First2Search Blog | Sara Bergeron

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Pay-Per-Click Campaigns Need to be Monitored

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, Uncategorized on July 26, 2010
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We’ve talked about the importance of pay-per-click advertising before. In terms of marketing dollars, Internet advertising and pay-per-click marketing are the best, more cost effective ways of promoting your business and they have the highest return on investment (ROI) of all forms of marketing.

You can target your campaign as specifically as you’d like and you only pay when someone clicks on your ads. You can use website analytics to determine exactly which ads are the most popular and the most effective. You can see if the advertising is just boosting traffic or if it’s actually boosting business.

However, to do all of those things you need to keep an eye on your campaigns regularly.

Many of the benefits of online marketing is that you can see what ads are working and make the necessary changes to your campaign almost immediately. You don’t have to wait for a sales report at the end of the month and there’s no need for guesswork. Your website analytics will give you all of the information you need.

But that benefit is lost if you’re not monitoring your campaigns. If you try to “set it and forget it” you will definitely find that your campaigns are less effective. You risk running an ad for weeks without ever knowing that no one is clicking it. That time could be used to run a useful ad instead.

Even worse, you could end up running an ad that people are clicking, but one that isn’t converting those clicks into customers. You’ll end up paying for each of those clicks, but not getting any of that money back through increased sales. If you had been monitoring that ad regularly you probably would have noticed that trend within a few days instead of a few weeks. Figuring out when a campaign is failing and making changes to it as soon as possible can save you a lot of money.

Another aspect of your campaign that requires regular monitoring is the bid process. Google AdWords and other pay-per-click advertisers operate on a bid system. That means that the price to have an ad displayed in a prominent position. Yes, you can set a maximum price and leave the system alone, but it’s far more productive to check in regularly and participate in the bid process.

Obviously many businesses do not have the time to regularly monitor their pay-per-click marketing campaigns. This is where a pay-per-click marketing company is very helpful. These companies have the expertise and time necessary to set up and actively monitor your advertising campaigns.

First2Search is a Toronto pay-per-click marketing company and Internet advertising company. We can help you create a campaign that will benefit your business and make modify the campaign to get the highest possible return. Contact us today for more information.

Targeting Website Traffic

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Uncategorized, Website Promotion on July 19, 2010
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Think of it this way: If you own a fishing tackle store, is it better to have 200 people that have no interest in fishing walk through your door or 50 people that regular fishers and need new tackle? The answer is pretty obvious: You want people that have an interest in what you are selling and are likely to buy.

The same is true on the Internet. Yes, it’s always nice to watch your website traffic grow, but it’s not always the best thing for business. The best way to grow your business is by drawing targeted visitors to your site.

There are a couple of great ways to do this. The first way is to choose the right keywords for your website and to build your site around those keywords. Make sure you select keywords that match your product or service, not just keywords that receive a large number of services of do not have much competition.

Another great way to deliver targeted traffic is through pay-per-click ads. These ads are displayed beside regular search results on Google and other search engines. Users searching for a product or service online are more likely to become customers than those passively searching online. Again, it’s important to choose relevant search terms to focus on. When done properly, pay-per-click advertising campaigns can be a great way to deliver targeted traffic to your website. First2Search offers pay-per-click advertising services that can help you out.

If you operate a local business or operate primarily in one geographic region, you may want to focus your marketing, advertising and search engine optimization efforts on that region. There are several ways to do this. There are many local business directories that you can become a member of. Both Google and Bing offer local business listings.

Advertise within your niche. Using the fishing tackle store from the beginning of the post as an example, the owner of the store could spend some time on fishing message boards and forums. He could join social networking groups focused on fishing and fishing tackle. Developing connections online is a great way to grow your website. Just be careful not to spam and annoy people.

Once you start getting more targeted, relevant traffic, you will definitely see an increase in sales.

How To Get Visitors to Return to your Website

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Search Engine Optimization on April 6, 2010
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No matter why type of business you run, chances are you would like your clients to be repeat customers. Even if you operate a business that doesn’t have many repeat customers, you’d like your clients to keep you in mind for referrals. A great way to make customers remember you is through your website. If you can make customers return to your site even after they’ve made a purchase, you’re on your way to customer loyalty.

But how do you do this? Usually it’s quite tough, but we’ve got some tips that will help you out.

Have a blog

◦ We’ve talked about the benefits of blogging before and we’d like to stress this point again. Blogging about your industry, providing news and updates about future products and services and giving insight into your company will attract people to your website.

