Category: PPC Advertising

Should You Outsource SEO / SEM Services?

If you are asking yourself whether outsourcing SEO / SEM services is the right decision, you are already ahead of the curve. Why? Because the chances are many of your competitors do not even know about search engine optimization and marketing.

You have recognized the benefits of optimizing your site for search engines and positioning your site on top of the SERPs. You are dealing with a dilemma that any website owner deals with: Should I outsource SEO / SEM services or should I have it implemented in house?

There are pros and cons for both approaches and the answer is totally depends on your objectives, type of business, budget and resources.

Unless, you have the resources, full time staff and expertise to conduct SEO and SEM in house and spend a huge budget on these initiatives, you would be better off with outsourcing the search marketing and optimization of your site to an SEO vendor.

By outsourcing the service, you will be able to save money while taking advantage of a team of professional SEO and SEM experts who are always up-to-date with the latest industry trends.

Hiring a search engine marketing firm to perform SEO and/or pay per click (PPC) advertising is not an easy task. Both SEO and SEM have proved to be successful; however, a bad experience with an outsourcing vendor can result in resentment toward these channels. So, it is important to take the following steps:

Decide on Your Objectives – First decide on what you would like to achieve from your site. Clearly understanding your objectives not only helps you decide on metrics to measure your success but also help you in evaluating the potential outsourcing SEO vendors and set the expectations with the selected vendor. It also helps you decide on evaluation factors for awarding the business to the right vendor.

Educate Yourself – Try to learn about SEO and SEM as much as possible. This will help you in vendor selection process. Feel free to use potential vendors as a resource. It is always a positive sign if a vendor takes the time to educate you. It shows how open they are in collaborating with you to improve the results.

Research the Capabilities of Vendors – Now that you understand your needs and objectives, you are in a better position to handpick the vendors. Depending on your business needs, in addition to SEO/SEM, you might also need to outsource creative design, web analytics, database development, e-mail and Web advertising.

So, make sure that the vendor you are considering to outsource your SEO work to has the technical expertise and the man power to cover all your needs as it will save you future grieves.

Outsourcing is a life saver because you can reduce your workload and focus your energy on your main business. However, please note that the key to successfully outsourcing your SEO / SEM services is to do your due diligence when selecting a SEO / PPC vendor and keep communicating with your search vendor to keep the quality of work high.

Please remember: No matter how good your vendor is, nobody knows you your business better than you do. So, it is important to keep a close relationship with your vendor to convey your knowledge to your vendor and make sure you and your outsourcing vendor reach your mutual objective: a successful campaign!

Nima – SEM SEO Expert

Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-optimization and Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-marketing

Jun 09, 2007 | 0 comments | View Post

Keyword Research for Web Marketing, SEO and PPC

With more and more people using search engines to search for the products and services they need, making sure your website appears on top of search engine results is becoming crucial. However, as you are usually limited in the number of keyword phrases that you can optimize a site for, the question is which keyword phrases to optimize a Web site for.

Effective keyword research is the process of researching and selecting keywords that are relevant to your site and used by prospects on search engines to find the products and services you offer.

Selecting the right keywords can make or break a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) project. So, it is very important for web marketers to select keywords that are not only related to their product offerings, but also are generating enough traffic to worth the SEO optimization efforts. Here is where having access to a robust keyword research tool/software that provides different variations of searches done in the real life by prospects, the number of times they are searched for and how competitive those keywords are can prove handy.

Having access to paid or free keyword research tools even though a necessity, it is not enough. Understanding how to utilize a keyword research tool in the context of a SEO project is the key to success. It is also important to integrate the keyword research results with the copy writing and designing a website for maximum impact.

Keyword research is also integral to the success of PPC (SEM) campaign as finding the right mix of keywords can contribute to the ROI and marketers’ bottom line.

As you can use a larger universe of keywords in an SEM campaign than that of SEO and you can measure the ROI for all those keywords, you can use the PPC campaign to find the best converting keywords. Then you may utilize those keywords to optimize your site organically. Even though visitors coming from different sources (organic vs. paid) might behave differently, this approach is much better than shooting in the dark.

So, in short, proper keyword research helps you discover new opportunities, tackle the misconceptions and increase conversions. However, it is important to keep in mind that keyword research should be a dynamic and ongoing process as the Web, people and trends evolve.

By Nima – Toronto SEM SEO Expert

Related Article: Google Search-based Keyword Tool
Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-optimization and Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-marketing

Dec 16, 2006 | 0 comments | View Post

The Long Tail! Is it for everybody?

The long tail slipped from the world of statistics to the online marketing world when Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired magazine in 2004. The Long Tail is now a bestseller book flying off the shelves in bookstores.

The promise of the book is that the ability to offer vast choice is causing businesses to rethink where their markets lie and how to tackle them.

The Long Tail article, together with the fact that more specific keyword phrases generally convert at higher rates, search engine marketers started utilizing the concept in order to improve their ROI.

Search engine marketing experts started expanding their keywords and using more specific and multi-keyword phrases in their campaigns. This strategy has proved successful for many companies as they have seen double digit conversion rates at the keyword level.

