Most advertisers' first stage in planning a PPC campaign is to immediately go to any one of the numerous keyword suggestion and search volume tools to determine which words are generating the most traffic. The traditional thought is the higher the search volume for a word the more value that word has, and therefore the higher the bid.
The simple fact is that there is a major difference between keywords that work and keywords with high search volume. The secret to success lies in knowing your target customer and being able to speak their language. It does not matter if a seemingly relevant keyword has tremendous search volume, if it is not representative of the language the target market is speaking.
Are you considering a transition to Vista or the new Microsoft Office suite and wondering if your current computer can handle it? Are you thinking about making the investment into a new computer and want to make sure that it can support the Vista and Office in six months? Are you wondering how long you can wait to make the change, and what you will have to deal with if you stay with the current operation system and applications? These top ten tips are designed to give you an informed perspective of the current step in the transition of technology.
For many casual internet users, the terms SEM and SEO rarely enter their minds when they are busy jumping from one website to another. However, it is these terms that determine much of what comes out on the results page whenever we type in a word in the search tab of any accessible search engine. These terms are also responsible for all those advertisements and pop-ups that link us to even more websites, whether they may be connected to our original search or not. So just what are SEM and SEO?
In the simplest way possible, SEM and SEO are tools which website creators, especially those who are promoting and selling a certain service or product, use in order to gain a lot of exposure and better ranking for their website. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the simplicity ends there.
Citizen journalists and writers have become common place on the web. Perhaps you are considering blogging, but are unsure of how to enter the world of online journaling. As the medium has grown, I thought it might be a good idea to put together some general guidelines for new bloggers and reminders to veteran bloggers about blogging practices.
There is no Emily Post in blogging that offers etiquette advice, or a Miss Manners that details appropriate behavior. That does not mean there are not acceptable and unacceptable actions that bloggers should take. In order to efficiently communicate as a blogger on the Internet, it is critical to understand the unwritten rules of blogging etiquette.
A few weeks ago I posted about the role of social networks in the B2B marketplace. This morning I attended a webinar, presented by Hitwise, which focused on the growing popularity of social networking sites. LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise mentioned that in October 2006, social networking accounted for 1 in every 20 internet visits. 82% of these were from myspace.com. That does seem like a lot doesn't it? By the way did you know that a search in Google for 'myspace' returns about a half of a billion results?
Wordtracker is a commercial service that helps you to find the best keywords for your web site. The best keywords are those words and phrases commonly typed in by your potential customers, but which aren't used much on your competitors' web sites.
In other words, if you optimize your pages for keywords that your potential customers use a lot, but your competitors haven't thought of, you win. IBP helps you to find these keywords.
It is not very difficult to understand Search Engine optimization and yet it is very important. There are some things that you can do to help your site do better with the Search Engines.
When you are getting started with Search Engine optimization you really should not worry about all of the jargon that is used. The point here is to make things simpler so that Search Engines will like your site better.
If you haven't heard, or received your invite, the annual SEMPO State of the Market survey is currently looking for search marketers to give us this years snapshot of the industry. You can find a link to the survey at the SEMPO site. Now in its 3rd year, this Survey has become the definitive year over year look at search marketing.
Knowing that we're in Chicago next week for Search Engine Strategies, we paused long enough to take some on the fly data points which we'll be sharing at a special SEMPO meeting on Monday night. I can share one of them with you in this column.
Before you get started with the Search Engines you should decide which of the two major Search Engine marketing strategies will work best for your site. This will help you to stay on track and not waste a lot of time needlessly.
The 2 major Search Engine marketing strategies that exist today are SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). You should know and understand that these two methods are very different from one another. This will help you to be better enabled to decide which one is right for you and your web site. Of course, part of this decision will depend upon what your web site is like.
Analyzing a competitor's web site may seem like a big job. You should have the mindset that you are going to do this as a learning experience though. This will help you along your way when you may feel like giving up.
Before you even begin to analyze a competitor's web site you should make sure that you are equipped to do the job. If you do this job properly you can gain a lot of information that will help you to increase your site's traffic and popularity. These sites can also help you to analyze your own market. After all, if a web site is getting a lot of hits then it must be doing something right. If you take time to see where it is ranked, what key words are being used, how the site is formatted, and what you can do to make your site better while not violating any copyright laws then you will be well on your way to success.