Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Some quick links to Ismael Ahmed

While this post is a bit out of sorts, I thought it would be interesting as our company is highly involved in the Lansing area and the educational system in the local community. Ismael Ahmed has been a rather newsworthy person of late and I figured I would share some resources on him.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

What to do with PPC return visits?

For far too long, Google Analytics users have struggled with using PPC for products and services with a longer purchasing process. Chances are, if you're selling an expensive product or service, your PPC campaign probably isn't going to turn into an immediate purchase. This leaves you with an unhappy boss or client when you go to show them your AdWords report and your ROI sucks.

But what other solutions are out there? Well, leave it to the good people at Viget to come up with a very slick way to track your PPC return visits. Check it out here. Ultimately, what you'll need to do is modify the user defined variable and then set up a profile to only track those identified visitors. Then, you'll have a profile that just tracks this traffic, allowing you to better understand which keywords and campaigns are really bringing in qualified traffic, and making your client/boss happy to see that your paid search management skills are directly responsible for revenue. Boom!

Monday, January 12, 2009

The fruits of combining your search engine marketing efforts.

One mistake I often see made by people beginning their search marketing campaigns is not thoughtfully implementing SEO and PPC in conjunction. Many beginners falsely assume these two elements can't work in conjunction, but they do, and they can save you money in the process.

For those not aware of the Google Quality Score, it's a measure of a variety of factors that helps determine your positioning and the price you pay per click. Long story short, the better your Quality Score, the less you pay and the better your position. A key element of quality score is page relevance. Making your page more relevant for your pay per click term can be done by also doing organic search engine optimization on the same page. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

So even if your industry is terribly competitive, don't assume SEO is a waste of time. Yes, a first page organic listing might be light years away, but that doesn't mean SEO efforts are a waste of time. Double up your efforts and watch your cost per click drop and your average position improve!

I'll be back in the near future to supply a few basic tips for those unfamiliar with on page SEO. Until then, may your online marketing initiatives bring you great success!