Search Marketing Wisdom

I caught a tweet this morning from @ClicksIM’s Jami Broom where she stated “Adwords is trying out contact forms as an extension of an ad – pretty cool, I think.”  The link was to a news brief over at SearchEngineLand.com, which provided a short overview of a more detailed review can be found over at [...]

The new Bing Search Engine (Decision Engine?) launched tonight in “preview” mode, and I’ve done an initial test to see how well it does at general search, since that’s the focus of my primary business. While Microsoft’s saying it’s not going to supplant Google in the search market, we can expect that since they’re pouring $100 million into an advertising blitz, and that most people already assume it’s a search engine. So for now at least, that’s how I’m approaching my assessment. And so far, I’ve already found something that should cause Google to sit up and pay attention…

I previously wrote a blog post on my opinion of the Google AdWords Content network. In that post last July, I made an unequivocal statement position that anyone managing a Google AdWords account should avoid the content network at all costs. At the time, my experience managing client accounts with budgets upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars a year, showed that it was a waste of valuable client money…

For most clients, the average cost per click ranges from $2 up to about $6. For others in more competitive fields, that cost can climb to $20, $50 or even as much as $90 for a single click. So one of our primary responsibilities is to do all we can to manage the AdWords account in a way that ensures the highest position possible with the lowest cost per click…

Google is a great place to allocate a portion of your online advertising budget. They’re the #1 search engine, and they do a great job at helping site owners get exposure to people who would otherwise never learn about a site. Paid listings (Google AdWords) can help bring you high quality new business prospects. But let’s be real – Google is in the business of making money, and if you’re not using AdWords best practices, you could very well be throwing good money out the window…

if all you want is to get people to show up at your web site for 15 seconds then leave, then I suppose you can if you want to. but obviously if you want people who are going to come to your site to buy your products or hire you for your services or read your blog or participate in your social network in an interactive and return-visit way, then the offer is most definitely in my opinion, deceptive and manipulative.

Do you want to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue? How much would you spend to pay for a single display ad in a newspaper for just one day? Or for an ad in a magazine that may or may not be seen by some fraction of your prospective market? A lot more over time than it costs to use PPC if you use it wisely.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS – FLAWED AND MISLEADING?
As the resident SEO and SEM expert at WebSight Design, Inc., I am responsible for managing the search engine optimization efforts for all of our over 600 web sites. At WSD, our clients range from the smallest sole proprietors to Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar, and the band Tool. [...]