Search engine ads, commonly referred to as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) such as Google AdWords and the equivalents on Bing, Yahoo and Facebook, can either provide you with valuable sales with a good return – or suck your money down the drain.

Benefits of PPC Ads:

• PPC ads can get instant exposure for a brand-new site and generate traffic right away while organic results catch up.
• The ad results can help you determine whether you are actually reaching your target market.
• Ads can promote your company name and brand.
• Well-done ads help to pre-qualify visitors to your site, aiming at the folks more likely to buy or contact you.
• Compared to other media such as newspapers, magazines, TV or Radio, they can be very cost-effective.
  

It’s rare that I come across a business site that wouldn’t benefit at all from search engine ads. The only case I can think of is if you offer a service where reputation, confidentiality, integrity and professionalism are extremely important. Would you click on an ad from a psychiatrist? On the other hand, professions such as medical and legal have jumped on the bandwagon in recent years. When doing market research for cosmetic surgery, I was very surprised to learn that people shop based on price. So, I worked with the reality of the market.

There are lots of different kinds of ads you can run – from photo-based to product-based to text, videos, local, and mobile. They can be tailored to geographic regions, demographics, days of the week, time of day, languages, and even more options. Take note – choices for running ads are about to explode into a whole new set of options.

I don’t want to scare you away! PPC ads don’t have to be complicated to be effective, excellent online marketing channel.

Whether or not you “should” run ads depends on whether you can budget for it at least six months ideally. I recommend thinking long-term because over time, with intelligent tweaks, your ads will become more effective and the costs will go down. The budget does not have to be big, and it’s always under your control. A 6-month plan is a good place to start.

So – how do you avoid wasting money and time? How do you get a decent return on investment (ROI)?

All PPC ads are set up by creating “Campaigns”. I’m going to address Google AdWords, but the same principles apply no matter where and how you are using PPC ads. Key factors to consider in your Campaign setup:

Begin with Keyword Research.

This is absolutely essential. After creating a Google AdWords account (but before you’ve actually created any Campaigns) use their built-in Keyword Research Tool to find words and phrases you want to advertise for. The Keyword Research Tool will provide estimated costs-per-click, competitiveness of a word/phrase, as well as the search popularity of that word or phrase. You might even discover some good search terms that hadn’t occurred to you.

Take advantage of specialized Campaign settings

Everything from your budget to whether you want your ads to appear on mobile devices to what countries (or states… or cities…) you want your ad to run in. you can also specify things like not running ads on weekends, or only running ads on weekends, depending on your market and whey the do the most searching.

The structure of your campaign is extremely important!

Within Google AdWords, there are sub-categories called AdGroups. Divide up your lists of keywords, and matching ads, into separate AdGroups targeted towards different topics or markets for maximum effectiveness, lower costs, and ease of determining what’s working and what isn’t.

• Do your best to not duplicate keyword/keyword phrases across multiple AdGroups.
• Make your ads match your keywords. Pay special attention to the first line – employ your targeted keyword/phrase in that top line.
• When just starting out, employ focusing of your target keywords/phrases by wrapping them in quotation marks. For example, instead of using the keyphrase website designers, use “website designers” instead.
• If you want to run text ads, plus image ads, plus video ads, create separate Campaigns for them.
  

Monitor and Tweak

Look for keywords and ads that have the highest click-through rates and conversion rates. A conversion is defined as any action a visitor takes on your site – such as filling in a contact form, completing a purchase, or viewing a particular page. (Tracking email and phone contacts is far more complicated and a subject for another post.) With the help of your webmaster and PPC pro, conversion tracking can be set up. Even if you have to pay a little bit for help with this, it is worth it. Google pays very close attention to how well your ads convert. The result is that you spend less per click and your ad positions rise. Plus, it tells you which ads are creating the most sales or contact leads!

Always remember that the entire campaign is totally under your control. You can pause anything at any time to give you a breathing space for review. You can change your budget and per-click costs at any time. PPC ads give you a lot of control.

Getting Started with Google AdWords

When first setting up a Google AdWords account, there is a trick question about your payment method. You always want to select the “prepay” method. Trust me. Before your ads run, you’ll need to put some money into your Google AdWords Account via credit card – but you won’t be automatically billed. Refilling the account is left up to you. Remember – ads don’t run until you throw the switch.

If you get an offer for a $100 voucher to star up a Google AdWords campaign, either in the mail or by email (just be cautious about the email ones) it’s most likely legit and do take advantage of it. You use this voucher in the campaign setup and billing info process. I happen to have about 19 vouchers I can assign to new campaigns. However, $100 isn’t going to go very far – don’t embark unless you’re ready to consider a more long-term strategy.

