I give 10 tips to help you promote your website so that you can get on the front pages of Google. You should use promotional SEO tools to help you aid your efforts to reach the #1 spot on Google. In this video, I address some tactics, current hot software products being discussed on forums, my own experimentation and a way to check your rank progress easily and simply. My SEO website company page is: professionalseoguru.com
Video Rating: 2 / 5

Damn!! I Love this routine, it makes all ur body sore in the morning, ur butt, abs, legs, arms & everything, but once u get used to it, it get very very easy. a really gd workout if u dnt have time/money to go to the Gym… it takes only 32 mins off of ur life. Alot of u have been askin…:”How many calories did I just burn??” Well as @cmenochs said:- everyone burns calories differently, it depends on how much work you put into it, your weight, height, etc. I would suggest buying a heart monitor, it will tell you exactly how many calories you burn specific to you. althougn they can be expensive unfortunately Hope u enjoy it…If it’s hard for you then don’t worry, just keep working out & it’ll get easier & easier…. stay healthy. 1)Drink lots of water during the day & a glass before u start working out. 2)Eat brown bread & brown rice instead of white 3)use olive oil (It doesn’t mean that it has less calories, BUT it’s much healthier) & u wanna stay fit AND healthy =) 4)Eat in smaller plates which will help u eat small portions ! 5)MOVE UR BUTT… take the stairs instead of using the elevator, u don’t have to park ur car right in-front of the building,play with ur children,YOU go get that glass of water, YOU go get that remote, YOU go open the door. 6)Eat lots of vegetables & fruits. You can do this 3-4 times a week & yes u can do it daily if u want to! Wanna download this?Here’s a link: www.4shared.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Lets change the discount rates depending on how far out the payments are.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

(PRWEB) May 02, 2012

He has been called the Einstein of Advertising and the Oracle of Marketing. Advertising Age said he was responsible for tectonic changes shaping todays advertising and named him one of the most influential advertising people of the twentieth century dubbing him, simply, a Living Legend.

An original one of the Mad Men who personify the golden age of advertising, Alvin A. Achenbaum, a member of the Market Research Hall of Fame, played an instrumental role in the some of the best known and most influential advertising and marketing campaigns including those for Hallmark, Kraft, Toyota, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Now, Achenbaum has compiled his more than five decades of unparalleled experience and marketing knowledge into a remarkable 5-volume set, Marketing Lessons From a Living Legend (Achenbaum Institute of Marketing; $79.99; ebook release available May 2, 2012 for Nook, Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iTouch, and Sony Reader).

This unprecedented collection contains the most comprehensive insights on the art of marketing ever gathered. Developed by a master practitioner, it is presented as a college-level course and covers every topic a student or beginning marketer needs to know and understand from developing a marketing plan through its execution. The course is comprised of 30 lessons broken down in five parts. It covers every aspect of marketing management including its functions, processes, and uses in detail: what marketing is, how it should be planned, and how it should be practiced in the marketplace.

Easy to read and filled with anecdotes, this 30-lesson course gives you all the key concepts and tools you need to land a job and advance your career in marketing including:

Part 1Marketing: What it is Really About

Part 2Marketing: How it Should be Practiced; The Role of Marketing Planning

Part 3Addressing the Basic Functions of Marketing from a Practitioners Perspective

Part 4Impersonal Marketing Communications

Part 5Auxiliary Functions of Marketing

As chairman of marketing management consultancies, Achenbaum has advised leading numerous global brands. Hes been affiliated, as a senior executive, with such major advertising as McCann-Erickson, Grey Advertising, and J. Walter Thompson. At Backer Spielvogel, Bates Worldwide, he was board vice chairman responsible for all professional services. Achenbaum also taught marketing at The Baruch School of Business and Public Administration and has lectured at eight universities including NYU, Columbia, and McGill.

Written for students, college graduates who are beginning their marketing careers, or for entrepreneurs and small business owners who need help bolstering their marketing efforts, Marketing Lessons From a Living Legend offers a unique opportunity to learn it all from one of the leading figures in advertising and marketing history.

About the Author
As a marketing veteran, Alvin A. Achenbaum, according to Advertising Age, marketing industry’s bible, was responsible for “tectonic changes” shaping today’s advertising. He was also cited by the publication as one of 100 most influential people in the industry during the twentieth century. In founding a number of marketing management consultancies, in which he was chairman, he advised a host of blue chip clients, including Hallmark, Kraft, Toyota, and the United States Department of Defense.

Mr. Achenbaum, who has studied, taught, practiced and written more than 150 articles and speeches on marketing, advertising and market research, obtained a BS degree in Business Economics from UCLA, and an MS degree in Marketing from Columbia University. He taught marketing at Baruch School of Business and Public Administration for three years as an adjunct professor. He has also lectured at eight universities, including NYU, Columbia, and McGill. Mr. Achenbaum’s remarkable career also includes being inducted into the Market Research Hall of Fame. He is available for interviews from New York, NY.

MARKETING LESSONS FROM A LIVING LEGEND
By Alvin A. Achenbaum
Achenbaum Institute of Marketing
May 1, 2012; $79.99; Five Volume EBook set
Available for Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad and iPhone, and Sony Reader

http://prweb.com/printer/9458113.htm

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) July 27, 2011

In a move designed to broaden the companys business footprint and present franchise opportunities to a demanding new breed of entrepreneur the owner/operator 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has launched a new franchise model. The new owner/operator model appeals to people who want to be a part of a successful franchise business, but are looking to operate in smaller, lower-density markets than the traditional model has serviced. Its a solution for wannabe entrepreneurs who have a passion for business, but perhaps not the inclination to start-up far from home, or the budget to fund a large scale business. Owner/operator provides all of the systems and support of a traditional franchise, but in a smaller territory.

Its a great solution for entrepreneurs who love daily operations. They may work in the trucks alongside their employees. They can earn a great living in a smaller market doing what they love, while still benefiting from the opportunity to really grow and build the brand in that market, says 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Founder and CEO, Brian Scudamore.

Historically the companys franchise development team fields a lot of inquiries from interested parties for territory that has long since been snapped up. The great thing about owner/operator is it doesnt just provide more selection for those who want in on this franchise opportunity, it also puts our brand at the doorstep of a massive part of the population we werent able to service in the past, explains Scudamore.

The key differences between owner/operator and traditional franchises are the price and size of the franchise and the level of resources required to run and grow the business. A traditional franchise is in excess of 10 territories of 62.5K people (625,000 plus population), with a minimum investment in territory fees of $66K. The traditional franchise starts off with a $12K investment in marketing and 2 trucks in operation. Under the owner/operator model a franchise partner purchases six to 10 territories (375,000 to 625,000 population) at a cost of between $21K – $33K. The marketing spend is $6K and the owner starts off with one truck and may act as primary operator in that truck. Owner/operators are not required to set up an office, a brilliant marketing ploy, as the lack of a bricks and mortar location means the rolling billboard trucks are always marketing in the community.

All 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchise partners enjoy the benefits of a global call center; in-house intranet support for booking jobs, running reports, and accounting; marketing and PR support; and field support and coaching.

About 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
1-800-GOT-JUNK? is pioneering an industry that is helping residents and businesses remove junk and regain space. Whether its a pile of household junk in the garage or a warehouse full of office furnishings, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? removes it for you, making the ordinary business of junk removal exceptional. We are passionate about recycling and donating to charity. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? was founded in 1989 and now operates throughout North America and Australia.

For more information, please call:
Tania Venn
Director, PR
866.483.7042
Tania(dot)venn(at)1800gotjunk(dot)com

http://prweb.com/printer/8673778.htm

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of web advertising and it is quite different from traditional form of advertising. The purpose of SEM is global while traditional advertising is meant to address needs of particular region or local clan of customers. SEM is designed to get the business or product ranked on the higher echelons in the right hand side of the search results through the Google AdWords campaigns, or YSM in yahoo. SEM is a paid campaign where ultimate aim of the advertiser is to rank on the top by paying highest bid amount. The text ads of the advertisers on the right hand side are the sponsored ads for which the Google charges per click basis.

Traditional advertising reaches to the masses through expensive electronic media. Moreover, creating the very ad campaign for traditional advertising is also quite expensive. It is this expensive nature of traditional media over the SEM that makes small and medium sized business entities fall directly for the cost effective SEM strategies.

Pull Based Advertising/ Push Based Advertising
SEM is a pull based advertising whereas the traditional advertising is push based advertising. It means that when you go for the online advertising, you have real prospective traffic visiting you. The prospective traffic is interested in buying your products and services, and you don’t have to shout to them to buy your products or services. However, in case of traditional advertising, this is not the scenario, as it is the advertiser who has to approach the customers located in the target market and shout for product/service.

Track of Potential Customers/Visitors
Again under the innovative and smart SEM method, the advertiser can easily keep the track of potent customers/visitors through the use of user-friendly and easy web analytics software like Google analytics, clicktracks etc. In this manner, the advertiser can know about real ROI of the money spent in the market. Based on the ROI, the advertiser can smartly optimize the campaign. However, in the traditional advertising method, this is simply not possible. There’s no actual and appropriate method where you can really calculate the total number of target customers that will fall your products or hire your services.

Effect on Sales and Profits
An advertiser through SEM can reach to the maximum number of customers within a limited time frame, and this is simply not possible in case of traditional advertising. In case of traditional advertising, it might take even months before the real effect of advertising can be acknowledges. SEM provides long term sales and profits. Even if you have stopped SEM campaign, you can continue to achieve increased sales ever and ever after. However, in case of traditional advertising, the rise in sales and profits is only short term. The moment you have stopped advertising about your products or services, the sales and profits figure dips down.

Cost and Budgeting of Advertising
SEM is a fast track and cost effective form of advertising, whereas, traditional advertising is a slow process method and expensive form of advertising. Through the above comparison, one can easily reach to the conclusion, that if you really want to save money and reach globally in a fast way, then SEM is the only method to go with.

Ololade Adedayo is a Start-up Business Mentor, Speaker, Entrepreneur and Internet Marketer. His site providing great information about starting an online business. To learn more about "Home Based Business Opportunities", "Work From Home Ideas", and to learn "How To Start Your Own Business" visit us at [http://whoisololadeadedayo.com/about-me/] and be sure to check out the rest of the site, [http://WhoIsOloladeAdedayo.com/] as well.

About a month ago, Microsoft informed us the Bing API would no longer be free and today is the day they migrated the Bing Search API to the paid platform.

Microsoft said for the time being, the Bing API will still be free – to try out. But those with over 5,000 queries per month will have to start paying after the free trial is over. The pricing structure is posted here and currently reads:

• 2,500,000 queries for $5,000.00
• 2,000,000 queries for $4,000.00
• 1,500,000 queries for $3,000.00
• 1,000,000 queries for $2,000.00
• 500,000 queries for $1,000.00
• 250,000 queries for $500.00
• 100,000 queries for $200.00
• 50,000 queries for $100.00
• 20,000 queries for $40.00
• 10,000 queries for $20.00
• 5,000 queries for $0.00

The old Bing Search API will sunset on August 1, 2012.

