By Britnee Nguyen

In speaking with a photojournalist from a newspaper the other day, she was telling me how a company had called the newspaper trying to sell them on the idea of using utah SEO/utah PPC to improve their traffic to their stories. I was surprised at first since I’ve never thought those services could benefit a newspaper. Actually, some say pay-per-click has been the reason of newspapers downfall since more choose to advertise that way instead of through the traditional newspaper ad route.

The thing with SEO and keyword internet marketing is that it does take some time to build up. So if newspapers are trying to use SEO to build up traffic to timely or breaking news, it will be too late and useless before they see the results. People will have picked up the timely story beforehand somewhere else.

With utah PPC on the other hand, I can see how that would benefit newspapers. If there is a breaking story that they want to be the ones where readers go to find more information on-line, then PPC would definitely work. Basically, the way it would work is if this kind of scenario happened: Someone twitters breaking news utah adwords management that there is a shooting downtown and that they are there at the scene. A viewer sees it and texts about it to their friend who lives near the shooting area. Since not many details are given, the friend who receives the text is most likely to immediately jump on-line to search for more details.

By this time, newspapers would have caught this story too. They write up a quick article and constantly update it. In addition, they bid on a utah pay-per-click ad that will pop up on search engines for whoever searches: “shooting in ‘city’ or ‘state’”. And then whoever searches for that term (such as the friend who received the text) will find the newspaper article pop up very first on the list, and will most likely click on it.

This is just an example of one scenario. From what I’ve found, it looks like several newspaper organizations such as Cox Newspapers Inc., The Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News have used pay-per-click advertising in the past to generate more revenue and traffic. If more newspapers got into PPC then they would have more chances of viewers going to their site for more information instead of other websites.

So instead of newspapers competing with PPC, they should actually take advantage of it and use it for their own benefit. Traffic and revenue are things newspapers desperately need right now, and PPC can help them achieve these things.

For more information on utah PPC services, visit Submit Solution who are experts in the field of PPC and keyword internet marketing.

Flickr Photo Credit: antonkawaski

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines are usually what comes to mind when one thinks of Pay-Per-Click ads.  However, there is another huge market for PPC ads that is often overlooked by online businesses: Facebook.  That’s right, Facebook ads are offered in the PPC format, allowing online businesses to take their targeted marketing to the next level.

Facebook paid-ads work much the same way that PPC ads in Google and Bing work.  However, the subtle differences between the two methods of paid search may make all the difference to some industries.

Here are some of the specs on Facebook PPC ads:

->  BIG Market Share: Facebook is big.  Okay, Facebook is huge.  It’s probably the biggest time-waster known to mankind.  And it’s still growing!  The point here is, Facebook hosts a monstrous aggregate of young and old, educated and uneducated people alike.   Most target markets would be greatly available on Facebook.  However, there are some that would more profitable than others.  For example, an ad for handmade jewelry like you see above would be fairly successful on Facebook, because it is targeted towards mostly educated, middle to upper-class women.  If the ad were to be targeted to mostly uneducated or lower class women, research shows that Myspace would be the more appropriate place to advertise.

->  Not as Powerful: Let’s face it — no matter how big Facebook gets, it can never trump that search engine giant, Google.  While you’re reading this, you may be thinking, “Wait a sec! Didn’t she just tell us that Facebook ads can give us access to a big market share?”  It is important to realize that while Facebook is indeed growing, it is still a social networking site that not accessible to anyone (because it requires login credentials), while Google is the most popular search engine in the land.  Another thing to consider is that your Facebook ads will not be visible in search engine results!

After reading this article, you should have a pretty good idea about whether or not Facebook ads will work for your business.  If you’re not ready to make the leap into Facebook paid ads, you can always just focus on your free Facebook pages or even add Facebook Connect to your website or blog.  Once you see how those campaigns work out, you can have a better idea about where to take your next step.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

It is too often the case that when starting a paid search marketing campaign, people tend to lose sight of the main point.  What’s the main point, you ask?  To get people to click, right?  Wrong.

Yes, it’s true that Pay-Per-Click ads provide quality leads most of the time.  However, no matter how interested the “clicker” is in your products, services or niche, if your site is poorly designed or organized, your marketing would have been in vain.  There is no point marketing a site that is difficult to use, messy, or otherwise messed up!

Make sure that your PPC ads are really being effective by testing your site for usability, attractiveness, etc.  There are hundreds of free and low-cost tools for this purpose!