Fiona Dudley can be reached at www.weaversites.com for more information about Search Engine Optimization, Marketing & Advertising

Next week Fiona will discuss how to not to lose your established rankings when redesigning your site.

What kind of website features help raise your ranking in the search engines? a blog? videos? current news and events? lots of articles? lots of pages? a slideshow on the home page? lots of photos?

Actually, all of the above can help - but in different ways. The type of content you choose to use partly depends on the people you’re trying to reach.

Blogs, newsletter archives, articles, and pages all provide two things search engines love: text-based content they can read, and freshness of the content.

You don’t want to just throw anything and everything into your site, though. You want to stay on topic to attract rankings for the right search terms, and visits from your target market.

When adding pages, articles, blog posts, or other text-based content, do your best to make the information original. There are plenty of online sources for buying articles  – but search engines can tell if you’ve simply reprinted something from what we call an “article farm” and in 2011, sites that relied heavily on them got seriously downgraded. You’re better off hiring a good site builder or copywriter to help you with original, engaging and well-written content. Excellent site builders are usually good writers as well because they’ve had so much experience. Blogs are handy for writing in your own words. Keep it short, stick to the main topics of your site, and ask a friend or family member to proofread. Even professional writers ask others to review their writing before publishing.

Search engines don’t rank sites, they rank pages.

Frequently, people search using very specific words and phrases. Ten years ago you might rank well for “nut butter.” Today, people are quite likely to search for “organic walnut nut butter” or “hazelnut nut butter recipes.” So when you build or add pages to your site, emphasize your overall core topic (nut butter) but you could add more pages that address something very specific. It will help your rankings and it can help attract links to your site.

When it comes to photos and slideshows, just be sure to incorporate them as part of your pages and include text-based content as well. I’ll repeat, don’t make your Home page one big slideshow with “enter here” on it. That’s a guaranteed way to send both people and search engines away.

A slide show or photos don’t have a big influence on rankings, but they do matter from a marketing perspective. For example, if you are an artist or photographer then people want to see your work before hiring or buying. If you’re a consultant selling a service, then people will be drawn to good articles or blog posts you’ve written on your special topic. If you’re selling a product, then obviously people want to see the product in as much detail as you can give them. If you’re building an online community, you want information and news that interests people and easy, easy ways for people to communicate with each other and share what they’ve found with others.

There’s a special case concerning videos. Google owns YouTube. Videos show up in search results. Videos can be tagged with information that tells search engines what the video is about. Videos can have a positive effect on your SEO rankings, as well as provide your visitors with engaging, interesting content that they just might link to or share with others. Videos on your site are a win-win.

Fiona Dudley can be reached at www.weaversites.com for more information about Search Engine Optimization, Marketing & Advertising

If your website was well-designed and optimized for SEO but is more than 2 years old, what do you need to do to be sure it is still ranking well?

FIONA SAYS:

This is where the DO’s come in.

A. Just because it’s 2 years old is not a negative in itself. If you’ve been doing even minor occasional updates to it, you’re letting search engines know that the site is “active” and you should be able to at least maintain your ranking results.

B. If you haven’t been doing any updates, time to think about what you might add or update on the site to breathe some new life into it. The most important on-site factor for search engines is text-based content (your copywriting.).

You might want to start with some fresh keyword research to make sure the content (and Metatags) of your site are relevant to what people are actually searching for today. This could be very different from searches of 2 years ago. Keyword research is a wonderful way of finding out not only what the most popular searches are for your product or service – you’ll undoubtedly find search ideas that hadn’t occurred to you.

Fresh keyword research will give you some ideas of new information or topics you could add to your site, as well as help you update your Metatags if necessary.

C. About Metatags. There are only two that you should consider important, at least to start with: the Meta Title and the Meta Description. Think of the Description as a 2-sentence summary of the page contents. Then think of the Title as a 70-character (or less) summary of the summary.

There’s a caution, however. If your Metatags have worked well for you historically, don’t get tempted to suddenly rewrite them all. Even if you think they’re better-optimized, your site is likely to drop in rankings, at least temporarily (maybe even a few months) if you go overboard on revisions.

D. This may sound obvious, but make sure all the information on your site is current. Make sure any references to dates, personnel, and products/services are up to date. If you do have a few articles or blog posts, but they are all 2 years old, time to move on and add some new content. I recommend not deleting the old – build on what you’ve got.

E. Consider your links – both incoming and outgoing. If these haven’t changed in 2 years, your site may drop in ranking/popularity. Add a few new outgoing ones to your site. Try to obtain a few good quality links from other sites. For example, if you’re a caterer try contacting florists or wedding/event planners and ask them for a link. If they want you to link to them too – do a “reciprocal link” – that’s OK. One-way links to your site are best, but hard to get. Trading links with other good companies is better than no linking at all.