For more details see the Bing Search blog.

Related Topics: Microsoft: APIs | Microsoft: Bing

See the original post:
Bing Search API Now On Paid Platform

About a month ago, Microsoft informed us the Bing API would no longer be free and today is the day they migrated the Bing Search API to the paid platform.

Microsoft said for the time being, the Bing API will still be free – to try out. But those with over 5,000 queries per month will have to start paying after the free trial is over. The pricing structure is posted here and currently reads:

• 2,500,000 queries for $5,000.00
• 2,000,000 queries for $4,000.00
• 1,500,000 queries for $3,000.00
• 1,000,000 queries for $2,000.00
• 500,000 queries for $1,000.00
• 250,000 queries for $500.00
• 100,000 queries for $200.00
• 50,000 queries for $100.00
• 20,000 queries for $40.00
• 10,000 queries for $20.00
• 5,000 queries for $0.00

The old Bing Search API will sunset on August 1, 2012.

For more details see the Bing Search blog.

Related Topics: Microsoft: APIs | Microsoft: Bing

Read the original post:
Bing Search API Now On Paid Platform

You’ve heard about SEO. You’re convinced SEO works very well for different kinds of online business. What you probably wonder is why it’s so powerful.

That’s why I wrote this report – to show you not one, not five, not ten… but twenty-eight different reasons to buy
SEO. To see why SEO is so powerful. To spotlight the role it can play in marketing and communicating.

A few weeks ago, Search Engine Land carried my article about the difficulty of pricing SEO services and it got a lot of positive response.

People reached out with new questions, and shared challenges they faced along the SEO sales process, as they struggled to convince internal managers and CEOs about the value of optimizing for search engines, and getting them to expand their marketing budgets for SEO.

Those questions and issues are addressed in this article – beginning with the most compelling reason  why buying SEO is such a good idea.

1.  SEO Is Not A Cost But An Investment

An investment with a high return. By tying in SEO to Web analytics data, you may observe certain keywords having great conversion rates for which you rank only on page #2 on Google and know that you’re leaving money on the table.

Lifting your rank to the top 3 spots on the first page, where most clicks go, can provide a massive return on your modest investment into SEO. It’s why SEO has been likened to investing in real estate - the returns can be truly stupendous when you get it right.

2.  SEO Turns The Spotlight On Your Sales Rockstar

And who would that be? Your website!

Think about it. It’s open 7 days a week, all year long, and never calls in sick or reports late to work. It does whatever it’s told to do, and pulls in sales, leads and opt-ins like clockwork. Your website is your ‘perfect employee’, multitasking effectively, tackling thousands of prospects at once, and only limited by what you ask of it.

Search engine optimization lavishes attention on your sales rock-star, generating the highest performance by giving it the right emphasis and focus in your marketing arsenal.

3.  SEO Is A Crucial Part Of Your Marketing Mix

If you’ve read my other posts here on Search Engine Land, you’ll already know that I’m clear about the importance of SEO for marketing any business. SEO is the master when it comes to pulling in prospects, and can help boost conversions too.

But I also believe that SEO is not the only game in town! SEO alone cannot help you reach your highest marketing potential. Social media, branding and other marketing strategies segue into and complement SEO, the combination strengthening and reinforcing each element to grow your business exponentially… faster.

As a manager or CEO then, your challenge isn’t about picking one over another, but how best to intelligently integrate SEO into your marketing mix to reap rich rewards.

And that’s why this isn’t a ‘battle between marketers’, with specialists in each branch trying to out-sell the other to their clients, but rather an opportunity for collaboration and partnership in leading a business manager or CEO towards the right mix of marketing services – including SEO – that will bring the highest cumulative benefit.

Instead of always “giving customers what they want”, it’s time to face the fact that, often, clients do not know how to select from the diverse options at their disposal.

As professionals, marketers and SEO consultants must not be dismissive or misleading about other specialties than their own, but instead help clients build the right foundation, mix and plan, and then guide them to effectively implement and manage the most cost effective, high-return strategies and tactics that are aligned with their overall business goals.

A part of the responsibility professional marketers share is to steer clients away from danger, or stop them from embracing populist tactics that will actually turn out to be a quagmire in which their business gets stuck, or quicksand into which it gradually sinks without a trace. In my opinion, ‘not telling the full truth’ is just the same as ‘lying’. This approach may not work for every company. Some might even frown at your desire to step outside your scope and field of expertise.

But for small and medium businesses and start ups, by adopting such an advisory/consultative role and offering professional advice, reaching out a helping hand to offer “business development” advice, and showing rock-solid proof to back up your offerings, prices and advice, you can go a long way in building trust. At that point, clients will be willing to follow you, even when you suggest an approach that points in another direction than what they believed would be the right choice.

It bears to always keep in mind that clients are buying a consultant’s expertise only because they don’t have it themselves, and therefore they are (logically) unable to ask for the “perfect offer”.  Selling them whatever they ask for is often not in their best interests. And this is just as true for big brands with internal staff as it is for smaller businesses.

4.  SEO Impacts The Research/Buying Cycle

SEO will increase your sales without proportionately increasing your marketing costs, thereby growing profits exponentially and over time. SEO can further all your business goals at a better ROI than most other comparable forms of online marketing because of this fundamental effect of better conversions and more sales at little incremental cost.

Assuming that everybody has heard about your brand or thinks that you’re the best place to buy can be a very costly mistake. People are constantly researching good deals, and are using the social-driven Web for comparison shopping. And price conscious shopping behavior is more common in tough financial times, when consumers spend their money more cautiously.

SEO plays an important role in this research and buying cycle. It’s like a prospect magnet, attracting potential buyers to your website through critical and relevant keywords and phrases ranked high in search engines where searchers are already looking for information about them. It’s about being where your customers are, and directing them towards solutions you offer them.

5.  SEO Pricing Is Variable

Pricing SEO services is difficult (even though some argue that it’s really simple, as you can see from the discussion around my earlier post titled, How Much Does SEO Cost?).

There are no universal standards by which you can fix a ‘rate card’ for SEO services. Keyword analysis, link building and other SEO activities are unique, customized and tailored differently for specific situations. And even among SEO providers, there is a wide range in quality. There are seasoned professionals and there are scammers, amateurs and ignorant practitioners.

But as the person in charge of your company’s SEO, you are the most ‘dangerous’ person involved… because the responsibility for your choices rests on your shoulders! Before you pick the cheapest or most expensive proposal, the limited or more comprehensive one, the one from experienced pros versus an SEO-savvy cousin or friend, be sure to read How Much Does SEO Cost? to understand the nuances and nitty gritty details.

As a specialized service, SEO involves teams of people working behind the scenes. Giving them a small budget practically ties their hands, and you cannot expect stellar results from their restrained effort.

If you are not yet convinced about the synergies involved and how these facets interact together, then don’t be afraid to ask for an SEO pre-analysis, even if it means paying a modest fee for it.  That’s a safe investment and worth more if it convinces you about the real value in adopting an SEO strategy.

Misconceptions about SEO abound, and this excellent book called “The Art of SEO” has really great examples. Some popular myths include:

• SEO goals (“we’ll build you 100 links per month”) matter more than business goals (“we’ll grow your profits by 5%”).
• SEO exists in a vacuum and doesn’t integrate with other parts of the enterprise.
• SEO techniques are better implemented on marketing concepts and product titles, regardless of search volumes and popularity.
• SEO activities can be carried out without need for co-ordination and oversight by a supervisor.
• Leave SEO to the developers (“Trust them, everything will be ok!”).

There are many more in the article, 24 Ways To Make Life Hard For Your SEO Team.

6.  SEO Is Never Too Costly!

Nowhere else in marketing is it likely to pay off by being a contrarian as with choosing the right SEO company. In comparing several companies, you’re often tempted to pick the least expensive pitch, while it may actually be a smart choice to pick the most expensive one!

How? SEO is not a cost. It’s an investment. And even if the highest priced SEO company charges you twice as much as the rest, as a marketing manager or decision maker, you should look deeper into why they are so expensive. What makes them so confident as to pitch you with an offer others would toss into the dust-bin without a second thought?

If the more expensive SEO company helps you reach your financial goals and growth targets in half the time at twice the price, is it really ‘expensive’? Let’s say I offer to pay you $4 for every dollar you give me, how much money would you give me today, assuming you’re convinced I won’t take your cash and run away?

That’s where SEO pre-analysis can help. If the study proves that your market is big enough to drive enough volume, the competition is weak enough for you to fight and win, and your experience with SEO consultants and SEO firms over time shows that you are getting a larger amount of targeted traffic from their efforts. If this traffic converts at a high rate into sales and profit, then the impact on your business from this SEO campaign will be responsible for well more than “4 dollars for one” over time.

Is it time, then, to step back and take a harder look at the allocation of your marketing budget? Should you be looking to reap the potential of SEO, and grab the low hanging fruit within your easy reach?

This isn’t an emotional decision. It’s based on logic and hard data. ‘Costly’ SEO is like buying an automobile. Why does a Ferrari cost more than a VW Beetle? There are many good reasons and similar ones apply to SEO.

7.  SEO Isn’t Icing On The Cake – It’s An Important Ingredient

Ok, now that you’ve spent a fortune on your new website (and it looks great!), the last thing you want is to listen to a consultant who asks you to invest even more money to be visible on search engines.

But Google needs help in understanding your business. SEO that’s effectively woven into your site’s DNA can help showcase your business on search engines in the best possible light.

As an SEO consultant, I get called in by companies that have built a “state of art” website and want SEO slapped on it. But that isn’t how it works. You don’t bake your cake first, and then pour beaten eggs over it, or sprinkle sugar on top. No. You mix those ingredients in with the batter itself.

Taking SEO into consideration even while planning your website structure, content management system (CMS), URL syntax, and Web design gives the best results for your business. It can help you map old URLs to new ones, tailor your landing pages to user intent, lead prospects along a ‘buying slope’ and preserve old rankings that took years of work to achieve.

While an SEO consultant can help you (a lot) even if you started in the wrong order, it will take more time, more effort, more money, and some major restructuring work to get it done later on.

8.  SEO Is More Than Just SEO-Friendly CMS

So your CMS vendor told you it was SEO friendly and optimized? Don’t be fooled. That isn’t all the SEO you need. Not by a long country mile! They should know (by now) that SEO is not only about code. Google doesn’t look for ‘code’, it looks for ‘content’.

There are over 200 ranking factors, and algorithms change many times every year. CMS code is just a fraction of the whole. By providing the right framework for your site, an SEO friendly CMS can help. But it takes a lot more to dominate search engines.

