Internet Marketing for small businesses – making the right decisions!

I recently came across a client that was starting a business and needed a website. As an Internet Marketer, I explained to him that his website can generate new business and we can do that for him. I went on to explain (thoroughly) what PPC & SEO services entail. We agreed to do both, but first we needed to build a strong foundation for his online advertising initiatives. I was given a 30 day dead line and decided to take him up on his offer.

7 days into the project (skipping all the details) the client called me and cancelled the project. He had hired a Harvard graduate with a degree in Ecommerce to do his website. If you go to Harvard, you are surely a smart person, no argument there.  This graduate decided to build a website for this client and completed the website in one day! Bam, thats awesome right?

Not awesome. I went to the website and it looked as though it was one of the first websites ever built back in the 80’s.  Furthermore, they decided to target keywords in the range of $10-$30 per click. Couple of massive problems.
The website was not professionally built, it did not clearly state what the business did, visually or textually. Furthermore, industry keywords were not used to attract the users attention. Lastly, it was a one page website with simple phrases placed in random order on the site.

When you are building a new website for your business you have to understand a couple of things. Your website represents your business online.  Ask your self  ”would I send a sales person dressed in tennis shoes, frizzy hair, ripped t-shirt to a potential clients office?” Or  ”would i pay this sales person to sell for  me?”. I hope your answer is no.

When you hire a PPC or SEO professional, their job is to bring pre-qualified buyers to your website. The website needs to be clear and concise so the user can visually and textually see that your internet marketing & website will provide them with the product or service they are looking for.  If the website is not clear or professional, you will loose a majority of your potential clients.

This is where Search Marketing experience comes into play. An experienced Search Marketer looks at a website differently than a designer. They look at the usability of a website, such as placement of phone numbers, typography usage,  clear menu system, request a quote buttons/add to cart buttons, and many other features that make a website successful.  Why do they look at websites in this manner? Simply put, their goal is to make you money, if a user cannot easily get in touch with your company,  or easily make a purchase, you are not going to make a sale!

When you hire a web design company, make sure they have real experience working with Internet Marketing, better yet, hire an Internet Marketing company to build your website.  Why? Theyknow what features a website needs in order to successfully run a Pay Per Click or SEO campaign.

Its all about keywords and the layout of your website.  If you are running Pay Per Click, you are most likely running an Adwords campaign.

Its not about outbidding you competitor. Google wants to see quality. When you setup your campaign, every keyword has a quality score. We do not know exactly how quality scores are calculated, but we do know of a few things Google recommends and every search marketer should apply to your campaign.

PPC Quality Score OptimizationTips

• Keyword relevance! Your keyword should be relevant to your website landing page and your ad text.
• CTR – Click through ration: Google is all about the “user experience”. If you write good ad text, then you should get some clicks. This is another relevancy factor in Google’s Quality Score. If you do not get many clicks, then Google will lower your Quality Score, because your ad is just filling space and providing zero benefit to its users.
• Continual optimization of your campaign.  Tracking data. Install Google Analytics and track what your users are doing. Time on site, Conversions, Pages Traversed, Funnel visualization andmore. This type of data can tell you which keywords, ad groups and campaigns are making you money.
• More account optimization. Run reports and figure out which keywords are triggering your ads. Create negative keywords, figure out which long tail words your users are typing in. Create new keywords based on this data and expect higher click through ratios and conversions.

The number one goal of any Pay Per Click Management Company  is to lower your cost per conversion. You do this by leveraging you search data through adwords reporting and tracking data. Make sure your website has tracking installed and your search marketing company is running reports. But, make sure they have the experience and knowledge to make decisions based on this data. If you do not know what to look for, it can become over whelming and you will spend more money  learning what you are doing wrong.

PPC Ad Group & Keyword Optimization

• Take a piece of paper and categorize your products or services. For instance,  I would categorize Gaming Laptops, Business Laptops and Emachines separately.
• When you categorize, you allow your PPC specialist to write your ad text specifically for those keywords. Otherwise you are getting real general and you will miss allot of potential click through’s.
• This will help you theme your ad groups and keep a high quality score per keyword.
• Your click through ratio is also optimized since your add text and keywords match!

If you are a small business owner I would suggest researching a bit and talking to multiple companies about what your goals and objectives are. If you live in Houston, then search for a Houston SEO or Houston Internet Marketing company in Google and you will be able to submit a SEM quote.

You will benefit by seeing the differences in prices, services and knowledge. Some companies are all about helping you business grow and others are about making their own business grow.

Internet Marketing Agencies are in business to make you business grow, make sure your SEM company will show you a ROI through expert reporting. Furthermore, make sure they learn your business and continually optimize your campaign as the months go by.

With so many choices on the Internet, you should be able to find a company that will provide services within your SEO or PPC budget.

Good luck!