When I started my consulting business, I imagined that I would be working with some larger firms with in-house web and marketing resources. I imagined that much like it had been for me as an in-house marketer, I would apply my SEO/SEM skills to a given situation and others would carry out the recommendations.

While it does work that way some of the time, I frequently work with small companies that have little or no marketing and/or technical expertise. It is unlikely they know or have anyone who knows what an <H1> tag is, or how to create an .htaccess file.

The long and short of this is that while my focus is SEO and SEM services, I frequently provide additional services through relationships with local designers, programmers, and copywriters. Some of these folks I know from my days as an in-house marketer, others I have come to know and respect through client projects.

How about you, any stories you can share?

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It appears that attitudes on mining the lesser used, but more specific “long-tail” phrases is changing. Quality Score is making it too expensive to go after these phrases. What this means is to improve the performance and lower the cost of your campaigns you need to clear out the deadwood.

If you must stubbornly clinging to your long-tail phrases, move them their own group so they aren’t needlessly impacting the Quality Score of your other campaigns.

More on this topic here in Yahoo’s Search Marketing Blog titled:
Chasing our Long Tails.

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This past week I was asked to speak to a group of CEOs at the Huntsville business incubator, BizTech . In preparation for the meeting, I created a slide presentation that discusses organic versus paid search results and some of the elements that come into play when improving Search Engine Rank.
Here is a link to that presentation. Internet Marketing Overview.

I recently updated this presentation for the North Alabama Web Developers group. The update is here.

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Google says that they are accurate in identifying only about 35% of “local” traffic. This means if you run ads to your local market there is a good chance that 65% of your target audience will never see your ads.

Including your city and state in national ads will also reduce the likelihood of someone outside your area clicking your ad.

Read more…

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I am always amazed when I find a site that is lacking an About Us or Contact page. Unlike a bricks and mortar business, a website can be created out of thin air, making these pages essential to establishing trust and closing business.

The content of these pages should communicate the people or company behind the website and where you are physically located.

About Us:
An About page helps people identify with you and you passions. Leave the sales pitch out. Small businesses should tell people when you went into business, tell why you exist and, if you can, include background on the people involved.

Larger businesses should focus on why someone should do business with you over someone else. Think of this section as explaining your business in tangible terms, your credentials, your location, your facility, and what makes you unique.

Contact Us:
A Contact Us page tells people where you are located. Include your physical address; list your phone number and hours of operation. If you don’t have someone staffing phones, give the ability to send you an email (info@) or use a contact form to limit spam.

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I think most of us do the basics with our PPC campaigns, grouping phrases and then those phrases with related ads (such as marketing: internet marketing, web marketing, and services: SEM services, PPC Services…). However a recent exercise I went through yielded big benefits.

Now let me preface this by saying I don’t advocate the use of click through rates to determine the effectiveness of an ad. I always look for some kind of conversion metric to use. You may be thinking that you don’t have a conversion metric, but even if it’s just measuring visits to your contact page, you need something to ensure that you are doing more then just getting people to your click on your ad. Read more…

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I plan to cover the high points of SEO, SEM, and Web Analytics in my pages. I welcome suggestions, questions, and comments…

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