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The continued growth of search and social media marketing is creating new opportunities, but Marketers are challenged on how to effectively integrate social media into their search marketing efforts. To address this challenge, PPC Summit presents an all new conference this year “Search & Social Media Success” which will be held at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel on Sept. 21-22, 2010. 

The new sessions will teach expert, trusted strategies, and provide the tools and resources to Marketers searching to improve their campaign results. Registration is open and parties can register now before the full agenda is live to get the $400.00 early bird rate.

The ALL NEW 3 Tracks and 27 ‘How-To’ Sessions cover step-by-step instructions for creating and managing successful search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM) campaigns.

Over the last five years, PPC Summit has trained thousands of internet marketers how to be smarter and increase their ROI using search engine marketing. Results from a recent attendee survey sent to 3500 Search Marketers, revealed the growing need for further advanced training in these areas: Google AdWords, Quality Score, Keyword Targeting, Pay Per Click, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, SEO tips and tools, Landing Pages and more.

What Marketers Will Learn:

• Leading-edge SMM (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube), SEO and SEM (Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing) instruction, content and actionable strategies that can be implemented right away to boost ROI.
• Which SMM, SEO and SEM tools, solutions and resources to utilize to achieve higher profits, and take-away comprehensive reference guides to build an effective search and social marketing plan.
• How to get on the fast-track of successful search and social media marketing–gain answers direct from the SEM/SEO/SMM experts and build lasting relationships with peers

 Register today for the two-day pass, only $995–includes three tracks and 27 in-depth sessions, networking, breakfast, lunches, breaks, 2 comprehensive training manuals and more. For more information, visit the
PPC Summit website or call 800-507-2958.

Social media marketing has grown to such an extent that many companies are abandoning other types of marketing altogether. Proof? Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream was the first major company to announce that it was abandoning email marketing to focus more on social media marketing.

The real “story of this story” though is not that they did this, but why they did this. As the article states:

“ . . . the iconic Vermont-based premium ice cream maker is dropping its regular email newsletter . . . after customers aired their preference to be contacted via social media channels [emphasis added].”

Only you can decide if social media marketing is the only form of marketing you want to engage in. But, it should definitely be a part of your marketing mix – for it’s a direct line to what your customers want. Following is the number one thing you can do to generate traffic – for years to come.

The #1 Social Media Marketing Tip Every Business Can Use to Get the Most Traffic

Make useful content creation the foundation of your social media campaigns. Following is why.

There are many ways to generate traffic online, eg, commenting on other blogs, article marketing, pay per click, etc. Some are more time consuming than others. But great content will always drive traffic – immediately and in the future.

This is because web surfers look for information. Two hours spent writing an in-depth blog post that answers a lot of questions those in your niche might have will get linked to over and over and over again. This generates traffic for years to come.

How Content Marketing Via Social Media Outlets Saves Time

Once you create great content and make others aware of it via social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you can spend much less time marketing because it becomes viral. Social media users love to promote great content – for it makes them look good. This is akin to having a social media marketing sales force on payroll.

And it’s why great content – whether it’s a series of videos or a standalone blog post – should be the cornerstone of every social media marketing strategy.

Have you heard about PPC Summit’s upcoming Seach & Social two day conference coming to the Omni Los Angeles Hotel in Sept? It’s the event for marketers to learn actionable strategies for effectively integrating search and social campaigns.

A recent survey of pay-per-click advertising platform vendors by PPC Summit reveals significant shifts in paid search marketing strategies. Among them, bid management, which historically has been the cornerstone of paid search optimization, has become just one of many elements affecting the effectiveness pay-per-click (PPC) advertising programs. In line with the shift, vendors are expanding their product offerings and search marketers are altering their paid search strategies and practices.

“Historically, bid management has been focused on optimizing position and keyword costs but it has become clear that other factors affect overall ROI and competitiveness,” said Lisa Morgan, the report’s principal analyst and CEO of Strategic Rainmakers. “Although position and keyword costs remain important factors, search marketers also want to drive process and integrated marketing efficiencies.”

The 2010 PPC Management and Optimization report profiles 14 of the leading PPC management and optimization vendors that have traditionally been categorized as bid management vendors. The report also includes the results of in-depth interviews with the vendors and 27 of their agency and enterprise customers.