The question I would like to raise is whether or not the long tail suits all businesses and search engine marketing companies. I agree that most expanded keyword phrases perform better and have a higher conversion rate. However, as these phrases usually generate a smaller traffic, it would take a while for marketers to see the conversions.

Now you can imagine if a campaign has thousands of these expanded keywords with minimal traffic, it would take them a while to see and judge the performance of these keywords. This might not be a problem for a company with a huge budget and non time sensitive campaigns. However, a company with a small (test) budget or seasonal products might run out of patience and give up the campaign before its maturity.

So, it is very important to keep in to consideration the pros and cons of the long tail before jumping to embrace it.

Nima

Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-marketing

Sep 04, 2006 | 1 comment | View Post

Google AdWords Qualified Professional

I had been thinking about taking the Google AdWords exam for a while. However, I was always saying to myself, I knew the program inside out there was no need for me to take the exam. Nonetheless, being somebody who loves new challenges, to test myself, I finally freed some time off my busy schedule to take the exam for Google Advertising Professionals program. Well, it was not the challenge I was hoping it to be. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience and being certified has its own advantages. Now I am considered a Google AdWords Qualified Individual. Wondering what is the significance of being qualified? This is what Google has to say.

Nima Asrar Haghighi, Toronto SEM Consultant

Jul 28, 2006 | 0 comments | View Post

To Brand or To Measure: That is the Question, or Is It?

As I mentioned in my earlier post (Interactive Marketing Speaking Engagement), I had a presentation on the topic of search engine marketing in Canada. The event topics were more targeted toward direct marketing and direct response. However, among attendees there were some very sharp people with branding background.

Not surprisingly, a debate was going on about weather the Internet is a reliable medium to build and reinforce brand names. Some believed that online brand marketing should be an integral part of corporate branding strategy while others were skeptical about the role of Internet in their brand marketing strategy as there was less control over the message online.

Interestingly enough, both groups were united in their opinion that direct marketing and branding do not necessarily mix and match. Of course they had compelling arguments. The whole debate intrigued me to write this article.

In my opinion, Marketing is not black and white. It is possible to practice branding and yet measure the results. The results might not be as tangible as selling a product online and calculating ROI. However, there is always a way to set a goal and measure the success against it. It is just a matter of finding the right KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

When a company runs a website, it has to have a clear objective not only for the site but also for each and every single page on the web site. To make it easier to manage, site owners can segment their sites into categories based on where the visitors are in the sales cycle. Visitors’ mindsets can generally be categorized as follows:

* Information Gathering
* Evaluation and Comparison
* Buying and/or Decision Making

Then based on these categories they can develop customized contents to satisfy their visitors and meet their objectives. However, the key to success here is to choose the right KPIs. Some of metrics to consider are:

* Direct Visitor Traffic – If your traffic from direct visitors (people who enter your URL directly or have your site bookmarked) increases over time, it can be an indication of improved brand awareness.

* Depth of Visit – In addition to good navigation and rich content, depth of visit can also represent the level of visitors’ engagement with your brand.

* Repeat Customers – An increase in number of repeat customers can be an indication of customer satisfaction which could lead to brand reinforcement.

* Branded Search Terms – even the search terms visitors use to find your site can be an indication of how your brand is performing. An increase in the number of branded search terms can be a good news.

By not letting “branding” be a convenient excuse for them not to define other site performance metrics, companies can incorporate Internet marketing and search engine marketing into their corporate branding strategy.

Nima – SEM SEO Expert

Jul 01, 2006 | 0 comments | View Post

Bid Jamming – Not So Sweet a Jam!

Bid Jamming refers to a practice that came to existence short after Overture offered its bid management tool. Now called YSM, Overture’s bid management tool shows online advertisers how much their competitors bid for a particular phrase. This tool soon proved to be a double-edged sword for search engine marketers.

Utilizing bid management tools, SEMs advertising on Overture, in contrast with Google AdWords, are able to set their ads’ positions in the SERPs. A feature that can potentially be very desirable and straight forward. However, as the competitors also see your bid amount, they could simply change their bid to move their ads to their favorite position or even worse use the bid jamming tactic.

Bid jamming occurs when a competitor raises his/her bid amount to just a penny or so below your bid for a given phrase. This is possible if you have set your maximum bid as such that it has a huge gap with the next closest bidder underneath you. Your competitors, using this tactic, will force you to pay that max bid amount per click, whereas they only pay one penny more than the bidder underneath them.

Here, the competitors’ objectives are to increase your cost and make you burn your budget soon pushing you out of the auction. However, if they are not careful enough, you can reduce your bid one penny bellow theirs and jam them instead.

So, it is very important to pay close attention to your bids to make sure you are not jammed by your competitors and burn your valuable marketing budget. That is why I personally prefer a human touch on bidding as most of the current bid management tools available in the market might easily fall in the trap of bid jamming practitioners.

By Nima – Toronto SEM Expert

Dec 29, 2005 | 0 comments | View Post