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 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.

By Robert Lockard

The Bing decision engine is the most-visible sign of competition between Microsoft and Google, but the two technology giants are competing in many ways besides their search engines. And online companies and users are benefiting from their rivalry.

According to a Wired magazine article, “Google vs. Microsoft: What you need to know,” there are several ways Microsoft and Google are trying take market share from each other. I’ll discuss how some of those ways could be good for us who work in ecommerce and Internet marketing.

For instance, Google’s online advertising services, through Adsense, have taken pay-per-click campaigns to a new level. This service allows many websites to post paid-search ads from Google and earn money when someone clicks on one of them. This allows these sites to translate visitors into revenue, and it also helps Google earn money on its advertising campaigns. Web marketers benefit from the added exposure, allowing them to reach more online users than ever before.

Microsoft is trying to get into this market with Bing cashback. It has yet to become profitable, like Google, in the arena of online advertising, but the additional competition could mean lower advertising rates and better service for Internet marketers. I discussed Bing at length in an eHarbor Blog entry, “Bing decision engine good for online marketing.”

Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has already had plenty of competition from Mozilla Firefox, Google’s new Chrome browser is sure to push them to innovate even more.

By the way, as I read this article, I noticed a glaring grammatical error that called out for me to comment on. Here’s the sentence:

It is, however, not a death match — it’s more of an fight to see who will be the King of Technology…

So close. By the way, this is a complete version of the blog entry on the eHarbor Blog: “Google-Microsoft face-off benefits ecommerce.” The Google vs. Microsoft photo is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of michperu.