Here are some online tools to test the quality of your site:

1. Five Second Test: With this nifty tools, website owners can upload a screen-shot of their landing page which will then be viewed by users for five seconds.  There are two different versions of the service, one where the viewers view your photo, then list everything they can remember from it.  The second is a click test, where the viewers click on the areas they find most prominent or interesting.  This tool can really help you test how first-time viewers are seeing your landing page.  Then you can cater the page around those findings to make your ads more effective!

2.  Website Grader: Website Grader is a simple and effective website tester tool.  Once your site is entered in, Grader will measure your site’s marketing power through SEO statistics, traffic and marketing strategies.  Once finished, they will even give you tips to improve the areas where you may be lacking.  This is a great tool for those “less-expert” of us in the field of development and marketing.

3.  Google Analytics: Without fail, Google Analytics has proven to be one of the most powerful marketing research tools.  Easy enough for beginning users, but with tons of extras and plugins for experts, it suits most online marketing levels.  On top of all this, it’s free!

To capitalize on all of your internet marketing campaigns, use free tools like these to see how people are viewing your site.  This will greatly increase the productivity of your PPC ads, SEO strategies and social media marketing.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

We’ve all experienced this before.  I’m typing in “iPod Touch” in a search engine, but accidentally spell out “iPod Tuch.”  I immediately realize my mistake as I see the popular question, “Did you mean: iPod Touch?”, encouraging me to search for the correct terms.  However, many of the listings that pull up are relevant, so I don’t redo the search with the correct spelling.  Then I see the paid search ad on the side with the incorrect search query inserted in.  I can’t help feeling annoyed

PPC ads like I just described implement what’s called a DKI or Dynamic Keyword Insertion technique.  These ads automatically insert search keywords into a paid ad.  This form is popular because, if used correctly, it can produce very specific results that will generate quality traffic.

However, the use of DKI in PPC ads can result in annoyance, as in my situation, mistrust or even generic and weak ad content.  I am going to outline some of the pros and cons of using dynamic keyword insertion in your paid search ads.  Then you can see for yourself if this method is right for you!

PRO:  Customized Ads

Sometimes, DKI can greatly increase your traffic.  For example, when searching for foreclosed homes in Provo, UT, I came across this specified landing page.  It seems like this page would be exactly what someone would be looking for with their search.

CON:  Incoherence

However, with the same site, I found I could type in anything for the name of a city in Utah where I would like to find foreclosures.  The result?  You get the picture.  Obviously, there is no place called Crappy, UT.  With DKI, by allowing any search term at all to be included in your ad or landing page, you run the risk of becoming incoherent and purposefully spam-like to the public eye.

CON:  Generic and Misspelled Ads
When you create a PPC ad using DKI, your wording will need to be deliberately vague, so that multiple terms can be inserted without changing the meaning of the ad.  The problem with this is that the ad will be weak.  Even if the ad does include the specific word that was searched for, there is little likelihood that it will be strong enough content wise to draw a quality click.

All-in-all, pay-per-click ads using DKI appear desperate and can even resemble spam.  If you choose to use this technique in your paid ad, do so carefully and choose only key words that both fit your ad and are relevant to the service or product you are advertising.  Stay tuned for more posts on social media, SEO, web design and PPC!

by Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Pay-Per-Click ads can be a great marketing tool, there’s little doubt about that.  However, this form of advertising is more difficult than it looks.  Sure, anyone can come up with a slogan, title or headline that they think properly describes their product or service.  But is that really a good and effective ad?  In this post, we will outline the six major reasons why people click on ads and how you can apply this to your own online marketing strategy.

Let’s start out with a small introduction:

So, What is a Pay-Per-Click ad, really?

Well, it’s an ad sponsored by an independent person, such as yourself, that appears on the sidebar or at the top of the results page within relevant search engine results.  The ad will appear when keywords or phrases, that you’ve previously specified, are searched for.  This is a very keyword-targeted form of marketing and is much more aggressive that classic SEO practices.

Okay, that’s the boring, technical version of what a PPC ad is.  But what is it really?

A PPC ad is your chance to catch targeted visitors based on the content you choose to publish.  Unlike SEO, which automatically pulls up relevant links and content according to the search engine “crawlers”, a PPC ad is written and planned by you alone.  This means that the content and keywords chosen for a PPC ad will be the lifeblood of your traffic.

