The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “How to Set Pay-per-click Advertising Goals”. Melissa Mackey says, “In my experience of managing pay-per-click advertising campaigns, the most common reason why campaigns fail is due to a lack of goal setting at the beginning. Sometimes advertisers are so anxious to “start a PPC campaign” that they don’t take the time to figure out what their goals are. Resist the temptation to put tactics before goals and strategy. It’s easy to see your competitors online and think to yourself, “we need to do PPC.” What’s wrong with... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “Use Negative Keywords to Optimize PPC Campaigns”. Melih Oztalay says, “In “High Quality Scores Mean Lower Pay-per-click Costs,” my article last week, I addressed the concept of a pay-per-click quality score, and its inverse relationship with per-click cost. In this post, I will review “negative keywords,” another method of optimizing a PPC ad budget. I’ll start with an example. Say you have targeted “leather shoes” as a key phrase in your ad campaign. Google would then display your ad for search queries that include... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “Google Analytics: Reviewing ‘Deep Visits’”. Kevin Webster says, ““Deep visits” occur when users read multiple pages on a website. What can deep visits tell us about our website, and perhaps our customers? Deep Visits Vary Depending upon the nature of a business and its website, the number of page views that define a deep visit would vary. For example, if you are selling iPads, it’s likely that anything over two or three page views would be considered deep. In general, a consumer has a pretty decent idea of what an iPad is,... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “Do-it-yourself SEO Starts with On-page Optimization”. Andy Curry says, “In “How to Get Traffic to your Website (via Google),” my article last month, I addressed basic search engine optimization and what you need to know to either hire a consultant or do it yourself. In this post, I’m going to expand on doing it yourself. SEO seems mystical, but it’s really not. You’ll hear people touting different strategies that may be unfounded. The problem is most people are only repeating what they learned from someone else, who they... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “7 Ways to Improve Email Subject Lines (and a Sneaky Way to Test)”. Pamella Neely says, “Subject lines are powerful elements of email campaigns. But that’s not really surprising. Subject lines are basically the headlines of an email message. Headlines are something writers and editors agonize over, and for good reason. Copywriter coach Chris Marlow writes “tests have proven many times that the headline is responsible for at least 50 percent and as much as 75 percent of an ad’s success.” Some sources report that 35 percent of... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “High Quality Scores Mean Lower Pay-per-click Costs”. Melih Oztalay says, “The Google AdWords quality score is a weighted average from 0 to 10 based on how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing pages are to a person searching and engaging with your ads. A high quality score, which is measured per keyword, can lead to lower prices and better ad positions. The quality score of each keyword is calculated every time that keyword matches a search. The more relevant your ads and landing pages are to the person searching, the higher your... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “21 Content Curation Tools”. Kunle Campbell says, “Content curation is similar to creating a playlist. Rather than creating your own, or only your own, content, you’ll make lists and collections of material offered up by others, then offer those collections to your own fans and viewers. While this has the advantage that it’s a lot easier to make a playlist than it is to write, perform, record, mix, and release a couple of dozen songs — it’s way easier to curate than to create, in other words — content curation has other benefits... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “Use Hyperlocal Advertising to Reach Nearby Consumers”. Melih Oztalay says, ““Hyperlocal” refers to a specific consumer audience in a very small geographical area. By using hyperlocal ads, your business can promote products and services to a local audience in your immediate surroundings. Since 2008, Google’s search results have shown maps and map listings (i.e., local business listings). Local searchers no longer have to add a city and state as part of their search terms. The search engines know the locale of the person searching... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “4 Fears of Video Marketing and How to Overcome Them”. Pamela Neely says, “It’s getting harder to ignore video. YouTube is the second largest search engine. Cisco recently predicted that global online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2016. I could go on with statistics asserting how important video is, but you’ve probably heard most of them. You already know video is important. If your video marketing is still stuck on your to-do list, here are the four most common reasons why, and how to fix... [...]

The latest ‘Web Marketing Today’ blog post is titled “Using Customer Reviews to Drive Sales”. Micah Buchdahl says, “I recently attended the VIP pre-opening dinner for an upscale restaurant near my home. Estia Taverna, a Greek restaurant in New Jersey, rolled out the red carpet for a variety of “influencers” in the area. I was one of them. Besides sounding obnoxious, what makes me so darn important, you may ask? Estia Taverna might suggest you ask OpenTable, one of the most widely used websites and applications in my household. Was it that they know my wife and I dine at fine restaurants... [...]