Chief among those ‘other things’ is content. Content is king. The devil is in the detail – keywords, neighborhood, and your overall marketing mix. Your CMS has little to do with these. You wouldn’t buy a great frying pan and food processor, then hope they’ll magically turn you into a Michelin star chef!

SEO isn’t new. Yet many CEOs and managers haven’t formally been taught the importance of good SEO for online business. Yes, CMS vendors may misguide and mislead. After all, this is a highly technical and sophisticated marketing technology, and if you can’t wrap your head around it, you are not alone.

But if you ask the right questions, you’ll win through in the end.

8.  SEO Can Multiply Your Impact

How much did it cost to print your visiting cards? Or your marketing brochures? I’ll bet it wasn’t much compared to how much you invested in your website.

Did you carefully proof-read those cards, brochures or flyers before sending them off to the printing agency (or get someone else to review it for you)? I’ll bet you did.

But you didn’t have a search specialist “proof read” your expensive, infinitely more powerful marketing tool – your website – before you launched it!

Would you design and order all those visiting cards and brochures at considerable expense, and then just lock them up in a shelf? Of course not.

By ignoring SEO, that’s exactly what you’re doing with your fancy new website. A website that could have been viewed by thousands of your best prospects and ideal clients. A website that you’re now leaving to the whim and fancy of Google to rank at its will.

Just because you own top of the line printing equipment, would you print your business cards yourself? No, I’m sure you don’t. You probably order them from a professional company with long experience with printing.

SEO is your digital calling card. It can multiply your impact massively by getting your website in front of targeted eyeballs. There’s good reason to have it handled by professionals who know their job.

They will ensure that your website appeals to the right audience, and gets viewed by a wide segment of it, so that your digital visiting card best performs the critical task your business assigned to it – getting qualified leads and converting them into cash-spending customers.

9.  SEO Keeps You From Missing Out On Free Advertising

Would you trust another agency to write your door sign, or decide what goes on your visiting card? Will you allow your competitor to design your display ads, or decide who sees your storefront?

If you don’t strategically craft your website’s title tags and meta descriptions, that’s what you’re permitting. And that’s not good for business at all. It’s like leaving “lorem ipsum” text on your printed marketing materials!

SEO lets you dictate how your business should be featured on search results. If thousands of your prospects are viewing “random text”, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re letting a wonderful chance to get free advertising slip through your fingers.

The good news is that once you’re aware of this, it’s easy to fix. SEO hands you back the controls, so you can steer your business along the right path.

10.  SEO Leverages Social Sharing

Are you engaged in social media like Facebook? SEO plays an important role here. Content shared by users on social networks are directly related to SEO specific parameters like title tags and meta descriptions. This is what you see when people share posts and stories on their Wall, Google+ profile, or in a tweet or share.

An SEO strategist will help you manage this process, in collaboration with your marketing and communications department. Through SEO you get to control what people read, think and do on social sites and spread through their networks at the speed of light.

11.  SEO Will Help People Find Your Website

Your website is the first point of contact with your audience online. It can generate leads, qualify prospects and attract potential new customers, partners or investors.

But unless people can find it, your website is good for nothing. SEO plays an invaluable role here.

No longer is SEO just about ranking a site in search results, getting more clicks and views, or keeping ‘bounce rates’ optimal. That’s a dangerous misconception. Modern, effective SEO should be rooted in the company’s goals and strategies, and swivels on the psychology of individuals in the target market and segment.

SEO gets your business found, noticed, and loved.

12.  SEO Goes To The Heart Of Your Business

Great SEO demands more than just coding skills and a search-friendly CMS. It’s no longer something a tech-savvy cousin or well-meaning friend can fix up for you over a weekend, for a couple of beers. Professional SEO is serious business.

SEO is like a heart surgery. If organic search is responsible for more than half of your website’s traffic, SEO lies at the heart of your business. Without a good heart surgeon you could die.

Without a specialist handling your SEO, your business could die. Just as you’d hunt for the best heart surgeon to operate on you, you should seek out the best SEO consultant or strategist, rather than trying to do it yourself!

Whoever is responsible for buying SEO at your company must know that it involves marketing and communication, an understanding of business and economics, strategic thought, and the ability to think outside the box, all the while keeping their focus on the business’ overall goals and targets. The individual overseeing your SEO campaigns will become your “extended marketing manager”, financial advisor and more.

Not everyone can do this. And finding a competent person is hard. To casually hand over this challenging task to an in-house Web developer or designer can be unwise. Even though many Web developers and designers are learning more about SEO, it can be a critical mistake to make SEO a “second priority” and install it by ticking boxes on a checklist someone handed you at a seminar!

Sure, you may look on it as a way to cut costs. But this not only “saves you money”,  it also dramatically lowers your profit potential! This is very common, and I see it often in my practice.

Clients view SEO as “shelf-ware” and a “push-button install” that anyone who knows a bit of Web design and HTML coding can fix for them. That’s like using string and duct-tape to fix your car, or your house, when it needs repairs. You’ll risk your safety by doing that. And taking a similar approach to SEO, you’re risking your business (revenue and growth).

13.  SEO Builds Trust & Credibility

SEO can make your brand stronger, better and well recognized. The eventual goal should be that, when people search for business critical and relevant keywords and phrases, they should find you at the top of search results. Then, psychology takes over and prospects will believe that you’re the best.

Your website’s title and meta description tags can telegraph a powerful statement that strengthens your brand, while helping communicate a marketing message that’s in line with your strategic business goals.

Then prospects will believe that you’re the best.

These days, everybody “Googles it”. If you’re there, right on top of the SERPs, it goes a long way in boosting your credibility. If you’re right where your customers are, at the right moment, with the right solution, you’ll win big.

But being there is only part of the puzzle. You need more. You must get inside the heads of your prospects. Speak their language. Feel their pain. Present them with a solution. Once you do, your credibility with your audience skyrockets.

14.  SEO Makes You Ubiquitous

We intuitively sense that a #1 ranking indicates top class. An athlete who wins the gold medal is a champion. Silver and bronze winners are runners-up. All the rest are ‘also rans’… and no one cares about them!

Search engine rankings are similar. The top spot on Google SERPs gets 36.4% of all clicks, the #2 spot gets 12.5%, #3 takes 9.5%, and from there it declines quickly. Being at the top of the heap wins you ‘front of mind’ recall and brand awareness and wins you more sales.

If your website doesn’t pop up on the first page of Google for your business critical keywords and phrases, then it’s… “Houston, we have a problem!”

On the off-chance that you’re running a healthy business even without good search engine visibility for your high search volume keywords, then imagine how much more money you could make when you rank for them and reach those extra customers and make more sales. Remember… if you’re not there, your competitors are, ready to take your money!

15.  SEO Helps Build Your Brand

Branding is often complex, costly and chaotic. You throw many things at consumers, hoping enough will stick in their minds and be recalled when it’s time for a purchase. SEO can help accelerate your branding campaign and make you memorable.

When more people visit your site, get familiar with your business, and order from you, then you have more people likely to come back again and tell their friends about you. SEO is an effective way to get this ball rolling, by ranking your website high and attracting a flood of Web traffic.

It can then turn this initial impression into lasting recall through presenting the most relevant and useful information that a visitor is seeking through search engines, thereby earning ‘mind share’ and securing a lasting place in their heart.

16.  SEO Is A Long-Term Strategy

SEO can deliver quick results. It can be effective in the short term and help businesses who need results now. And that’s the primary appeal of SEO to certain types of business owners. But SEO has one serious advantage over other marketing with a ‘short term’ focus… it delivers an ongoing ROI over the long term also.

While PPC and other advertising methods are quick at driving Web traffic, they are also expensive. Also, in the Tamar 2008 Search Attitude report, 91% of survey respondents said they preferred natural search results while looking to buy a product or service online. SEO can ensure you grab these plum spots.

Done correctly, SEO can be long lasting. With proper SEO analysis up front, you can stay on the front page of search results for years, without spending money in the future. Even after you stop your SEO work, your website can still rank high on your chosen keywords, though you’re better off continuing with the services of an SEO consultant or in-house team, or you’ll risk losing your search ranking.

Again, this isn’t an expense, but an investment. A quick and simple calculation will show you how quickly you’ll earn back your investment into effective SEO by way of increased earnings.

17.  SEO Drives Offline Sales

Good SEO starts with smart purchasing decisions. Today, more sales offline are driven by research initiated on the Web. A WebVisible/Nielsen study in 2008 found that 86% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses from which to buy offline. Yes, in the store!

It’s why most offline businesses cannot afford to ignore online marketing, and also why SEO forms the cornerstone of every offline company’s digital marketing strategy. Your website acts as a never-resting salesperson, working day and night to deliver qualified leads to your business.

These are people actively seeking out solutions that you offer to their most pressing problems and needs. SEO can bring many more of them to your virtual doorstep, for your business to enamor, service and delight.

18.  SEO Attracts Relevant Traffic With High Conversion Potential

SEO is highly targeted, down to minor details. Using keyword analysis, you can find just how big a “market” is, how many people are searching for that exact keyword, how competitive the arena is (in SERPs), and with some keen deductive reasoning, even identify the intent behind keyword searches.

It’s not all intuitive and obvious, and the devil is in the details. That’s why having an insightful SEO consultant can generate huge returns on your marketing dollars spent on optimization.

Web traffic from a good SEO campaign has high conversion potential. And by correctly tapping into ‘searcher intent’, addressing your audience’s concerns and problems, building trust, and convincing prospects that your company is the right one to do business with, you can enjoy a high rate of visitor-to-sales conversion that’s the envy of your industry.

For example, a well-planned SEO campaign for a hotel will reach potential customers looking to take a vacation, lead them to your website, and to the right section that addresses exactly what they’re looking for. In this way, SEO acts like a hybrid of a guide, receptionist, concierge, marketing executive and salesperson.

Without SEO, finding your website in the tourism industry will be hunting for a needle in a haystack. Without fully understanding the intent behind your visitor’s search and their unique and individual needs, the chances of losing the prospect forever is high. Getting them both right means more visitors, and more sales.

19.  SEO Is Measurable Marketing

Every element of your SEO can be measured, evaluated and corrected. By doing this continuously, you can find out your return on every SEO dollar invested.

20. Your SEO Consultant Is A ‘Secret Weapon’

A professional SEO consultant will be a great asset in developing your business. Your SEO consultant can find lucrative keywords and niches with great ROI where you can make money easily, carry out detailed market research and competitive analysis, and help you build content to pull in traffic that will close big deals for you.

A skilled SEO consultant can run in-depth analyses of your business competitors, study their strategy, and more. Your consultant can mock up a “war” and test your strategies in battle against your competition… and if those computations work in your favor, it’s time to go to war!