If you want to create a successful PPC ad, it is important to understand why people click on them!  This will help you get in the correct mindset for writing a great ad that will matter to people.  Online marketing specialists have long since studied consumers and how advertising affects them, in order to better market to their needs and wants.

Here are the 6 reasons why people click on online advertisements:

Benefits: Readers feel like they will benefit in some way by clicking on the ad.  Examples include, learning something, gaining something materially, etc.

Brand: Readers recognize the brand.

Differentiation: The ad is different from the others around it and somehow attracts readers’ attention.

Curiosity: Readers want to know more about what the ad implies, claims or asks.

Legibility: The ad makes logical sense to readers.

Call to Action: Readers feel inclined to click on an ad that calls them to action.

Now that you understand the basic motivations behind the clicks you’re paying for, you can begin to discover which motives above would work the best for your ads.  For example, would your particular marketing need benefit from an ad that focuses on curiosity or legibility?  Playing around with these different concepts can not only increase the traffic generated from your PPC ads, but from your other content as well.  These genres of motivation can also apply to your blog posts and titles, greatly increasing your organic ranking through SEO and your Social Media presence as well.

By Robert Lockard

The unattainable goal for many search campaigns is the ever-elusive melding of PPC and SEO tactics for bigger and better top-line results. Theoretically, the two should go together like peanut butter and jelly.

That’s how Herndon Hasty starts his superb Search Engine Watch article, “Of PPC and PBJ: Combining PPC and SEO Effectively, Part 1.” His comparisons of search engine optimization to peanut butter and pay-per-click advertising to jelly are apt, and they work well through the article.

Hasty argues PPC and SEO are completely different from each other and they accomplish their goals of higher Web traffic in distinct ways. They don’t completely mesh, but they create something better than they could alone, if they’re done right. They both have the ability to drive qualified traffic to your site and help build your revenue.

Not all search terms are equal when it comes to search-engine marketing. This article gives an excellent explanation of how to maximize your return on investment by comparing the keywords you target. For instance, which terms generate more interested customers: “online marketing” or “Internet marketing,” “find foreclosures” or “search foreclosures”?

With SEO, it’s essential to get your keywords right the first time. It takes a long time to get to the top of search-engine results, and if the terms you get to the top of don’t perform well, that’s both time and money down the drain. PPC is more flexible, so you can easily change the terms you target by comparing their results and choosing the better one.

There’s plenty more to cover in this article. I recommend reading the whole thing. Be sure to return often to the Submit Solution SEO Blog for more insights into ecommerce. This blog entry is a complete version of the one in the eHarbor Blog, “Done right, SEO and PPC deliver tasty results.”

The photo of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of jacky_oh_yeah.

By Britnee Nguyen

When it comes to search engines, some companies pay for pay-per-click advertising because they believe they’d have a better chance of getting users to click on those links, while others rely on organic search results. So what is the best strategy to use when advertising on-line through search engines?

A recent study done by Engine Ready, claims that visitors going to an on-line retailer’s website from a paid search ad are 50 percent more likely to make a purchase compared to visitor coming from a n organic search result. To come to this conclusion, they tracked 20.8 million visits to 26 different online retail sites for a year. They found that paid search visitors typically made a purchase more than those who visited through organic searches. The overall conversation rate from paid search was 2.03% while the organic search was 1.26%.

While these findings lean toward paid search ads as being more effective, there is another factor that must be recognized. This study was solely based on the last click of the visitor, and doesn’t take in account the clicks that occurred before that to get the person to make that purchase.

A lot could happen between the first and last click of a user. When looking only at the last click, it doesn’t take into the full account of how users interact with different websites before making a purchase.

Basically, paid search and search engine optimization have their benefits and are both useful when doing on-line marketing. Some companies may get more clicks from their pay-per-click ads, while others get more from their organic search results. Both tactics are definitely effective in getting a company’s website higher up on the search engines, but there is a fine line in determining which tactic is better. They are both beneficial, so you might as well give both a trial time to see which works better for your own situation.

By Britnee Nguyen

When a person thinks about pay-per-click advertising, the first thoughts might be that it is used to drive traffic to a website. The ad has no charge until someone click on the ad, and then you’re charged per person who clicks on it, hence “pay-per-click”. Another way pay-per-click advertising can be advantageous is during a PR crisis.