Only two of 14 vendors profiled in the report consider “bid management” an accurate characterization of their product offerings. The other 12 say bid management is only part of what they do because their products now provide considerably broader functionality. Although features varies from vendor to vendor, there are now three fundamental feature sets that include bid management, campaign management, and reporting.

The expanded features are typically integrated so the data collected for reporting purposes can be used to optimize bid, position, ROI, margin and other factors. The feature expansion is also affecting paid search function automation, and allows for more granular forms of conversion attribution. According to the report, the expanded functionality enables greater efficiencies at more levels that collectively improve bottom-line results.

Available now in two versions, both  profile vendors and their products, and include in-depth buyer’s guide.

- Professional Edition: for paid search practitioners, covers interviews and tool acquisition processes, outcomes, and tips for identifying and selecting paid search tools. (150+ pages for $399).

- Executive Edition: for executives and managers who oversee paid search programs,  a summarized version of the same information designed for fast readability and streamlined decision making. The Executive Version includes tips for more effectively approving and overseeing the purchase of paid search tools. (Available for $299)

To purchase the reports or to download a complimentary report preview, go to 2010 Pay Per Click (PPC) Management and Optimization report.

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One of the benefits of social media marketing for micropreneurs and small business owners is that they can level the playing field — big time — by investing in this medium. In fact, it’s a perfectly suited medium for the entrepreneur with no budget or a small budget to compete with the big boys. Why/how?

One advantage that small businesses have over larger companies is their ability to really know their customer. When you know, you can engage more readily and effectively. This is a powerful advantage that many forward-thinking entrepreneurs are leveraging.

By putting just a small amount of effort into using social media marketing, your firm can stand head-to-head with larger companies — at least in this realm. And, it works! Proof? According to a post on Emarketer.com, a noted research firm that reports on digital media and marketing:

“. . . a February–March 2010 survey from office services firm Regus, smaller companies see the most success [with social media marketing], with nearly half of small businesses around the world having acquired a customer through social networks. . . . Overall, 40% of businesses studied had acquired a customer through a social [media] site, 35% of US businesses said the same.”

So, not only is social media marketing effective for small business, it appears to be a MORE effective outlet for them.

Is your firm leveraging this powerful outlet? If not, why?

Did You Know? PPC Summit’s next conference will bring the top minds in Social Media and Search Engine Marketing together during two days, three tracks and 27 expert-led classes in Los Angeles (Sept. 21-22, 2010).  The educational sessions cover all aspects surrounding: search marketing, search engine optimization, and social media best practices and strategies. You can’t afford to miss it!

By Kevin Newcomb, Editor, Internet Marketing Institute

Many companies spend tens of thousands of dollars to acquire customers, but ignore what happens next. Paying attention to your landing pages — whether it’s for pay-per-click (PPC) ads, email campaigns, or banner ads — is one of the most-neglected online marketing tactics. But creating custom landing pages, then testing and optimizing them, holds a lot of potential for increasing conversions, and therefore revenue.

“People don’t fundamentally believe that conversion optimization will work. If they did, they’d jump all over it,” said Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing and co-author of Web Design for ROI. “The truth is, it can have a game-changing impact on revenue and profitability.”

Most marketers have heard the buzz around landing page optimization (LPO), a part of the larger discipline of conversion optimization. Many marketers have also heard hyped-up claims of two- or three-fold jumps in conversions, and are not convinced that small changes can have a big impact on their conversion rates.

While those kinds of returns are possible, in extreme circumstances, such drastic increases are not necessary to make conversion optimization worthwhile, Loveday said.

“You don’t need to hit a home run, and double or triple your conversion rate, to have a measurable effect on the bottom line,” he said. “I’ve seen cases where increasing conversion rate from 2.0 to 2.1 percent has had a big impact on revenue.”

Others have dipped their toes in the water and tried it out. Unfortunately, many of those that did so went in without a real plan, and ended up with lackluster results.

First, a marketer needs to determine where to focus his or her efforts. In many cases, people think starting with the home page is best, since that seems like it would have a big impact. But Loveday advises keeping away from the home page, and focusing instead on a single product page or a custom landing page for a specific PPC campaign.

“More and more users are arriving at a site on a page other than the home page, but that’s still where many companies spend most of their design resources,” Loveday said. Besides that, the home page is burdened by politics, with turf wars over who gets what real estate, and is more scrutinized by executives, he said.