It can also show you if the strategy is ineffective or the competition too well entrenched to unseat. This will save you money and time wasted in pursuing ownership of that keyword or niche, leaving you to focus energy on more profitable areas. Such market pre-analysis can be priceless to the right company or business.

Remember what Al Ries and Jack Trout highlight in their timeless book, “Marketing Warfare” – Marketing is a war! And just as you won’t think about going to war without conventional weapons, you can’t enter a competitive market armed only with a tommy gun!

At the same time, using old fashioned weaponry will only prolong the suffering and lead to an inevitable defeat. You need powerful, state of art, effective weapons to win. And in the digital battleground, cutting-edge SEO will give you an edge.

21.  SEO Is Cost Effective

Over years, SEO has been proven to be one of the most cost effective forms of online marketing, delivering a higher return for every dollar invested into it over time.

Your Web hosting, design and content creation expenses are similar, whether your site is visited by one hundred people, one thousand, or one million.

You pay the same for each visitor to your website, whether they join your list, buy your product or interact with your brand.

Your marketing costs are identical whether one visitor in a thousand buys from you, or one in a hundred, or one in every five.

Effective SEO can attract thousands, even millions of targeted prospects to your business website, and increase your conversion rates by delivering the exact solution to problems they are facing.

Better still, the ongoing effect and impact of SEO continues far beyond the time you invest into a campaign, because the momentum will sustain for many weeks, often years, making SEO very cost efficient as a marketing choice.

22.  SEO Can Be Outsourced To Run Hands-Free

An SEO company will work 24/7 with SEO, all year long. That’s what gives them an edge over hobbyists. They are up to date with the newest algorithm changes, negative and positive ranking factors, and know what’s needed right now while being proficient at predicting what will be needed in the future.

Also, an SEO company will get the work done faster because they have dedicated teams executing your plan, and will get you to your financial and business targets earlier. Buying cheap SEO services will apparently save you money upfront, but it will also hold you back from making a lot of money. In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

Giving your SEO consultant enough time and the right mandate will add value to other parts of your marketing. It’s how you’ll sow and reap synergies across all your business building activities.

In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

23.  SEO Can Be Made To Work For You

Yes, even if it didn’t work for you before, SEO can be tweaked and twisted into a form that benefits your business. I’ve heard it so often from clients that I simply ignore that objection and offer to prove my point through an inexpensive test.

Most often, the reason why SEO didn’t work is because the company invested too little time or money or resource into it. To blame SEO after neglecting it, not doing it properly, or simply fearing it as “something new” is unfair.

Assuming you did everything right in your implementation of SEO, it could have failed through improper planning. In SEO, failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s why it is important to assign a budget, study the market and search volumes, analyze the competitiveness and anchor your SEO campaign to business goals and strategy. This will prevent the campaign from going off the track.

An expert SEO consultant will steer you away from markets that are too small, competition that is too tough, or where revenue potential is tiny.

You’ll avoid wasting time and money chasing after the wrong targets, like more traffic that won’t convert, or higher rankings that don’t deliver the right prospects. Guesswork can lead to painful and costly surprises. SEO strategy eliminates these surprises and provides constant, reliable results.

24.  SEO Can Convince Even Skeptics

If you’re not quite sure if SEO can deliver on the promise, you can have your SEO consultant simulate or forecast both expenses and projected income before you invest big money into it. Your simulation report will cover competition analysis, market size studies, trends and future predictions, and more data that will help you make an informed decision.

This simulation can be done in a short time (maybe just a few hours, depending on the size of your business, the nature of your service or product, and the competition in your marketplace) and will laser focus your SEO campaign where it will give you the most bang for your buck.

Equally important, it will be great insurance against investing in non-lucrative strategies and tactics. In a marketing war, you cannot afford to squander precious (and limited) resources on wasteful initiatives.  Don’t risk it!

25.  SEO Provides Endless Opportunity

SEO is a continuous process. It’s like the machinery you use to drill for oil, or mine for gold. You’ll need more powerful equipment if you are to go through granite or hard rock, your engines will require frequent maintenance, and the drill-bit may get worn out and need replacing from time to time.

Your SEO is just the same. It will need constant tweaks, reviews and shifts to keep it moving in the right direction, so that it continues to deliver stellar results.

Sometimes the ground may be so hard that you need diamond-tipped drills to break through. And yes, diamond drill-bits are more expensive. But as long as research shows the presence of a vein of gold, or a large reservoir of oil, the drilling must proceed if riches are to be tapped.

In the same way, in tough markets, the SEO you need might be more expensive because of tougher competition. Yet the ‘hidden treasure’ you’re seeking will be more precious, making it worth mining for. Research and analysis by expert SEO advisors can tell you if there’s a gold mine there or not.

That’s how your investment in expensive SEO consultants pays off. At first, they may look bad on your budget sheet, because they appear as a “cost”. But if the impact of their research is to correctly guide you to the most profitable niches and avenues to mine for wealth and profit, then it will multiply your modest investment ten times over, or more!

Good SEO is like a fine-tuned engine. Unless you take good care, it won’t be able to keep going and will burn out. When you embark upon an SEO driven strategy, be prepared to hunker down for a long fight. You’ll take some hits along the way, but you’ll throw harder punches and score more wins. Eventually, that’s what matters.

26.  SEO Beats Paid Traffic

Maybe you already use Google Adwords (or other PPC advertising) very successfully. Even so, it’s paradoxical that SEO, which drives 75% of search traffic, garners less than 15% of an average SEM marketing budget, while PPC that provides barely 25% earns 80% of it.

An exclusive focus on PPC ignores the large hidden component of the iceberg that’s search traffic. Just think about it. If dominating the source of one-quarter of overall traffic gives you such excellent rewards, how much better will they get when you also control the rest?

27.  SEO Is Rooted In User Intent

Where many forms of online marketing are based interrupting a prospect with a sales pitch, SEO is aligned with the intent of a searcher, meeting your audience halfway with a relevant, targeted message that appeals to their interest and delivers a solution they are already seeking.

Being there with the right information and facts may prevent dissemination of myths and false information, become valuable in reputation management, and build a stronger brand.

Good SEO fits the various types of search intent, including:

• Navigational
• Informational
• Transactional
• Commercial

In that respect, SEO is able to generate the highest conversion rate of any targeted digital marketing initiative, which is what makes SEO a high return effort.

Quick, cheap SEO is ineffective and has little lasting value, but healthy SEO costs more but has a longer term impact.

28.  SEO Helps You Capitalize On Weak Competition

SEO can let you reap what your competitors sow! When your competition has a smaller marketing budget, they will make mistakes (or overlook opportunities). Good SEO can help you take advantage of these weaknesses. This makes SEO a smart move for small and medium sized businesses in competitive branches.

Take the case of clueless marketing campaigns that run expensive TV commercials, mass media display advertising, billboards and the like. These ads serve to activate interest in the market niche, in general, or broadly in a product or service category. Usually the company developing these ads are unconnected with search marketing divisions. This leaves a wide open hole for you to fill.

A study by market research firm Ipsos OTX based on a survey of 5,000 US smart phone users found that 71% of users search because of an ad they’ve seen online or offline. When interested people turn to search engines for more information, you can use SEO to position yourself to harvest the traffic.

This is like casting a fish net into waters that are teeming with sea-life and hauling back a rich catch!

The approach does not involve sneaky or stealthy practices such as targeting other business’ brand names. No. These are generic keyword searches sparked off by mass advertising and you can target this traffic through an intelligent mix of organic SEO and pay-per-click ad campaigns (because these are often faster and instant in impact).

The Business Case For SEO

Hopefully, these compelling reasons have convinced you about the value and benefits of an integrated SEO strategy in growing your business and taking your company to new heights of profitability, branding and success.

SEO is like music. The foundations haven’t changed much since the inception. But the application of SEO has evolved over time. I’ve traced some of this complex journey in my article called How Much Does SEO Cost?

On a personal note, I don’t believe a discussion about which marketing tactic is “the best” is of much value. As business owners, CEOs and managers, what we need to focus on is how to reach the best result by talking and working together. We’ll do ourselves a huge favor by not arguing over the most effective technique, but instead exploring how we can successfully integrate the best mix and exploit it to the fullest potential in growing business and revenues.

One last thing to keep in mind. Handing someone a guitar doesn’t mean they’ll start playing great music. If you want great music, hire a rock star. If you want top notch SEO, hire SEO Rock Stars.  Then give them the budget they need to deliver great results.

Image Credit: Crestock.com

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: All Things SEO

See the article here:
The Ultimate List of Reasons Why You Need Search Engine Optimization

You’ve heard about SEO. You’re convinced SEO works very well for different kinds of online business. What you probably wonder is why it’s so powerful.

That’s why I wrote this report – to show you not one, not five, not ten… but twenty-eight different reasons to buy
SEO. To see why SEO is so powerful. To spotlight the role it can play in marketing and communicating.

A few weeks ago, Search Engine Land carried my article about the difficulty of pricing SEO services and it got a lot of positive response.

People reached out with new questions, and shared challenges they faced along the SEO sales process, as they struggled to convince internal managers and CEOs about the value of optimizing for search engines, and getting them to expand their marketing budgets for SEO.

Those questions and issues are addressed in this article – beginning with the most compelling reason  why buying SEO is such a good idea.

1.  SEO Is Not A Cost But An Investment

An investment with a high return. By tying in SEO to Web analytics data, you may observe certain keywords having great conversion rates for which you rank only on page #2 on Google and know that you’re leaving money on the table.

Lifting your rank to the top 3 spots on the first page, where most clicks go, can provide a massive return on your modest investment into SEO. It’s why SEO has been likened to investing in real estate - the returns can be truly stupendous when you get it right.

2.  SEO Turns The Spotlight On Your Sales Rockstar

And who would that be? Your website!

Think about it. It’s open 7 days a week, all year long, and never calls in sick or reports late to work. It does whatever it’s told to do, and pulls in sales, leads and opt-ins like clockwork. Your website is your ‘perfect employee’, multitasking effectively, tackling thousands of prospects at once, and only limited by what you ask of it.

Search engine optimization lavishes attention on your sales rock-star, generating the highest performance by giving it the right emphasis and focus in your marketing arsenal.

3.  SEO Is A Crucial Part Of Your Marketing Mix

If you’ve read my other posts here on Search Engine Land, you’ll already know that I’m clear about the importance of SEO for marketing any business. SEO is the master when it comes to pulling in prospects, and can help boost conversions too.

But I also believe that SEO is not the only game in town! SEO alone cannot help you reach your highest marketing potential. Social media, branding and other marketing strategies segue into and complement SEO, the combination strengthening and reinforcing each element to grow your business exponentially… faster.

As a manager or CEO then, your challenge isn’t about picking one over another, but how best to intelligently integrate SEO into your marketing mix to reap rich rewards.