We are so interconnected with the internet that someone who posts something on-line in the U.S., can be easily viewed from someone in any other country with internet access. Since so many are using the internet, many opinions and news items are floating around on-line. Sometimes breaking news is reported by a first-hand witness who tweeted it on Twitter.

This is great that the flow of communication is intertwined and available. This opens the amount of knowledge one can obtain learning from others all around the world. However, if you’re a company who has opposers posting negative blogs and discussing opinions about your company, their voices might overcome yours. You may never get the right news out, because the average Joe is beating you to it, and reporting it in their viewpoints.

How can you make sure your company’s statement during a PR crisis effectively gets out into the public? How can you make sure your website  or sheet doesn’t get passed over to another person who is not affiliated with your company? There’s no clear-cut solution, but one strategy that might help is using pay-per-click advertising.

If your company is in a crisis mode and is trying to get the correct information out, pay-per-per-click advertising is highly effective for several reasons. First, it gets your site in the top three listed when someone searches on Google or other search engines. People are always searching online for updated news. This way, people are more likely to click on your site that is related to what they’re searching for.

An example of this is found here. When swine flu was a hot item, the government and a health website were found at the top of the list when “swine flu” was searched. This was through paid-per-click advertising and helped guide people to the right sources instead of wrong information elsewhere.

A crisis is always difficult to handle, but with the right tools and preparation there’s no need to worry. Consider pay-per-click advertising to reach a large audience base to get your website with vital information at the top of the search engine list.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

September 8th, 2009

It’s finally here! Microsoft and Yahoo have reached a new deal which will allow Bing to power all Yahoo searches, while Yahoo focuses on producing content and other products. Now that Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached a merger agreement, it would be helpful to explore the changes this partnership will make on SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising.

With the new deal in place, Yahoo search will now be powered by Microsoft’s new Bing search technology. This situation changes the game for PPC in a few ways.

Here are some aspects of paid search you can expect to see change:

Even out the market share. For years, Google has accounted for over sixty percent of all search-engine queries. Now that one of Google’s competitors, Yahoo, has been eliminated, Bing has the opportunity to finally be competitive with them. While most PPC ads will be focused toward Google for the next few years, Bing has the chance to gain many new clients in the future.

Double the fun. For loyal Yahoo users who will continue to use their search engine, Bing will receive double the traffic. PPC ads in Bing will also be highly successful, as their content will now be displayed in the results for two prominent search engines. To sweeten the deal, these ads will also be shown in relative MSN content, boosting the overall exposure of all Bing’s PPC clients. However, the conglomerate Google will still rule this field for awhile to come.

Let the games begin. As Bing continues to grow, bids for PPC ads will become increasingly competitive. As Bing tends to have less strict regulations than Google on quality scores and other measures, utah online marketing it can be expected that PPC on Bing will definitely see a boom at the beginning of the merger deal. However, as Bing becomes more competitive with Google, they will most likely raise these regulations to become more like their rival and increase the quality of their results.

As we advance further into this development, it will be interesting to see how Bing grows and how Google reacts to the competition. As history has frequently shown us, competition tends to breed better products, services and customer satisfaction. There should be no exception with this search-engine duel!

By Robert Lockard

It looks like two Davids are joining forces to take on Goliath. After years of public wrangling over the details, Microsoft and Yahoo finally announced a proposed 10-year partnership between their search-engine and online-advertising departments on Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

“In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo search while Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers,” the official Microsoft news release said.

The way I read that sentence, it means they will pool their resources so that Yahoo’s search engine will have the same tools as the Bing “decision engine.” It also means Bing will have access to Yahoo’s superior online advertising services and it can give advertisers better results and a bigger audience.

Right now, Google controls about 70 percent of the online-search market, while Microsoft and Yahoo, combined, only account for nearly 30 percent of all Internet searches. They’ll need a lot more stones in their sling if they hope to take down the giant.

What does this new relationship mean for pay-per-click advertisers? According to the news release,

Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Advertisers will be able to take advantage of Microsoft’s online-advertising tools while also receiving Yahoo’s expert service. This new service will hopefully offer the best of both worlds.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, referring to Google.

Of course, companies and their CEOs want to promote their services as much as possible. Google probably has a completely different take on these events. So what are your thoughts? Is this development good or bad for ecommerce and Internet marketing? This is a complete version of the blog post on the eHarbor Blog: “What the Microsoft-Yahoo merger means for ecommerce.”

The Microsoft-Yahoo logo is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of JVManna.