Fiona Dudley can be reached at www.weaversites.com for more information about Search Engine Optimization, Marketing & Advertising

Next week Fiona will talk about rich media and search engines.

Knowing that the search engines are constantly changing how they categorize websites, what is the most important thing a website owner should do to stay in the 'good graces' of the major search engines?

FIONA DUDLEY SAYS:

Even though search engines are constantly tinkering with how they evaluate and rank sites, there are still tried and true do’s and don’ts that make a big difference.

For this question I’ll focus on the don’ts.

A. The one biggest mistake that can get your web site badly penalized is to engage in shady linking schemes. Yes, you do need links from other sites – but it is the quality and relevance of those links that matter, not the quantity. There are a ton of companies out there who will promise to get you 10,000 links – for a fee - sometimes a hefty one. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. If you’re bombarded with emails from companies you’ve never heard of making sky-high promises, my rule of thumb is “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Even veterans in the SEO business have to review such companies and offers very carefully.

B. Don’t let your site languish untouched for more than a few months. More and more, search engines are looking for sites that offer fresh, timely content of value to your site visitors.

C. Don’t forget to include some links to other good sites of related, valuable topics and content. A site with no outbound links is considered a “dead end” site.

D. Although search engines are more accommodating with multimedia such as Flash, videos, and slideshows, don’t make your site entirely out of multimedia presentations. Search engines cannot “read” a video. Technically there are ways to tell search engines what a video is about, but you will probably need some help from your designer or an SEO professional to accomplish it.

E. Please, please don’t make your Home page consist of nothing but a slideshow or Flash presentation. Not only do search engines not know what that presentation is all about – a poorly designed site will have no way to open the door from the home page into the rest of your site that a search engine can follow. It’s like putting up a brick wall. It also tends to be a turn-off for people too.

Similar to the above, I’ve seen sites where the Home page is a graphic or photo with no text content at all – just a link to “enter here.” You’ve got about 3 seconds to get a person’s attention – don’t waste that 3 seconds. Give both search engines and people what they want right away. Take away that “welcome” or “enter” home page, and you’ll quickly find better search engine rankings and better response from your site visitors.

Next week Fiona will give us a list of DO's to enhance your SEO listing.

Fiona Dudley can be reached at www.weaversites.com for more information about Search Engine Optimization, Marketing & Advertising

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com

I've always thought of a website as a living breathing organism. From that perspective, the next thoughts are: What should I feed it? How should I nurture it? What does it need from me to survive?

Whether your website is for your business or represents a hobby, sport or art form, you had an initial surge of energy that sparked it into being. Now is the time to review your intentions for the site and evaluate how well it is functioning.

From a business perspective, the website is as important as a salesperson. What tools, supplies, education, training and support do you give a salesperson? Do you have new brochures, new product descriptions, a change of service offerings? Now translate those into ways that your website can be more effective: Is it time to make the video you have been thinking about? Have you kept your pricing or hours of operation up to date online? A poorly equipped salesperson whether in person or online can bring your business down rather than enhance it.

If you aren't sure about the effectiveness of your website, it is time to consider an evaluation from a third party. Someone with a fresh perspective can frequently hone in on inconsistent messaging, inadequate instructions or ambiguous selling points.

Use this first quarter of the new year to feed your site new content, clear out the outdated material and think about new features that can enhance the health of your site.

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com

Think about how your website would look to someone with low vision, for example. Does your site have obvious sections, delineated either by color or borders? Is the content divided into sections by header, subheading and body font sizes?

Depending on the degree of low vision the user has, their first step is typically to enlarge the browser font. In Firefox, this option is under the View tab. Try it and you'll see how enlarging the font can cause the lines to wrap, or throw images out of alignment. This can be disconcerting to the viewer as they struggle to make sense of your content.

The next tool a low vision or blind person will turn to is a screen reader. Screen readers are software programs that literally read the words on the page. This is where using alternate text for images is important so the listener can differentiate the body copy from the image caption. Screen readers can be programmed to speak in different voices, male and female, or with accents like Spanish, French or Italian.

Hearing impaired users benefit from captions on videos to help them get the whole message you are presenting. For those with motor impairments, there is voice recognition software and selection switches that take the place of the keyboard and mouse.

One of the reasons that Webonobo chose Plone for Content Management is because Plone carefully follows standards for usability and accessibility. Plone pages are compliant with US Section 508, and the W3C's AA rating for accessibility, in addition to using best-practice web standards like XHTML and CSS.

Additional information:

• US government Section 508 standards 
• In 1999, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a project of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
  
• For government agencies, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which was revised in September 2010 by the Department of Justice, outlines the requirements for state and local website design standards.
  