And that’s why this isn’t a ‘battle between marketers’, with specialists in each branch trying to out-sell the other to their clients, but rather an opportunity for collaboration and partnership in leading a business manager or CEO towards the right mix of marketing services – including SEO – that will bring the highest cumulative benefit.

Instead of always “giving customers what they want”, it’s time to face the fact that, often, clients do not know how to select from the diverse options at their disposal.

As professionals, marketers and SEO consultants must not be dismissive or misleading about other specialties than their own, but instead help clients build the right foundation, mix and plan, and then guide them to effectively implement and manage the most cost effective, high-return strategies and tactics that are aligned with their overall business goals.

A part of the responsibility professional marketers share is to steer clients away from danger, or stop them from embracing populist tactics that will actually turn out to be a quagmire in which their business gets stuck, or quicksand into which it gradually sinks without a trace. In my opinion, ‘not telling the full truth’ is just the same as ‘lying’. This approach may not work for every company. Some might even frown at your desire to step outside your scope and field of expertise.

But for small and medium businesses and start ups, by adopting such an advisory/consultative role and offering professional advice, reaching out a helping hand to offer “business development” advice, and showing rock-solid proof to back up your offerings, prices and advice, you can go a long way in building trust. At that point, clients will be willing to follow you, even when you suggest an approach that points in another direction than what they believed would be the right choice.

It bears to always keep in mind that clients are buying a consultant’s expertise only because they don’t have it themselves, and therefore they are (logically) unable to ask for the “perfect offer”.  Selling them whatever they ask for is often not in their best interests. And this is just as true for big brands with internal staff as it is for smaller businesses.

4.  SEO Impacts The Research/Buying Cycle

SEO will increase your sales without proportionately increasing your marketing costs, thereby growing profits exponentially and over time. SEO can further all your business goals at a better ROI than most other comparable forms of online marketing because of this fundamental effect of better conversions and more sales at little incremental cost.

Assuming that everybody has heard about your brand or thinks that you’re the best place to buy can be a very costly mistake. People are constantly researching good deals, and are using the social-driven Web for comparison shopping. And price conscious shopping behavior is more common in tough financial times, when consumers spend their money more cautiously.

SEO plays an important role in this research and buying cycle. It’s like a prospect magnet, attracting potential buyers to your website through critical and relevant keywords and phrases ranked high in search engines where searchers are already looking for information about them. It’s about being where your customers are, and directing them towards solutions you offer them.

5.  SEO Pricing Is Variable

Pricing SEO services is difficult (even though some argue that it’s really simple, as you can see from the discussion around my earlier post titled, How Much Does SEO Cost?).

There are no universal standards by which you can fix a ‘rate card’ for SEO services. Keyword analysis, link building and other SEO activities are unique, customized and tailored differently for specific situations. And even among SEO providers, there is a wide range in quality. There are seasoned professionals and there are scammers, amateurs and ignorant practitioners.

But as the person in charge of your company’s SEO, you are the most ‘dangerous’ person involved… because the responsibility for your choices rests on your shoulders! Before you pick the cheapest or most expensive proposal, the limited or more comprehensive one, the one from experienced pros versus an SEO-savvy cousin or friend, be sure to read How Much Does SEO Cost? to understand the nuances and nitty gritty details.

As a specialized service, SEO involves teams of people working behind the scenes. Giving them a small budget practically ties their hands, and you cannot expect stellar results from their restrained effort.

If you are not yet convinced about the synergies involved and how these facets interact together, then don’t be afraid to ask for an SEO pre-analysis, even if it means paying a modest fee for it.  That’s a safe investment and worth more if it convinces you about the real value in adopting an SEO strategy.

Misconceptions about SEO abound, and this excellent book called “The Art of SEO” has really great examples. Some popular myths include:

• SEO goals (“we’ll build you 100 links per month”) matter more than business goals (“we’ll grow your profits by 5%”).
• SEO exists in a vacuum and doesn’t integrate with other parts of the enterprise.
• SEO techniques are better implemented on marketing concepts and product titles, regardless of search volumes and popularity.
• SEO activities can be carried out without need for co-ordination and oversight by a supervisor.
• Leave SEO to the developers (“Trust them, everything will be ok!”).

There are many more in the article, 24 Ways To Make Life Hard For Your SEO Team.

6.  SEO Is Never Too Costly!

Nowhere else in marketing is it likely to pay off by being a contrarian as with choosing the right SEO company. In comparing several companies, you’re often tempted to pick the least expensive pitch, while it may actually be a smart choice to pick the most expensive one!

How? SEO is not a cost. It’s an investment. And even if the highest priced SEO company charges you twice as much as the rest, as a marketing manager or decision maker, you should look deeper into why they are so expensive. What makes them so confident as to pitch you with an offer others would toss into the dust-bin without a second thought?

If the more expensive SEO company helps you reach your financial goals and growth targets in half the time at twice the price, is it really ‘expensive’? Let’s say I offer to pay you $4 for every dollar you give me, how much money would you give me today, assuming you’re convinced I won’t take your cash and run away?

That’s where SEO pre-analysis can help. If the study proves that your market is big enough to drive enough volume, the competition is weak enough for you to fight and win, and your experience with SEO consultants and SEO firms over time shows that you are getting a larger amount of targeted traffic from their efforts. If this traffic converts at a high rate into sales and profit, then the impact on your business from this SEO campaign will be responsible for well more than “4 dollars for one” over time.

Is it time, then, to step back and take a harder look at the allocation of your marketing budget? Should you be looking to reap the potential of SEO, and grab the low hanging fruit within your easy reach?

This isn’t an emotional decision. It’s based on logic and hard data. ‘Costly’ SEO is like buying an automobile. Why does a Ferrari cost more than a VW Beetle? There are many good reasons and similar ones apply to SEO.

7.  SEO Isn’t Icing On The Cake – It’s An Important Ingredient

Ok, now that you’ve spent a fortune on your new website (and it looks great!), the last thing you want is to listen to a consultant who asks you to invest even more money to be visible on search engines.

But Google needs help in understanding your business. SEO that’s effectively woven into your site’s DNA can help showcase your business on search engines in the best possible light.

As an SEO consultant, I get called in by companies that have built a “state of art” website and want SEO slapped on it. But that isn’t how it works. You don’t bake your cake first, and then pour beaten eggs over it, or sprinkle sugar on top. No. You mix those ingredients in with the batter itself.

Taking SEO into consideration even while planning your website structure, content management system (CMS), URL syntax, and Web design gives the best results for your business. It can help you map old URLs to new ones, tailor your landing pages to user intent, lead prospects along a ‘buying slope’ and preserve old rankings that took years of work to achieve.

While an SEO consultant can help you (a lot) even if you started in the wrong order, it will take more time, more effort, more money, and some major restructuring work to get it done later on.

8.  SEO Is More Than Just SEO-Friendly CMS

So your CMS vendor told you it was SEO friendly and optimized? Don’t be fooled. That isn’t all the SEO you need. Not by a long country mile! They should know (by now) that SEO is not only about code. Google doesn’t look for ‘code’, it looks for ‘content’.

There are over 200 ranking factors, and algorithms change many times every year. CMS code is just a fraction of the whole. By providing the right framework for your site, an SEO friendly CMS can help. But it takes a lot more to dominate search engines.

Chief among those ‘other things’ is content. Content is king. The devil is in the detail – keywords, neighborhood, and your overall marketing mix. Your CMS has little to do with these. You wouldn’t buy a great frying pan and food processor, then hope they’ll magically turn you into a Michelin star chef!

SEO isn’t new. Yet many CEOs and managers haven’t formally been taught the importance of good SEO for online business. Yes, CMS vendors may misguide and mislead. After all, this is a highly technical and sophisticated marketing technology, and if you can’t wrap your head around it, you are not alone.

But if you ask the right questions, you’ll win through in the end.

8.  SEO Can Multiply Your Impact

How much did it cost to print your visiting cards? Or your marketing brochures? I’ll bet it wasn’t much compared to how much you invested in your website.

Did you carefully proof-read those cards, brochures or flyers before sending them off to the printing agency (or get someone else to review it for you)? I’ll bet you did.

But you didn’t have a search specialist “proof read” your expensive, infinitely more powerful marketing tool – your website – before you launched it!

Would you design and order all those visiting cards and brochures at considerable expense, and then just lock them up in a shelf? Of course not.

By ignoring SEO, that’s exactly what you’re doing with your fancy new website. A website that could have been viewed by thousands of your best prospects and ideal clients. A website that you’re now leaving to the whim and fancy of Google to rank at its will.

Just because you own top of the line printing equipment, would you print your business cards yourself? No, I’m sure you don’t. You probably order them from a professional company with long experience with printing.

SEO is your digital calling card. It can multiply your impact massively by getting your website in front of targeted eyeballs. There’s good reason to have it handled by professionals who know their job.

They will ensure that your website appeals to the right audience, and gets viewed by a wide segment of it, so that your digital visiting card best performs the critical task your business assigned to it – getting qualified leads and converting them into cash-spending customers.

9.  SEO Keeps You From Missing Out On Free Advertising

Would you trust another agency to write your door sign, or decide what goes on your visiting card? Will you allow your competitor to design your display ads, or decide who sees your storefront?

If you don’t strategically craft your website’s title tags and meta descriptions, that’s what you’re permitting. And that’s not good for business at all. It’s like leaving “lorem ipsum” text on your printed marketing materials!

SEO lets you dictate how your business should be featured on search results. If thousands of your prospects are viewing “random text”, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re letting a wonderful chance to get free advertising slip through your fingers.

The good news is that once you’re aware of this, it’s easy to fix. SEO hands you back the controls, so you can steer your business along the right path.

10.  SEO Leverages Social Sharing

Are you engaged in social media like Facebook? SEO plays an important role here. Content shared by users on social networks are directly related to SEO specific parameters like title tags and meta descriptions. This is what you see when people share posts and stories on their Wall, Google+ profile, or in a tweet or share.

An SEO strategist will help you manage this process, in collaboration with your marketing and communications department. Through SEO you get to control what people read, think and do on social sites and spread through their networks at the speed of light.

11.  SEO Will Help People Find Your Website

Your website is the first point of contact with your audience online. It can generate leads, qualify prospects and attract potential new customers, partners or investors.

But unless people can find it, your website is good for nothing. SEO plays an invaluable role here.

No longer is SEO just about ranking a site in search results, getting more clicks and views, or keeping ‘bounce rates’ optimal. That’s a dangerous misconception. Modern, effective SEO should be rooted in the company’s goals and strategies, and swivels on the psychology of individuals in the target market and segment.

SEO gets your business found, noticed, and loved.

12.  SEO Goes To The Heart Of Your Business

Great SEO demands more than just coding skills and a search-friendly CMS. It’s no longer something a tech-savvy cousin or well-meaning friend can fix up for you over a weekend, for a couple of beers. Professional SEO is serious business.

