Melissa Mackey says, “If you’re a small business owner or manager, you already know that your time is valuable. You’re probably on the lookout for time-saving tips that will let you focus on the most important parts of running your business. If you’re managing a PPC campaign, you also probably know that it can be a full-time job. Even those of us who manage PPC campaigns for a living need time-saving tips. Here are 5 tips for saving time in PPC management”. 5 Tips For Saving Time In PPC Management Web Marketing Today  [...]

Melih Oztalay says, “Google has introduced an important new advertising option. As part of Google’s AdWords features of ad extensions, dynamic sitelinks are now available to all businesses at no additional charge. Sitelinks help people reach a page on your site by clicking to the very page directly from your ad, with a single click. I addressed ad extensions in March, in “Understanding Ad Extensions in Google AdWords.”Ad extensions are advertising features to visually improve your text ads for people searching on a specific topic related to your business. Using ad extensions, you can... [...]

Pamella Neely says, “Headlines make or break a piece of content. They are so critical to the success of a piece that it is common for master copywriters to spend as much time on their headline and opening paragraph as they do on the rest of their copy. Why do they do this? Because if the headline doesn’t grab your audience, nothing else about your content ever will. Without a strong headline, your readers will never see the rest of your content. No matter how good it is. The news and culture site Upworthy.com has reported swings of up to 500 percent in traffic based on tweaking the words... [...]

Pamella Neely says, “What’s the leading mistake with most small businesses’ email programs? It’s not choosing the wrong email service provider. It’s not sending bad content. It’s not even mailing too infrequently. The leading mistake with most small businesses’ email marketing is right at the beginning of their program. It’s at the very first step: Not giving their prospective subscribers an incentive to sign up. This one change to your email-marketing program can set you ahead of up to 83 percent of your competition. Get it right, and you’ll beat almost any competition out... [...]

Kunle Campbell says, “On June 11, Google Places became Google My Business. More than an exercise in rebranding, the name change heralded several important changes. Google+ integration has been improved. Google My Business (GMB) has been integrated with Google+ Local, the business listing that used to appear for local”. Google My Business: What You Need to Know Web Marketing Today  [...]

Melih Oztalay says, “Since when do readers want to be insulted or put in a position of feeling stupid regarding pay-per-click advertising? Probably never. As an industry author and owner of a web-marketing agency, I keep up with industry news. I’ve found articles during the first half of this year that stress “mistakes you’re making.” This post will take fresh approach by focusing on recommendations and enhancements to improve your pay-per-click advertising program. Complexities of Paid Search Advertising Pay-per-click advertising is a platform in which you spend money on clicks every... [...]

Pamella Neely says, “Some say 2014 is “the year of mobile.” While many have been saying “this is the year of mobile” since 2009, 2014 probably does deserve the title. Why? Because this was the year when Internet traffic to mobile devices will exceed traffic to desktops. Read that again: Mobile traffic now exceeds desktop traffic. And more than half of your emails are opened on mobile devices. Smartphones are becoming more email readers than telephones. According to Adobe’s 2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits, 79 percent of smartphone owners use their smartphone... [...]

Kevin Webster says, “It’s fairly simple to come up with a list of “goals” that describe a website’s success. These typically include lead generation, downloads (i.e., coupons, menus, or whitepapers), and ecommerce transactions. Noted web analytics writer and practitioner Avinash Kaushikdescribes these as “macro goals” that are clear and easy to define. But these end points aren’t the only actions a user can take on your website that have value. Enter the concept of a “micro goal.” A micro goal may well be a step in the conversion funnel, such as adding a product to a shopping... [...]

Melih Oztalay says, “LinkedIn groups are for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to dialogue, share information, learn from each other, establish themselves as subject matter experts, and much more. Group members can share experiences, business knowledge, interests, and ideas with a broad variety of individuals from around the world. This is the fifth installment of my 5-part series on using LinkedIn for your local business. The previous installments were “Using LinkedIn to Attract Consumers, Prospects,” “Using LinkedIn Company Pages for your Local Business,” “Using... [...]

Melissa Mackey says, “For local businesses, being found online can be challenging. Advertising on a national scale, with Google Adwords, for example, doesn’t make sense when your customers are local. Many businesses long for the simplicity of the Yellow Pages of days gone by. Online directories are today’s equivalent of the Yellow Pages. In fact, the Yellow Pages has an online directory, but there are a lot of online directories out there besides Yellow Pages. HubSpot lists 50 of them here. So how does a local business get listed on these directories? Your first thought might be to visit... [...]