• For those interested in promoting web accessibility within your company or organization, there is a W3C Web Accessibility Business Case Guide that covers the social, technical, financial, legal and policy factors.
  

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com

Websites have the challenge of being both visually compelling as well as having the information-rich content that make them a valuable resource. I've found that there are two distinct types of website visitors - those who immediately start reading the copy, and those  who breeze in and start clicking through the site just looking at the visual content.

This behavior relates to our learning styles established in early childhood. Add in auditory preferences and you can see why your website needs to address all styles of information gathering.

The most common website mistake, however, is lack of visual interest. Copy-heavy sites tend to suffer from a lack of editing (which was addressed in a previous post). Remember that your web audience is typically moving quickly, on the lookout for information, and will readily click away from your site unless you have the visual hooks that keep them engaged.

A visual consultant can evaluate your site both in terms of immediate impact and authenticity of imagery. Stock images are handy and inexpensive, but many times they are misused and present contradictory messaging from your text. A visual consultant will also advise if your content could be enhanced by illustrations or even video presentation.

Take a look at your site from these perspectives and contact me if you feel that you need a professional visual consultation.

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo

First of all, let’s admit that most people have not taken the time to actually create a web strategy. You certainly have a business strategy in place and maybe the web got a few lines in that document, however, a web strategy needs its own spotlight.

If your site is more than a year old, it is time to give it some love. So what is included in a web strategy plan?

Your web strategy will be based on:

• your objectives
• a review of your statistics
• formally naming a person(s) responsible for the web (rather than “whoever has the time”)
• a planning session with representatives from all departments of your organization
• and in cooperation with your financial officer, earmarking funds for web development.

Here at Webonobo, although our new site was launched just 6 months ago, our web strategy for 2012 includes:

1. Testing our site with screen readers to ensure that it is accessible to all visitors
2. Testing and implementing a Chat system on our site for easy and quick communication with site visitors and clients
3. Writing new case studies as interesting projects are completed this year
4. Testing all links on a quarterly basis
5. Deleting or updating any outdated files, pages or graphics
6. Doing some research into our site's user experience and implementing changes based on that feedback.

Webonobo's 2012 Web Resolution

We will give our website the love it needs to support our strategies, ideas and goals this year!

So what is YOUR web resolution?

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com

Some free tools include:

• Google Alerts  where you plug in keywords (your business name, words related to your industry, your name, etc.) and Google will send you alerts and links to when that word is used in blogs, Facebook or other social media. Obviously, using very specific keywords is going to yield the more useful feedback.
• Facebook has its own set of tools where you can differentiate between 'likes', comments on posts you've made and 'shares' which show you when someone shares a link with a friend.
• Twitter fans have platforms like Hoot Suite and Tweet Deck for basic metrics.
• Blogs that use Google's Feedburner (as Blogonobo does) have a set of analytics available to track the unique number of people who view or click your feed.

Some subscription services include: Social Mention, Nutshell Mail, Kurrently, Rowfeeder and Addict-o-matic.

For more active users, monitoring dashboards lets you see a compilation of metrics all in one place and there are channel-specific tools if you focus all of your marketing efforts in one form of social media.

However you approach it, listening to your customers can enhance your product offerings and provide valuable public relations feedback on your activities.

by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com

A popular feature of social media is throwing out provocative questions to your contacts. It is fun and sometimes reveals interesting information that you did not know about your friends, but businesses and nonprofit organizations can turn this idea on its head with very purposeful results.

As reported in Neilsenwire:
One success story demonstrates how social media was used to reshape a baby diaper campaign with enhanced results by combining both listening and asking research.

The traditional survey results showed that the majority of consumers believed that “environmentally friendly” was the most important product attribute. But in authentic, online conversations, consumers indicated that “organic” and “avoiding diaper rash” were the most important product features.

The social media analysis revealed a more accurate picture of consumer sentiment around product desires. This lead to a new campaign theme centered on “Caring,” which produced phenomenal results for the brand.

So how do you ask good questions?

First decide what kind of answer you want. Are you looking for short answers with no room for discussion or are you trying to create dialogue?

Closed questions assume answers that can be given in a few words or that result in Yes or No choices. Closed questions often begin with “Are” “Can” “Did” “Do” etc.

Open questions generally begin with “What” “How” “Who” “When” and
“Why”. Open questions usually require more deliberation on the answerer’s part and can easily lead to secondary questions and answers that flesh out a concept, opinion or provide problem solving information.

Social media can be a resourceful tool for your organization’s strategic and marketing plans if you ask the right questions.

Note: Blogonobo is now on a two week schedule. The next post: Are you listening?

Resources for this post
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/using-social-media-to-ask-the-right-questions 
http://www.bizsuccess.com/articles/ask.htm