SEO is like a heart surgery. If organic search is responsible for more than half of your website’s traffic, SEO lies at the heart of your business. Without a good heart surgeon you could die.

Without a specialist handling your SEO, your business could die. Just as you’d hunt for the best heart surgeon to operate on you, you should seek out the best SEO consultant or strategist, rather than trying to do it yourself!

Whoever is responsible for buying SEO at your company must know that it involves marketing and communication, an understanding of business and economics, strategic thought, and the ability to think outside the box, all the while keeping their focus on the business’ overall goals and targets. The individual overseeing your SEO campaigns will become your “extended marketing manager”, financial advisor and more.

Not everyone can do this. And finding a competent person is hard. To casually hand over this challenging task to an in-house Web developer or designer can be unwise. Even though many Web developers and designers are learning more about SEO, it can be a critical mistake to make SEO a “second priority” and install it by ticking boxes on a checklist someone handed you at a seminar!

Sure, you may look on it as a way to cut costs. But this not only “saves you money”,  it also dramatically lowers your profit potential! This is very common, and I see it often in my practice.

Clients view SEO as “shelf-ware” and a “push-button install” that anyone who knows a bit of Web design and HTML coding can fix for them. That’s like using string and duct-tape to fix your car, or your house, when it needs repairs. You’ll risk your safety by doing that. And taking a similar approach to SEO, you’re risking your business (revenue and growth).

13.  SEO Builds Trust & Credibility

SEO can make your brand stronger, better and well recognized. The eventual goal should be that, when people search for business critical and relevant keywords and phrases, they should find you at the top of search results. Then, psychology takes over and prospects will believe that you’re the best.

Your website’s title and meta description tags can telegraph a powerful statement that strengthens your brand, while helping communicate a marketing message that’s in line with your strategic business goals.

Then prospects will believe that you’re the best.

These days, everybody “Googles it”. If you’re there, right on top of the SERPs, it goes a long way in boosting your credibility. If you’re right where your customers are, at the right moment, with the right solution, you’ll win big.

But being there is only part of the puzzle. You need more. You must get inside the heads of your prospects. Speak their language. Feel their pain. Present them with a solution. Once you do, your credibility with your audience skyrockets.

14.  SEO Makes You Ubiquitous

We intuitively sense that a #1 ranking indicates top class. An athlete who wins the gold medal is a champion. Silver and bronze winners are runners-up. All the rest are ‘also rans’… and no one cares about them!

Search engine rankings are similar. The top spot on Google SERPs gets 36.4% of all clicks, the #2 spot gets 12.5%, #3 takes 9.5%, and from there it declines quickly. Being at the top of the heap wins you ‘front of mind’ recall and brand awareness and wins you more sales.

If your website doesn’t pop up on the first page of Google for your business critical keywords and phrases, then it’s… “Houston, we have a problem!”

On the off-chance that you’re running a healthy business even without good search engine visibility for your high search volume keywords, then imagine how much more money you could make when you rank for them and reach those extra customers and make more sales. Remember… if you’re not there, your competitors are, ready to take your money!

15.  SEO Helps Build Your Brand

Branding is often complex, costly and chaotic. You throw many things at consumers, hoping enough will stick in their minds and be recalled when it’s time for a purchase. SEO can help accelerate your branding campaign and make you memorable.

When more people visit your site, get familiar with your business, and order from you, then you have more people likely to come back again and tell their friends about you. SEO is an effective way to get this ball rolling, by ranking your website high and attracting a flood of Web traffic.

It can then turn this initial impression into lasting recall through presenting the most relevant and useful information that a visitor is seeking through search engines, thereby earning ‘mind share’ and securing a lasting place in their heart.

16.  SEO Is A Long-Term Strategy

SEO can deliver quick results. It can be effective in the short term and help businesses who need results now. And that’s the primary appeal of SEO to certain types of business owners. But SEO has one serious advantage over other marketing with a ‘short term’ focus… it delivers an ongoing ROI over the long term also.

While PPC and other advertising methods are quick at driving Web traffic, they are also expensive. Also, in the Tamar 2008 Search Attitude report, 91% of survey respondents said they preferred natural search results while looking to buy a product or service online. SEO can ensure you grab these plum spots.

Done correctly, SEO can be long lasting. With proper SEO analysis up front, you can stay on the front page of search results for years, without spending money in the future. Even after you stop your SEO work, your website can still rank high on your chosen keywords, though you’re better off continuing with the services of an SEO consultant or in-house team, or you’ll risk losing your search ranking.

Again, this isn’t an expense, but an investment. A quick and simple calculation will show you how quickly you’ll earn back your investment into effective SEO by way of increased earnings.

17.  SEO Drives Offline Sales

Good SEO starts with smart purchasing decisions. Today, more sales offline are driven by research initiated on the Web. A WebVisible/Nielsen study in 2008 found that 86% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses from which to buy offline. Yes, in the store!

It’s why most offline businesses cannot afford to ignore online marketing, and also why SEO forms the cornerstone of every offline company’s digital marketing strategy. Your website acts as a never-resting salesperson, working day and night to deliver qualified leads to your business.

These are people actively seeking out solutions that you offer to their most pressing problems and needs. SEO can bring many more of them to your virtual doorstep, for your business to enamor, service and delight.

18.  SEO Attracts Relevant Traffic With High Conversion Potential

SEO is highly targeted, down to minor details. Using keyword analysis, you can find just how big a “market” is, how many people are searching for that exact keyword, how competitive the arena is (in SERPs), and with some keen deductive reasoning, even identify the intent behind keyword searches.

It’s not all intuitive and obvious, and the devil is in the details. That’s why having an insightful SEO consultant can generate huge returns on your marketing dollars spent on optimization.

Web traffic from a good SEO campaign has high conversion potential. And by correctly tapping into ‘searcher intent’, addressing your audience’s concerns and problems, building trust, and convincing prospects that your company is the right one to do business with, you can enjoy a high rate of visitor-to-sales conversion that’s the envy of your industry.

For example, a well-planned SEO campaign for a hotel will reach potential customers looking to take a vacation, lead them to your website, and to the right section that addresses exactly what they’re looking for. In this way, SEO acts like a hybrid of a guide, receptionist, concierge, marketing executive and salesperson.

Without SEO, finding your website in the tourism industry will be hunting for a needle in a haystack. Without fully understanding the intent behind your visitor’s search and their unique and individual needs, the chances of losing the prospect forever is high. Getting them both right means more visitors, and more sales.

19.  SEO Is Measurable Marketing

Every element of your SEO can be measured, evaluated and corrected. By doing this continuously, you can find out your return on every SEO dollar invested.

20. Your SEO Consultant Is A ‘Secret Weapon’

A professional SEO consultant will be a great asset in developing your business. Your SEO consultant can find lucrative keywords and niches with great ROI where you can make money easily, carry out detailed market research and competitive analysis, and help you build content to pull in traffic that will close big deals for you.

A skilled SEO consultant can run in-depth analyses of your business competitors, study their strategy, and more. Your consultant can mock up a “war” and test your strategies in battle against your competition… and if those computations work in your favor, it’s time to go to war!

It can also show you if the strategy is ineffective or the competition too well entrenched to unseat. This will save you money and time wasted in pursuing ownership of that keyword or niche, leaving you to focus energy on more profitable areas. Such market pre-analysis can be priceless to the right company or business.

Remember what Al Ries and Jack Trout highlight in their timeless book, “Marketing Warfare” – Marketing is a war! And just as you won’t think about going to war without conventional weapons, you can’t enter a competitive market armed only with a tommy gun!

At the same time, using old fashioned weaponry will only prolong the suffering and lead to an inevitable defeat. You need powerful, state of art, effective weapons to win. And in the digital battleground, cutting-edge SEO will give you an edge.

21.  SEO Is Cost Effective

Over years, SEO has been proven to be one of the most cost effective forms of online marketing, delivering a higher return for every dollar invested into it over time.

Your Web hosting, design and content creation expenses are similar, whether your site is visited by one hundred people, one thousand, or one million.

You pay the same for each visitor to your website, whether they join your list, buy your product or interact with your brand.

Your marketing costs are identical whether one visitor in a thousand buys from you, or one in a hundred, or one in every five.

Effective SEO can attract thousands, even millions of targeted prospects to your business website, and increase your conversion rates by delivering the exact solution to problems they are facing.

Better still, the ongoing effect and impact of SEO continues far beyond the time you invest into a campaign, because the momentum will sustain for many weeks, often years, making SEO very cost efficient as a marketing choice.

22.  SEO Can Be Outsourced To Run Hands-Free

An SEO company will work 24/7 with SEO, all year long. That’s what gives them an edge over hobbyists. They are up to date with the newest algorithm changes, negative and positive ranking factors, and know what’s needed right now while being proficient at predicting what will be needed in the future.

Also, an SEO company will get the work done faster because they have dedicated teams executing your plan, and will get you to your financial and business targets earlier. Buying cheap SEO services will apparently save you money upfront, but it will also hold you back from making a lot of money. In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

Giving your SEO consultant enough time and the right mandate will add value to other parts of your marketing. It’s how you’ll sow and reap synergies across all your business building activities.

In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

23.  SEO Can Be Made To Work For You

Yes, even if it didn’t work for you before, SEO can be tweaked and twisted into a form that benefits your business. I’ve heard it so often from clients that I simply ignore that objection and offer to prove my point through an inexpensive test.

Most often, the reason why SEO didn’t work is because the company invested too little time or money or resource into it. To blame SEO after neglecting it, not doing it properly, or simply fearing it as “something new” is unfair.

Assuming you did everything right in your implementation of SEO, it could have failed through improper planning. In SEO, failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s why it is important to assign a budget, study the market and search volumes, analyze the competitiveness and anchor your SEO campaign to business goals and strategy. This will prevent the campaign from going off the track.

An expert SEO consultant will steer you away from markets that are too small, competition that is too tough, or where revenue potential is tiny.

You’ll avoid wasting time and money chasing after the wrong targets, like more traffic that won’t convert, or higher rankings that don’t deliver the right prospects. Guesswork can lead to painful and costly surprises. SEO strategy eliminates these surprises and provides constant, reliable results.

24.  SEO Can Convince Even Skeptics

If you’re not quite sure if SEO can deliver on the promise, you can have your SEO consultant simulate or forecast both expenses and projected income before you invest big money into it. Your simulation report will cover competition analysis, market size studies, trends and future predictions, and more data that will help you make an informed decision.

This simulation can be done in a short time (maybe just a few hours, depending on the size of your business, the nature of your service or product, and the competition in your marketplace) and will laser focus your SEO campaign where it will give you the most bang for your buck.

Equally important, it will be great insurance against investing in non-lucrative strategies and tactics. In a marketing war, you cannot afford to squander precious (and limited) resources on wasteful initiatives.  Don’t risk it!