If someone just bought one of your products, they may be interested in knowing how it was made, who came up with the idea in the first place and when an updated version will be available.

Have a message board or support forum

◦ Your customers may be looking to discuss their experiences with your product or service or they may have a few questions about it. A great way to entice them to come back to your website is by adding some sort of interactive forum. This is also great for customer service purposes.

Offer games or contests

◦ If you want to build a loyal audience, you could hold a contest that requires customers to come back to your site frequently in order to win. You could also have some branded games designed that will draw in visitors.

Have a mailing list

◦ Encourage your customers to sign up for an email newsletter. This will keep your company name fresh in their minds and bring them back to your site when something in the newsletter interests them.

Search engine optimization and website promotion

◦ Make sure that your company comes up highly in search rankings when people search for your product or service. A customer that just purchased your product may head to the Internet to find out more information. If your website comes up first, they will head to your site for that info.

First2Search offers website promotion and Internet marketing services that will make your website stand out. Contact us today for more information.

Online Marketing is Cost Effective

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, Website Promotion on February 20, 2010
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The most important aspect to any marketing campaign is your return on investment. If you’re spending money to market your product or service you want to get as much of a return back as possible. The good thing is that online marketing is incredibly cost effective. The ROI from an Internet marketing campaign exceeds that of many other forms of marketing.

With pay-per-click marketing campaigns, you only pay when someone actually visits your website. Unlike print, radio, television or direct mail advertisements, you don’t pay when people ignore your ad or simply glance at it. You don’t pay for unrelated traffic either. When you participate in a pay-per-click advertising campaign, your ad is only displayed when someone searches for terms related to your website. You’re getting targeted traffic.

Pay-per-click advertising campaigns only reach customers that are actually searching for your industry. Rather than telling people what they want, you are approaching people that are already interested in your industry. Once someone types a related phrase into a search engine, they are already much more likely to be interested in your website than a passive user looking at an unrelated ad. People searching online are actively looking for information and those searching for products and services are likely doing so with the intent to purchase. This is the best possible time to advertise.

What you end up with are qualified customers that are willing to spend and you only pay when one of those customers makes the decision to visit your website. The visitors you end up paying for are much, much more likely to be interested in your company and your chance of making a sale will be much greater.

Another positive aspect of online marketing is that it is very easy to monitor your return on investment. If you mail out fliers, there really isn’t any way to know how many people throw them away. There also isn’t a way to know exactly how many people read your print ad or pay attention to your television or radio commercial. Yes, you can estimate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign by watching for any increases in business following one, but there is now way to know with 100% certainty.

With pay-per-click online advertising, you know exactly how many people click your ads and visit your site. Using website analytics in conjunction with advertising, you know how many of those visitors stay on your site and for how long. You can figure out exactly which keywords are performing well and which are not. This sort of specific tracking isn’t possible with other forms of advertising.

Being able to track your website promotion and fine tune your efforts based on the data you receive is just another reason why online advertising is so cost effective and important.

Your Website Could Be Your Most Valuable Asset

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Small Business Advice on February 19, 2010
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Businesses own and manage many assets. Some assets are used in day-to-day work, such as machinery or computers. Some assets are used for the production of goods or the delivery of services. And some assets are there to make you money and grow your business.

If you have a storefront or an office you know that it’s not just used to hold your employees and conduct work. An attractive storefront draws in customers off the street and a professional office can be used to hold meetings and impress clients. Most business owners know this and devote time and resources to creating a good atmosphere at work.

But many people do not do the same for their websites. The days of simply having a website for the sake of having one are long over. However, there are a lot of companies that treat their websites as nothing more than contact pages. We see several website that still consist of only contact information and maybe a bit of background on the company. This is wasting a valuable resource.

Your website is not just your business card. It is not just your storefront or your office. It is not just a marketing vehicle. It is all of those things and more. Your website could be the most valuable asset you own. And it has the greatest ability to generate profit.

Think about how much your website cost you for a moment. The domain name was probably around ten dollars. The web space is likely a few dollars a month at most. Even if you had your website professionally designed you’ve probably only spent a couple thousand dollars at the absolute most. When you compare those costs to the cost of renting an office or owning a company vehicle they are negligible. And yet your website is incredibly powerful.

Today people search the Internet more than ever. They spend more time online than ever. People have web browsers in their phones and their music players and their entertainment systems and when they want to find something they almost always look online first. You can take advantage of this fact by having a well-designed, frequently updated, functional and search engine optimized website.

