If Big Ad Agencies Can’t Handle Search Engine Marketing, What’s A Small Business To Do?Written by Neil Street
A recent online news article entitled “Five Reasons Why Ad Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketing” struck a responsive chord in search engine marketing (SEM) community. Lots of posts, both critical and supportive, showed up in online forums. The article made some points that I have noted myself in previous articles. The most important ones are that good SEM is labor intensive and expensive, that profitability is hard to achieve, and that search engine companies keep moving goal posts. I think it’s worthwhile considering extent to which these problems also impact localized search engine marketing. Naturally, search engines themselves, for example Google and Yahoo, have evolved with an eye to big, national customers. Given that background, they have developed tools and systems in PPC arena that seem to assume end user, whether an ad agency or a small business owner, has lots of time and resources to work with tools. Anyone who has even dabbled in administration of keyword bidding on these search engines knows how complex it can quickly become. Hence, system is stacked against small business owner from get-go, because he or she does not have time or resources to administer these programs. The author of article asserts that a camapaign of $50,000 per month is necessary to turn a profit on paid search advertising. While I would question universal validity of this statement, it does highlight time and resources dilemma of running a successful paid search program. Why is it so complicated to run a good PPC campaign? At bottom, because model itself requires advertiser to get inside head of consumer in an unprecedented manner. As an example: an important key phrase for my own business is “web design.” So, I bid on this phrase. (This concept itself, “bidding” on a keyword, is a truly alien advertising concept to most small business owners I know). And every day, I get visitors to my website who are interested in “web design.” But does this mean they want to hire a web design firm? Who knows. Maybe they are writing a term paper. Maybe they want to steal some ideas. Maybe they are competition (or worse yet, a flunky hired by competition to click on other guy’s ads). Maybe, maybe, maybe. But I’ve spent my money, and taken my chances. Now, of course, there are lots of ways to hedge my bet. Keyword suggestion tools, bid management tools, etc. But that’s where time and expense comes in. As a small business owner, I can’t afford much of either. Controlling for variables is what makes this kind of search engine marketing prohibitive for most small businesses. As an alternative, various IYP programs offer a more targetted audience for advertiser, as well as stable pricing and predictable placement. IYP is also a model that small businesses recognize, because of crossover from print. The search engine audience may be larger, but IYP audience is surely more qualified.
| | 10 Cool Ways To Attract People To Your Web SiteWritten by Auggie Diaz
1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays so it's important to give something extra with free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe. 2. Provide your visitors with free content. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it's up-to-date or original. You could also offer people option to reprint content in their e-zine or web site. 3. Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over. 4. Give your visitors a free ebook. You could also include your own ad in ebook and allow other people to give it away. If you don't want to take time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles. 5. Hold free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your web site's chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on topic.
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