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e_Marketing Blog Squidoo New Look Squidoo seems to have a new edit and publish interface. I've always found it a bit clunky in the past, but now it seems quite a bit easier to add modules. The process makes more sense to me. I just created a lense about Car Repair for a client. What Makes A Good Blog? Since I'm writing a series on "Creating A Successful Blog" I've been looking (not very diligently) for other opinions on what makes for a successful blog. One thing I've discovered is that there is no magic answer to this question. First of all, every blog speaks to a different audience in a different tone of voice. So what one group likes another group will find boring or maybe even overtly aggravating. I stumbled on an instance of this today when I followed a link from Lisa Barone's post called "Six Kickass Writing Resources for Bloggers". First on her list was "What Makes a Good Blog?" by Merlin Mann. Now I must admit there are several things in Merlin's list which I agree with, but I find the overall tone fairly aggravating. For instance, he says, "People start real blogs because they think about something a lot...They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person's obsessions take them." Frankly I don't see why "obsession" is a necessary part of blogging. Is it because in order to do real blogging we must express our personality; and expressing our personality necessarily involves creativity; and because creativity is so relatively scarce and difficult that it will not happen without an obsessive focus on something? Or is this just the way an obsessive person looks at it? Of course it takes all types. But there is a certain arrogance and air of superiority about talk of obsession and creativity that I can do without. WiMAX for Portland WiMAX service will soon be available in Portland, Oregon. What is WiMAX? It is a wireless alternative to cable or DSL. For a number of years this technology has promised to revolutionize the delivery of "last mile" service connecting homes and offices to internet access points. But these days the focus is more on mobile applications that make it a viable alternative to standard cell phone services. The provider of this service in Portland will be Clearwire, a company formed through joint cooperation of Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner. WiMAX will not be significantly cheaper than the alternatives, but it does promise to offer greater potential for merging disparate services such as internet, cell phone, Voip and cable tv. |
Cottage-Sales.com - Looking for a cottage or summer home in Canada? You've come to the right place. We have valuable background information on cottage sales and what to look for in a summer home. If you've done any searching for cottages or summer homes, you know this market changes daily. Cottage-Sales.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites. How to Maximize Paid Search ResultsJun 4, 2006 - Linknet Business News Make Money at Home - the best home business ideas and opportunities. Make Money with PPC Ads - Premierad.com pays up to 75% of advertising revenue. Carpet cleaning company dallas - A Dallas based Carpet Cleaning Company providing carpet and upholstery cleaning. Starting a handyman business - Complete information on starting and running a handyman business. How to Maximize Paid Search Results by Kevin GoldBecause of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many battle-scarred - "do-it-yourself" - businesses have not realized their desired objectives. Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in developing in-house. Faced with a moderately or less performing pay-per-click marketing program and the pressure to allocate resources elsewhere, many businesses choose to drop their pay-per-click marketing entirely - leaving a vast potential of sales for their competitors to harvest. If you face pay-per-click marketing challenges, before you decide to drop the program, try these proven strategies to get it producing your desired results. Discover These Proven Strategies to Produce Quick Results. A. Keyword-Level Tracking Track your pay-per-click marketing at the keyword-level - referred to as the "root". For pay-per-click marketing, it is essential that you know your "per click" results from the money you have spent. For example, if you have 1,000 keywords active in your pay-per-click marketing program and you spend a total of ,000 a month - do you know which of the 1,000 keywords produce the best results? What if 80% of your sales stem from 20% of your keywords? Moreover, what if this 20% accounted for just a small percentage of your ,000 monthly cost? If you do not have keyword-level tracking you will not be able to make these financially beneficial assessments. Time-tested experience shows that the 80/20 rule applies to pay-per-click marketing. Does the 80/20 rule apply to your pay-per-click marketing? Get keyword-level tracking. But Beware of Matching Options! Although matching options (i.e. broad, advanced, exact, phrase and so on) offered by Google Adwords, Overture and other pay-per-click search engines provide "convenience" they unfortunately skew your keyword performance results. If you setup a "broad-match" for the keyword "real estate", you will attract visitors who have entered any possible variation of the term "real estate" including geographically specific "real estate" keywords that may have absolutely no relevance to your product or service. Here is a scenario where matching options skew your results? You generate ,000 in revenue from the broad-match keyword, "real estate" yet the total click cost for it exceeds revenue and because of the keyword's negative return, you label it as a poor performing keyword. What if the majority of the click cost originated from irrelevant, broad-match keyword variations like "Louisiana real estate" - while one variation, "real estate strategy" generated all of the revenue? By identifying this keyword (hard to do in a broad-match environment