You should consider a potential client visiting your website as a client visiting your store or your office. You wouldn’t dream of having a client visit an outdated, disorganized, amateur-looking office, so why are you letting them visit a sub par website?

Once you start to see your website as a sales tool and a marketing device, you will understand the need to make it presentable and representative of your brand.

Turning Visitors Into Customers

Posted By Sara Bergeron in Pay Per Click, SEO, Website Design, Website Promotion on February 12, 2010
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Webmasters spend a lot of their time trying to increase traffic to their websites. So do SEO professionals, PPC marketers, social media marketers and website copywriters. And it’s obvious why.

You can’t sell a product or service without people knowing your company exists. In order to get noticed, in order to spread your message to as many people as possible, you need to increase traffic. There aren’t many website owners that can honestly say the don’t want more traffic and there are even fewer than would say they want less traffic.

But you don’t just need traffic, you need to convert that traffic into sales. If you run a website that makes money off of ad revenue, having a lot of traffic could be good enough. But if you’re selling a product or a service, you want to increase your sales.

So how do you turn casual visitors into paying customers?

There are a few ways. First of all, having a clear call to action on your website is important. You may want your visitors to fill out a contact form, or call you on the phone ,or purchase a product ,or request a quote or something else entirely. The bottom line is that you have to make this easy to do and you have to make the link that starts this process stand out.

A good call to action is obvious. It is the most obvious link on the page. It should be larger than the rest of the links on the site or use a different font or text colour. It should be positioned in a place where it is easily seen. A visitor’s eye is naturally drawn to certain areas of the screen and your call to action should be placed in one of those areas.

Another way to convert visitors into customers is through well-written website content. Your content should be persuasive and informative. It should give the user the information that they are looking for and it should also sell your company and promote the products or services you offer.

A well-designed website with quality content and good calls to action will convert more visitors into customers than a badly designed one that does not clearly point the user in the right direction. Sometimes the best way to test this is through trial and error. Move elements around the screen until you’ve found one that converts well. You’ll be happy you did.

Five SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Posted By Sara Bergeron in SEO on January 8, 2010
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Everyone wants their web page to be ranked higher on major search engines. Most people find new websites through Google or Bing or Yahoo, so it’s important to be highly ranked. This is where search engine optimization (or SEO) comes in. However, in an attempt to improve search ranking, many people make mistakes. These mistakes can not only waste time and do little to improve your search ranking, but sometimes they can actually hurt your ranking.

Here are five mistakes that search engine optimization professionals and web developers often make:

1. Incorrect Usage of Title Tags

Many sites use the website name as the title tag. This does not help for SEO purposes. The title of each page on your website should be unique. It should also include relevant keywords within the title. For example, something like “Web Development & Online Marketing | ‘Company Name’” is a good title tag. Note that you should not simply stuff keywords into the title either, that doesn’t look good to humans or search engines.

2. Keyword Spamming

This is related to the topic above. Yes, every page on your website should include some of your carefully thought out keywords. That does not mean that you should fill the site with them in a meaningless, spammy way. This includes stuffing a giant block of keywords into the footer of your page. A selected choice of relevant keywords is great. Filling the page with hundreds of them is not. An easy way to figure this out is by simply looking at your page. Is your content there for readers? If so, good. If your content is just there for search engines, you’ll probably want to revisit it. Remember, your website design should first benefit your visitors, and then search engines.

3. Paid Link Farms

It sounds like a good idea when you first hear it, but paying for “hundreds of unique links” is a bad idea. First of all, Google has stated that link buying is against their terms of service. Second of all, whenever someone is linking to you, you want the link to be a good one. Having your website’s name plastered across hundreds of unrelated, possibly spam-filled sites, does not do anything positive for your brand image. A good SEO professional should know how to go about link building in a better manner.

4. All Flash or Images

Sites made entirely of Flash animations or images sometimes look very good. However, this website design is not ideal for a couple of reasons. First of all, animation and image files are usually quite large. This means that your website will load quite slowly. Second of all, search engines do not have an easy way to understand what your site is about if there is little to no text present. If you are going to have a website design that is heavy on graphics or animation, make sure you include some text both for SEO purposes and for your users that may prefer it.

5. Broken Links

This is a key one. Sometimes a web designer will move a page or rename it and neglect to change all links pointing to that page. When renaming pages you should always include a redirect from the old page to the new one. You should also look out for sites that you are linking to. Sometimes they’ll disappear and your links to them will be dead. Make sure to remove any dead links from your website.

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