25.  SEO Provides Endless Opportunity

SEO is a continuous process. It’s like the machinery you use to drill for oil, or mine for gold. You’ll need more powerful equipment if you are to go through granite or hard rock, your engines will require frequent maintenance, and the drill-bit may get worn out and need replacing from time to time.

Your SEO is just the same. It will need constant tweaks, reviews and shifts to keep it moving in the right direction, so that it continues to deliver stellar results.

Sometimes the ground may be so hard that you need diamond-tipped drills to break through. And yes, diamond drill-bits are more expensive. But as long as research shows the presence of a vein of gold, or a large reservoir of oil, the drilling must proceed if riches are to be tapped.

In the same way, in tough markets, the SEO you need might be more expensive because of tougher competition. Yet the ‘hidden treasure’ you’re seeking will be more precious, making it worth mining for. Research and analysis by expert SEO advisors can tell you if there’s a gold mine there or not.

That’s how your investment in expensive SEO consultants pays off. At first, they may look bad on your budget sheet, because they appear as a “cost”. But if the impact of their research is to correctly guide you to the most profitable niches and avenues to mine for wealth and profit, then it will multiply your modest investment ten times over, or more!

Good SEO is like a fine-tuned engine. Unless you take good care, it won’t be able to keep going and will burn out. When you embark upon an SEO driven strategy, be prepared to hunker down for a long fight. You’ll take some hits along the way, but you’ll throw harder punches and score more wins. Eventually, that’s what matters.

26.  SEO Beats Paid Traffic

Maybe you already use Google Adwords (or other PPC advertising) very successfully. Even so, it’s paradoxical that SEO, which drives 75% of search traffic, garners less than 15% of an average SEM marketing budget, while PPC that provides barely 25% earns 80% of it.

An exclusive focus on PPC ignores the large hidden component of the iceberg that’s search traffic. Just think about it. If dominating the source of one-quarter of overall traffic gives you such excellent rewards, how much better will they get when you also control the rest?

27.  SEO Is Rooted In User Intent

Where many forms of online marketing are based interrupting a prospect with a sales pitch, SEO is aligned with the intent of a searcher, meeting your audience halfway with a relevant, targeted message that appeals to their interest and delivers a solution they are already seeking.

Being there with the right information and facts may prevent dissemination of myths and false information, become valuable in reputation management, and build a stronger brand.

Good SEO fits the various types of search intent, including:

• Navigational
• Informational
• Transactional
• Commercial

In that respect, SEO is able to generate the highest conversion rate of any targeted digital marketing initiative, which is what makes SEO a high return effort.

Quick, cheap SEO is ineffective and has little lasting value, but healthy SEO costs more but has a longer term impact.

28.  SEO Helps You Capitalize On Weak Competition

SEO can let you reap what your competitors sow! When your competition has a smaller marketing budget, they will make mistakes (or overlook opportunities). Good SEO can help you take advantage of these weaknesses. This makes SEO a smart move for small and medium sized businesses in competitive branches.

Take the case of clueless marketing campaigns that run expensive TV commercials, mass media display advertising, billboards and the like. These ads serve to activate interest in the market niche, in general, or broadly in a product or service category. Usually the company developing these ads are unconnected with search marketing divisions. This leaves a wide open hole for you to fill.

A study by market research firm Ipsos OTX based on a survey of 5,000 US smart phone users found that 71% of users search because of an ad they’ve seen online or offline. When interested people turn to search engines for more information, you can use SEO to position yourself to harvest the traffic.

This is like casting a fish net into waters that are teeming with sea-life and hauling back a rich catch!

The approach does not involve sneaky or stealthy practices such as targeting other business’ brand names. No. These are generic keyword searches sparked off by mass advertising and you can target this traffic through an intelligent mix of organic SEO and pay-per-click ad campaigns (because these are often faster and instant in impact).

The Business Case For SEO

Hopefully, these compelling reasons have convinced you about the value and benefits of an integrated SEO strategy in growing your business and taking your company to new heights of profitability, branding and success.

SEO is like music. The foundations haven’t changed much since the inception. But the application of SEO has evolved over time. I’ve traced some of this complex journey in my article called How Much Does SEO Cost?

On a personal note, I don’t believe a discussion about which marketing tactic is “the best” is of much value. As business owners, CEOs and managers, what we need to focus on is how to reach the best result by talking and working together. We’ll do ourselves a huge favor by not arguing over the most effective technique, but instead exploring how we can successfully integrate the best mix and exploit it to the fullest potential in growing business and revenues.

One last thing to keep in mind. Handing someone a guitar doesn’t mean they’ll start playing great music. If you want great music, hire a rock star. If you want top notch SEO, hire SEO Rock Stars.  Then give them the budget they need to deliver great results.

Image Credit: Crestock.com

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: All Things SEO

Go here to see the original:
The Ultimate List of Reasons Why You Need Search Engine Optimization

This is one of those short posts that will make you squint your eyes slightly, furrow your brow, tilt your head, and say, “Wait, what? This doesn’t make sense.” Like this:

I have an account in Google AdWords that has had a conversion metric calculation glitch. I first noticed it a few months ago when comparing cost/conversion and conversion rate metrics I calculated in my excel reports with the metrics reported in the AdWords interface. For this account, AdWords consistently under-reports the cost/conversion and over-reports the conversion rate. As you can guess, this has the potential to cause confusion and frustration.

Here’s a screen shot of the summary bar at the top of the data table:

The conversion types are consistent (1-per-click), but the calculations reported are incorrect. These are what they should come out to:

Cost/Conversion = $3,054.09 / 299 = $10.21

Conversion Rate = 299 / 2,190 = 13.65%

You can try calculating them yourselves right now if you’d like: Google AdWords is wrong. Now we know if they ever try to take over the world, math is their weakness.

So far, I’ve only encountered this issue with one account. Have you noticed this before in your account(s)? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more here:
Not Adding Up (Literally) – Google AdWords’ Glitch

This is one of those short posts that will make you squint your eyes slightly, furrow your brow, tilt your head, and say, “Wait, what? This doesn’t make sense.” Like this:

I have an account in Google AdWords that has had a conversion metric calculation glitch. I first noticed it a few months ago when comparing cost/conversion and conversion rate metrics I calculated in my excel reports with the metrics reported in the AdWords interface. For this account, AdWords consistently under-reports the cost/conversion and over-reports the conversion rate. As you can guess, this has the potential to cause confusion and frustration.

Here’s a screen shot of the summary bar at the top of the data table:

The conversion types are consistent (1-per-click), but the calculations reported are incorrect. These are what they should come out to:

Cost/Conversion = $3,054.09 / 299 = $10.21

Conversion Rate = 299 / 2,190 = 13.65%

You can try calculating them yourselves right now if you’d like: Google AdWords is wrong. Now we know if they ever try to take over the world, math is their weakness.

So far, I’ve only encountered this issue with one account. Have you noticed this before in your account(s)? Let us know in the comments below.

Link:
Not Adding Up (Literally) – Google AdWords’ Glitch

As campaigns mature, keywords evolve from experiments to proven revenue drivers. Remembering to add a keyword to Bing after a successful trial in Google or remembering to expand a new top performing keyword across its other match types is easier said than done.

With so much focus these days on the next best thing — generating the most compelling creative or discovering the next diamond-in-the-rough keyword — search marketers often ignore the keyword gaps that slowly accumulate over time.

Maintaining publisher and match type keyword parity is one of the most important campaign management strategies available to a search marketer. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most difficult strategies to scale and implement successfully. Sifting through hundreds of thousands of keywords and toggling between multiple publishers to identify keyword disparities can prove to be a daunting task.

Today, we’ll discuss several best practices for maintaining keyword parity across match types and publishers. We’ll also help identify where potential keyword gaps reside in your account and provide the necessary tools for filling them.

Publisher Parity

Imagine you’ve just added a new keyword into your Google account that’s expected to acquire more revenue for your business. Now two weeks, 100 clicks and 10 conversions later, your keyword is a hit. In the fog of excitement, you’ve decided to research additional keyword expansion opportunities, neglecting to explore the full potential of your newly discovered revenue driver.

Adding your new, proven keyword into your Bing accounts has slipped your mind. As day-to-day optimization strategies take your account forward, this and other keyword gaps continue to accumulate. Unfortunately, many search marketers fail to maintain keyword parity across publishers, even when the failure to do so can result in missed revenue opportunities.

Locating publisher keyword gaps can prove to be a daunting task. Implementing tracking prior to tackling keyword expansion addresses the parity issue at its core. (Third-party solutions, like Marin Software, can help track and report on these keywords at scale.) Take detailed notes on when, where and why these keywords were added to an account. These notes are essential to assessing performance and critical for locating revenue driving keywords to copy across publishers.

In order to retroactively assess publisher parity, download a keyword performance report and apply an Excel pivot table to compare publisher keyword sets by key performance indicators.

Once you’ve identified the gaps, add these keywords to the appropriate publisher on a weekly or monthly basis. Remember to set competitive bids, generate compelling creative and deploy proper negative keywords.  Missing out on an important negative keyword when achieving parity can result in reduced effectiveness for the keywords you add.

Match Type Parity

Ensuring match type parity by adding keywords across all three match types is a common best practice. This can be approached in two different directions—expanding from broad to phrase to exact match type or from exact to phrase to broad match type.

Copying successful exact and phrase match keywords to broad match type is a quick and easy approach for reaching a broader audience and discovering new keyword opportunities. However, the resulting increase in traffic doesn’t always correspond to an increase in performance. Be cautious when expanding keywords to broad match type and aggressively mine for negative keywords.

Improving keyword efficiency often requires the expansion of broad match keywords to phrase and exact match type. This strategy is an effective means of segmenting keyword performance. Keep in mind that broad match keywords already capture the traffic for its phrase and exact match counterparts. Consequently, cost and conversion metrics are attributed to a single keyword.

Maintaining match type parity is a simple way of segmenting keyword performance by match type, allowing for the implementation of match type specific bids, creative or both.

Match Type Silos

Consider this common scenario. A keyword on Google is active across all three match types. However, the broad match bid is set higher than the phrase and exact match bids.

As a result, the broad match keyword cannibalizes impressions and clicks that might best be served on and captured by the phrase and exact match keyword. This undesired behavior creates a reporting and optimization nightmare; performance data for the phrase and exact match queries is attributed to the broad match keyword.

To properly expand keywords across broad, phrase and exact match types, and segment performance based on match type, match type silos must be deployed. To implement match type silos, start by creating a separate group for each keyword match type. Within the broad match group, add the phrase match negative keyword. Within the phrase match group, add the exact match negative keyword.

Match type silos are not only easy to implement, but ensure that publishers properly match your keywords to user search queries. Furthermore, the segmentation of keywords by match type provides greater visibility into performance, resulting in a more effective reporting and bidding strategy.

