies lower landing page conversion rates by providing opportunities to browse for related goods and services or offering all kinds of back-up information to support their offer.

In other words, if you’re trying to get people to sign up for your Webinar and on your landing page you have links to your Website, YouTube video, and white papers, you’re encouraging people to click away from your landing page – perhaps never to return.

I call this “Distraction Interaction.” Think about what happens when you go online to do something:

Initially… you open your email client to send someone…

Small Business Marketing Series: 10 Tips, Tricks and Strategies for Effective Marketing Communications

Actively Engage Your Customers

Building a sustainable program of communications with your customers and your prospects is an important strategy for continually driving traffic, leads and / or sales. But I often hear from small business owners they just don’t have the time to do the necessary legwork to foster a multidimensional program.

The good news is technology and web-based services are changing so rapidly, there are lots of great ways to create multiple outbound communications that get the results you’re looking for without a huge investment of time or money.

What follows are ten tips, tricks and strategies for effectively communicating with your prospects and customers.

#1: Produce Once, Reuse Many. Many small business owners fall into the trap of believing every form of outbound communication must be wholly unique. While it may be important to adapt headlines and…

And It Begins….

We officially launched our product at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco at Moscone West. While we were excited, we hardly knew what to expect. We exhibited in the Long Tail Pavilion which is where the new, upcoming companies are typically congregated.

When the show opened, we experienced some nerve-racking minutes where no attendees were in sight–not at our booth nor any of the long tail booths. Wait, wait, wait. How long would it take to get past the lead sponsor booths who had secured the best real estate?

Finally, they start to trickle in. Demo after demo after demo. It was great. Derek and I were working the booth together and were talking non-stop until the exhibit floor closed. No lunches, no breaks. I was blown away by the level of interest in our product and…

It’s Official: We’re Open for Business

From ‘Private Beta’ to Available Now!

As of this moment, we’ve officially launched the new Yield Web Marketing Suite, a simplified way to drive new traffic and customer conversions at a low overall cost.  As part of our launch week activities, we’ll be demonstrating our browser-based system at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, which opens tonight and continues through April 3, 2009 at the Moscone West Convention Center.  And we’ve got to admit it: we’re all pretty darn proud of what we’ve accomplished and are really looking forward to showing it off!

The Yield Web Marketing Suite, which up until now was in private beta, is built with small and mid-size businesses in mind.  Primarily, our team has responded to the long-standing desire to make search marketing more simple and intuitive. By combining and automating…

Web Marketing 101 Series: Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy

ChaiSpice Cupcake, courtesy Just Desserts

Even You Can Write Great Ad Copy

A key stumbling block for many novice Web marketers is the task of writing compelling ad copy for a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign on Google’s AdSense, Yahoo’s Search Marketing or Microsoft’s adCenter. Web site owners and novice marketers who are not natural copywriters will find it difficult to zero in on the most right collection of words that inspire people to click on a link.

The good news? No one knows your site, your company or your products as well as you do.

Put that unique knowledge to work when following these few simple tips for creating excellent PPC campaign ad copy:

First, be sure you know the character limits for the advertising platform. Typically the title (the first line in the ad) is limited to 25 characters.  Ad…

Web Marketing 101 Series: Intro to Return-On-Investment (ROI) Measures for SEM

Simply put, return-on-investment (ROI) refers to what is returned in profit as a result of any given investment.  When applied to web marketing, ROI typically refers to the profits generated as a result of your marketing investment.  Within the larger marketing profession, web marketing has been growing in popularity since its introduction in the late 1990’s because of its very precise measurability.

Unlike outdoor advertising (i.e. billboards) or radio and television ads, where precise correlations to ROI can be elusive, search engine marketing (SEM) enables marketers to track interactions and behavior at every step of engagement.

Though a huge number of web marketing professionals employ display advertising on sites like NYTimes.com or FOXNews.com or Yahoo!, a growing share of marketing dollars are being directed to the search engines and specifically pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.  By buying the “Sponsored…