Joining Industry Specific Organizations Has Many Benefits

Written by Janice D. Byer, MVA


Recently, while providing an up-and-coming Virtual Assistant (VA) and small business owner with some start-up information, she asked me a very interesting question, “Why do you and other VA’s join organizations?”

I guess I take for grantedrepparttar reasons why I belong to several industry specific organizations. But, to those that are new to any industry, joining an organization made up of your competitors is a valid concern.

Some organizations have members that are from a variety of walks of life (i.e. small business organizations, etc.) while others are more specified and include only members from a specific industry (i.e. VA organizations).

I thinkrepparttar 106176 consensus among members of any organization is thatrepparttar 106177 benefits of being involved with others in your industry are numerous.

So, why should you join industry specific organizations? Here are some ofrepparttar 106178 best reasons:

1.Networking. This is one ofrepparttar 106179 main reasons for joining any organization and is actually part in parcel with allrepparttar 106180 other reasons I will list here.

Networking with anyone and everyone is essential torepparttar 106181 growth of any business, especially networking with those in your industry.

Some industries are still fairly young and by networking with your peers you can all work together to increaserepparttar 106182 exposure of your specific industry, thus increasingrepparttar 106183 visibility of each individual member’s businesses.

2.The opportunity to work with fellow members. Withrepparttar 106184 increased exposure of various industries, many veteran members may be finding their workloads are getting to a point where they have to outsource some of their projects. If they don’t know about you they won’t even haverepparttar 106185 chance to consider sending you some of their overflow.

Not to mention, most members may specialize in certain procedures and, should a task come up for a client that is not one of their specialties, they may need to subcontractrepparttar 106186 project.

Managing a Responsible Pay-Per-Click Campaign

Written by Scott Buresh


OVERVIEW What is PPC? Pay-Per-Click is a paid form of advertising, popularized mostly byrepparttar "search engine" GoTo (now called Overture). The concept is fairly simple. Businesses bid to be placed at or nearrepparttar 106175 top ofrepparttar 106176 search results for particular keyword phrases. The bidding is done on a "per-click" basis, meaning that a company pays a specific amount every timerepparttar 106177 engine sends them a visitor. In addition,repparttar 106178 top results on Overture also show up inrepparttar 106179 results of many ofrepparttar 106180 popular search engines (usually listed as "sponsored" or "featured" results). Google has also recently come up with a similar version of PPC (AdWords Select) that has taken over some ofrepparttar 106181 engines that used to display Overture results (most notably AOL Search).

Advantages Pay-Per-Click campaigns have some advantages over traditional search engine optimization. First of all, they require no changes to a current site's content or look to obtain top positions, just a willingness to pay. Also,repparttar 106182 implementation of a pay-per-click campaign is relatively quick- it can take just a few minutes to start getting targeted traffic, versus sometimes months for standard SEO campaigns. Finally, unlike search engine optimization,repparttar 106183 implementation of a PPC campaign is relatively easy and does not necessarily require any specialized knowledge (although experience with search engine marketing and keyword research is a definite advantage).

Limitations Of course, there are limitations to this type of advertising. New bids can lowerrepparttar 106184 positions of other firms, and many will react by raising their bid to regain a previous ranking. Monitoring of positions becomes crucial. These campaigns can also become prohibitively expensive, depending onrepparttar 106185 competitiveness ofrepparttar 106186 keyword phrases andrepparttar 106187 aggressiveness ofrepparttar 106188 competition. In addition, many ofrepparttar 106189 "savvier" search engine users have learned to recognize PPC results as paid advertising and bypass them without consideration.

THE PROCESS Determining Visitor Worth Determining how much each website visitor is worth is vital torepparttar 106190 success of a pay-per-click campaign. If it costs $50 in click-throughs to make a $40 sale,repparttar 106191 campaign has failed. The formula is relatively simple, but some specific historical data is necessary. Inrepparttar 106192 most rudimentary form, it isrepparttar 106193 profit fromrepparttar 106194 website over a given period divided byrepparttar 106195 number of total visitors forrepparttar 106196 same period. If a site netted $1000 in profits from goods or services in a given period, and there were 2,000 visitors duringrepparttar 106197 same period, each would theoretically be worth 50 cents (profit divided by visitors). But this is onlyrepparttar 106198 breakeven point. Depending onrepparttar 106199 desired profit margin,repparttar 106200 optimal price to pay per click would probably be something much less than 50 cents. Popular keyword phrases can often run more than this, so it then makes sense to bid less money on less popular terms to pay an acceptable amount per visitor. Selecting Keyphrases: As with typical search engine optimization, keyword research is critical torepparttar 106201 success of a PPC campaign. Unlike typical search engine optimization, there aren't practical limits onrepparttar 106202 number of phrases to target. Usually, there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as possible. This makesrepparttar 106203 keyword selection process easier, since there is not a good deal of resources committed to optimizing a site for a particular keyword set. Under-performing keywords, while still an annoyance, do not cost extra (except forrepparttar 106204 time involved in setting uprepparttar 106205 account). To help identify keyword phrases, Overture has a tool on their site that allows advertisers to see how often particular search terms are actually typed in their engine. It also gives out popular suggestions based uponrepparttar 106206 terms you enter.

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