so rely on your web stats program), taking this one keyword and isolating it as an exact term you will reduce your total click cost while continuing to generate the same revenues. How are your broad-match keywords performing? Isolate keywords to save click costs and to regulate individual keyword performance. B. Landing Page Development Pay-per-click marketing is unique compared to other mainstream forms of online marketing. In part because marketers have the opportunity to select specific keywords, write specific ads and direct the click-through to a specific web page. This "connect-the-dots" structure creates the need to develop consistency among the visitor's expectation from the keyword they enter to the ad that draws their attention and down to the web page, they "land-on". Relevancy and consistency are essential for an effective pay-per-click marketing program. One of the reportedly major reasons why pay-per-click marketing programs fall short of their intended goal is because businesses direct all of their click-throughs to their home page. Since most businesses' home pages are designed to serve mutliple audiences (i.e. media relations, investors, current clients, potential prospects, customer services, etc.) they do not provide the level of relevancy and consistency expected from the visitor to get them to act confidently. What in the Virtual World are Landing Pages? Landing pages are simply web pages designed specifically for a keyword or related group of keywords. They are highly relevant to the keyword searched and consistent with the ad's claim. They immediately focus a visitor's attention to a primary call-to-action (most wanted response). In essence - landing pages ask your visitors to take an action. If your pay-per-click marketing is not living up to your expectations, consider which web pages you are sending visitors to. Are they relevant and consistent with your pay-per-click ads and keywords? Do they offer too many calls-to-action? Do they "fit" the expectations of the visitor searching on the particular keyword? For example, are you sending a visitor searching on the keyword "Sony LCD TV" to a web page with twenty varieties of electronic products? An effectively designed landing page would present the visitor a "Sony LCD TV" with customer benefit oriented copy, an immediate "buy now" call to action and all applicable guarantee, shipping, customer service and return policies. Make it Easy for Your Visitors and they will Reward You with Sales. C. Keyword Selection Keyword selection is important. The keywords you select provide access to "pools" of visitors at different stages in their buying cycle. By selecting the right keywords for your products or services, you can open a completely new market of ready-to-buy visitors. Make sure that you thoroughly canvass your marketplace using strategies such as: ? Your competitors' websites ? Your website's copy ? Third-party tools - Overture's Suggestion Tool, WordTracker, and others ? Your website metrics program (look for "natural search engine" keyword phrases) ? Search engines like Ask Jeeves or Alta Vista (who suggest keyword variations) Most importantly, "THINK" about your potential customers and what direct or indirect keywords they may use to find your products or services. Never give up searching for new keywords to setup and test. Both seasonal and even weekday keyword performance fluctuations should be analyzed and studied in addition to potential associations people make to find your products and services. What about you - have you selected the right keywords? D. Bidding Strategies All pay-per-click search engines possess unique bidding nuances. However, for the two largest, Google Adwords and Overture do not become fixated on the top bid position. Test how each keyword performs against your website's sales or lead conversion metrics up to the seventh bid position. Depending on your product or service, you may be amazed how bid position six attracts less click-throughs but produces greater sales or lead conversion on your website. Or maybe position four generates better conversion. Regardless - test, test and test - the outcome may mean lower costs and higher sales conversions for you. Consider this New Update in Your Bid Strategy. Are you aware that recently Overture's top partners, MSN and Yahoo, opened their results to up to eight "sponsor results" or paid ads on the first page? In some cases, the fourth and fifth or fifth and sixth positions will show at the bottom of the first results page and again at the top, right margin of the first results page - in essence two ads for the price of one. Do not be lured into competing for the first place position instead keep an eye on your keyword performance (via your keyword-level tracking) and occupy whichever position provides the best sales or lead conversion. E. Writing Effective Ads Finally, always test different ads by interchanging words in the title and description. For Google Adwords, try split-testing two different titles and descriptions and add a unique tracking code to each one so you can identify which one causes the best sales conversion increase. Notice that I did not state, "the best "click-through rate increase". Why? Because "a lot of nothing" (i.e. a lot of traffic without sales or lead conversion) is not a financially effective strategy. Consider that even a single word change on your ad can create a significant jump to your sales or lead conversion rate. Follow these strategies to boost your pay-per-click marketing results today. Good Producing! Kevin Gold is a Partner and Co-founder of Enhanced Concepts, Inc., which specializes in turning website visitors into leads or sales through tested website conversion strategies and performance-focused search engine marketing. To learn how to generate greater performance from your search engine marketing and to turn more website visitors into leads and sales go to http://www.enhancedconcepts.com Article source - Pay-Per-Click-Guru.info
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