As you work through keyword expansion opportunities, be mindful of keyword gaps and maintain publisher and match type parity. Once you’ve filled these gaps, remember to optimize. Setting appropriate keyword bids, generating relevant creative and researching negative keywords are just a few strategies to in mind.

What has and hasn’t worked for your campaigns when it comes to maintaining parity across publishers and match types? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Enterprise SEM

Original post:
Accelerating Revenue Growth With Keyword Parity

As campaigns mature, keywords evolve from experiments to proven revenue drivers. Remembering to add a keyword to Bing after a successful trial in Google or remembering to expand a new top performing keyword across its other match types is easier said than done.

With so much focus these days on the next best thing — generating the most compelling creative or discovering the next diamond-in-the-rough keyword — search marketers often ignore the keyword gaps that slowly accumulate over time.

Maintaining publisher and match type keyword parity is one of the most important campaign management strategies available to a search marketer. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most difficult strategies to scale and implement successfully. Sifting through hundreds of thousands of keywords and toggling between multiple publishers to identify keyword disparities can prove to be a daunting task.

Today, we’ll discuss several best practices for maintaining keyword parity across match types and publishers. We’ll also help identify where potential keyword gaps reside in your account and provide the necessary tools for filling them.

Publisher Parity

Imagine you’ve just added a new keyword into your Google account that’s expected to acquire more revenue for your business. Now two weeks, 100 clicks and 10 conversions later, your keyword is a hit. In the fog of excitement, you’ve decided to research additional keyword expansion opportunities, neglecting to explore the full potential of your newly discovered revenue driver.

Adding your new, proven keyword into your Bing accounts has slipped your mind. As day-to-day optimization strategies take your account forward, this and other keyword gaps continue to accumulate. Unfortunately, many search marketers fail to maintain keyword parity across publishers, even when the failure to do so can result in missed revenue opportunities.

Locating publisher keyword gaps can prove to be a daunting task. Implementing tracking prior to tackling keyword expansion addresses the parity issue at its core. (Third-party solutions, like Marin Software, can help track and report on these keywords at scale.) Take detailed notes on when, where and why these keywords were added to an account. These notes are essential to assessing performance and critical for locating revenue driving keywords to copy across publishers.

In order to retroactively assess publisher parity, download a keyword performance report and apply an Excel pivot table to compare publisher keyword sets by key performance indicators.

Once you’ve identified the gaps, add these keywords to the appropriate publisher on a weekly or monthly basis. Remember to set competitive bids, generate compelling creative and deploy proper negative keywords.  Missing out on an important negative keyword when achieving parity can result in reduced effectiveness for the keywords you add.

Match Type Parity

Ensuring match type parity by adding keywords across all three match types is a common best practice. This can be approached in two different directions—expanding from broad to phrase to exact match type or from exact to phrase to broad match type.

Copying successful exact and phrase match keywords to broad match type is a quick and easy approach for reaching a broader audience and discovering new keyword opportunities. However, the resulting increase in traffic doesn’t always correspond to an increase in performance. Be cautious when expanding keywords to broad match type and aggressively mine for negative keywords.

Improving keyword efficiency often requires the expansion of broad match keywords to phrase and exact match type. This strategy is an effective means of segmenting keyword performance. Keep in mind that broad match keywords already capture the traffic for its phrase and exact match counterparts. Consequently, cost and conversion metrics are attributed to a single keyword.

Maintaining match type parity is a simple way of segmenting keyword performance by match type, allowing for the implementation of match type specific bids, creative or both.

Match Type Silos

Consider this common scenario. A keyword on Google is active across all three match types. However, the broad match bid is set higher than the phrase and exact match bids.

As a result, the broad match keyword cannibalizes impressions and clicks that might best be served on and captured by the phrase and exact match keyword. This undesired behavior creates a reporting and optimization nightmare; performance data for the phrase and exact match queries is attributed to the broad match keyword.

To properly expand keywords across broad, phrase and exact match types, and segment performance based on match type, match type silos must be deployed. To implement match type silos, start by creating a separate group for each keyword match type. Within the broad match group, add the phrase match negative keyword. Within the phrase match group, add the exact match negative keyword.

Match type silos are not only easy to implement, but ensure that publishers properly match your keywords to user search queries. Furthermore, the segmentation of keywords by match type provides greater visibility into performance, resulting in a more effective reporting and bidding strategy.

As you work through keyword expansion opportunities, be mindful of keyword gaps and maintain publisher and match type parity. Once you’ve filled these gaps, remember to optimize. Setting appropriate keyword bids, generating relevant creative and researching negative keywords are just a few strategies to in mind.

What has and hasn’t worked for your campaigns when it comes to maintaining parity across publishers and match types? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Enterprise SEM

Read more:
Accelerating Revenue Growth With Keyword Parity

Prescott, AZ (PRWEB) November 1, 2006

Marketing and copywriting expert Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) is giving away a free report on her new website, http://www.MichelePW.com. The report, 10 Tips to Make Your Marketing More Creative shows hard-hitting entrepreneurs and small business owners how unleashing their creativity can yield better marketing results. PW has combined creativity and marketing in her business for years with excellent results.

Ive written fiction for years and discovered that the same techniques I use to keep a plot moving or flesh out a character work for designing a sales campaign, PW said. People arent used to the idea of using creativity and intuition outside of a studio. This report will make creativity a more accessible marketing tool.

Included in the report are techniques for changing ones marketing perspective. For instance, one exercise encourages readers to go beyond the first right answer and think of another right answer. Another one talks about exploring how other industries market their product. And, if youre truly willing to let your reservations about creativity as a key to marketing rest for a while, ask your product how it wants to be sold, or even imagine that YOU are the product and ask yourself how youd want to be sold.

10 Tips to Make Your Marketing More Creative is part of PWs Rev Up Your Results Toolkit. Along with the special report, everyone who signs up to receive the toolkit will also receive an additional special report, 5 Deadly Copywriting Mistakes Are They Killing Your Business? and a free subscription to PWs popular tip-packed newsletter, Results. The toolkit normally sells for $189.

Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) is the owner of Creative Concepts & Copywriting, LLC a copywriting, marketing and creativity agency. She is the premiere direct response copywriter for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Michele specializes in both online and offline direct response strategies that create bottom-line results for clients and turn their web sites into sales machines. Visit her online at http://www.MichelePW.com to download her free special report “5 Deadly Copywriting Mistakes — Are They Killing Your Business?”

http://prweb.com/printer/462754.htm

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Are you amongst the group of people who have been struggling forever to initiate an Internet Business, but never got a chance to make a successful venture?

It could be because of your time limitations, or too much of outside information or may be the absence of enough motivation or inspiration.

No matter what challenges you are facing right now in advancing ahead with your business, I’d like to give you certain tips in which you can quickly and conveniently overpower them, and initiate your money making process in the following ways.

I have recently reviewed a brand new training scheme known as “The Internet Marketing Certification Program”. It is a virtual training scheme driven by the Internet marketing aces, which trains you with all the necessary knowledge, skills, inspiration and self-confidence you need to obtain success.

Amongst various similar eBusiness training schemes available in the market, this particular Certification scheme stands out for providing and offering an all-inclusive three-level guide to developing a business:

1) Self-progressive online learning built on an organized, planned and proven system.

2) The program offers you various effective training softwares to have a hands-on for the learned lessons.

3) A personal online support program with real world geniuses.

Created by the aces at the Internet Marketing Center, the program provides everything online, so you can learn at your own speed, and customize it according to your own routine.

But that doesn’t conclude that you are left on your own entirely. You’ll have to finish off your homework, tests and get comments and reviews from online trainers.

The program offers an exclusive opportunity to try what you learn, so that you can actually implement your skills and establish your own profitable website.

Moreover, you will make use of IMC’s explicit eBusiness learning software to do the “heavy lifting” for you.And when you graduate (it takes just around a month to do that), you will get the entire website already filled with traffic.

You will also be given IMC’s “Certified Internet Marketing Specialist” credential, which certifies your qualification and ability so that you can charge profitable consulting fees to assist others in starting their websites.

And IMC even takes warranty for your outcomes If you don’t achieve a completed website already attaining traffic by the time you are done with your certification, they’ll repay your whole money back.

In my view, this Certification System is the most adept remedy for the people who are having a frustrating time trying to make money online, but not getting any heads on that.

So start building your profitable website now, as IMC is offering quite reduced tuition charges for the entire course.

I am working on my own Internet business and have been involved in reviewing various products that have come up related to this particular niche.

Product Management Certification Pragmatic Marketing, world's .
The Pragmatic Marketing Certified (PMC) program gives Practical Product Management seminar attendees a way to

Inbound Marketing Certification | Inbound Marketing University
The Inbound Marketing Certification acknowledges the recipients proficiency in Inbound Marketing principals and best

eMarketing Association eMA
Marketing certification demonstrates competency in the emarketing arena. Certified eMarketers (CeM) and Certified

Marketing Certifications
Not as well known as other major certifications, there are a couple of certs out there for marketing students and

Certificate Program in Marketing UC Berkeley Extension
With the Certificate Program in Marketing, you gain crucial skills and a credential to advance your career. You're ready

Certification – Sales and Marketing Executives International
Sales & Marketing Executives International, Inc. (SMEI) has established sales certification and marketing certification

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A national field organization providing merchandising, mystery shopping, auditing, andtheatre checking services,

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Certification. The Business Marketing Institute provides three online modules leading to B-to-B marketing certification:

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The Google Penguin Update is now mainstream after The Wall Street Journal covered it in a feature story named As Google Tweaks Searches, Some Get Lost in the Web.

The story interviews a few small business owners who were hit hard by the update. One business owner saw his sales drop to $25,000 this month, down from $68,000 the previous month. Another small website owner saw roughly 30% of his traffic disappear over night. And another lost 20% of their traffic. Most of the article goes through small business owners who lives have changed for the worse due to this update. But there are some stories that lead me to believe they are not directly related to Penguin.

Again, there were several updates last month – Penguin was happened on the 24th. But there were two Panda refreshes, link network penalties, bugs and many more updates.

Even if all those cases were not Penguin related, Penguin is now main stream after hitting a major publication like the Wall Street Journal.

You can read the story over here.

Related Topics: Google: Penguin Update | Google: SEO

See the rest here:
Google’s Penguin Update Makes The Wall Street Journal

googlesniperexposed.com SEO Experts Academy Review s and Bonuses! SEO Experts Academy comprises of three sections, each suited for different levels of marketers. These sections are Advanced SEO, Intermediate SEO, and Beginner SEO. This takes into account requirements of a newbie, as well as helps experienced marketers to form new strategies with advanced concepts of SEO. Once anyone has learn the stuff in Beginner SEO, they can proceed to intermediate and advanced levels quite easily and learn advanced strategies. Read more by visiting the link!
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