So not only will it be more effective to choose a lower-level page, such as a PPC landing page, to begin testing, it will be easier to do without interference from other departments or from higher-ups. Once you’ve demonstrated that you can have success, it will be easier to get buy-in to apply the same landing page optimization techniques to a page higher up in the site architecture, such as a category page, he said.

With the availability of free or low-cost landing page testing applications, marketers can also limit IT involvement, while maintaining more control over their tests and pages. But knowing which elements of a page to test can be tricky, Loveday said.

“It’s not just about throwing things against the wall and seeing what will stick,” he said. “You need to take a more structured approach, and test among good options.”

That means knowing which elements are most likely to create a change in conversion rate, and then testing out elements that are different enough to have a measurable difference between them. Using minor variations of a headline or image may not be enough to cause a change in user behavior.

To learn more about conversion optimization and other online marketing strategies, check out the upcoming PPC Summit Presents…Search Marketing and Social Media Success, coming to Los Angeles in September 2010.

When most business stick their toes in the search engine marketing waters, one of the first things they hear about is search engine optimization (SEO), as it relates to content. Not a lot of talk revolves around images; but it should for, everything on your site (eg, videos, photos, etc.) can help it rank well in search engines. And, this is what search engine marketing is all about.

The first thing you should know is that search engine bots (ie, spiders) can only read (search) text. And this is why things like Flash should be kept to a minimum, or not used at all unless it’s really, really necessary to your industry (eg, you’re a web developer, animator, movie maker, etc.).

Following is a mini tutorial on how to name your site’s images so that it ranks higher in search results.

Name Images Using Keywords: For example, instead of naming a photo photo.jpg1, name it pay-per-marketing-tips.jpg (if PPC marketing is what your firm specializes in).

Use the “ALT” Tag in Your Coding: Piggybacking on the last point, add the ALT tag when you name images. This tag explains what an image file is. A completed coded image with this tag may look like this:
<img src=”images/pay-per-click-services.jpg”width=”250″ height=”135″
ALT=”ABC Firm pay per click marketing services”>

Text Surrounding Images: The text that immediately surrounds your site’s images is valuable real estate from an SEO standpoint. Hence, you should do things like put captions on all of them and use keyworded text (ie, SEO content) in this space.

If you do these three things, your images (just like your site’s content) will increase the effectiveness of your search engine marketing efforts.

One of the things that search marketing has done is shifted the power from retailers to consumers. As in, thanks to the internet, consumers are armed with much more information now. They no longer have to believe what a retailer’s slick website says, how their brochure reads or what a smooth-talking sales rep tells them.

They can listen to your spiel, then log on to see if what you claim is true. This is proof that while B2B search marketing has done wonders for business, it has also done wonders for the consumer!

And, this is what many retailers fail to understand. They haven’t considered what the new technology available to them has done for their potential customers as well.

B2B Search Engine Marketing: 3 Quick Tips for Converting Prospects to Sales

Woo, Don’t Sell: As in, don’t make every contact you have with a prospect a sales pitch. Send them info pertinent to their lives from time to time – with no sales pitch attached.

Stay in Contact Regularly: Every niche has a fine line when it comes to staying in touch too much, and being “out of sight and out of mind.” Figure out what this is for your niche – and “walk the line.”

Don’t Overwhelm: B2B search marketing can be expensive if you use paid methods, so many try to say as much as possible with each contact. Don’t!

Make each contact concise and to the point. Don’t confuse prospects by overwhelming them with too much information. A confused prospect doesn’t buy. An informed one does.

B2B search marketing is simple. Although it’s a “newfangled” way of doing business, old-school marketing wisdom still applies. 

If you are interested in taking a closer look at the latest Search Marketing and Social Media Marketing trends and strategies attend PPC Summit Presents…Search Marketing and Social Media Success coming to Los Angeles in September 2010!

While starting a pay per click (PPC) campaign can be as easy as logging in to AdWords (or similar services from Yahoo! or Microsoft), doing it right and maximizing your ROI requires you to pay more careful attention to the choices you make when launching a PPC campaign.  This article will take a look at several settings you’ll want to carefully choose when setting up your PPC campaigns.

 Advertising Networks – Google Search, Search Partners, and Content

Performance across Google’s various advertiser networks can vary dramatically.  Currently, you can choose to have your ads shown on Google’s search network, Google’s search partners (3^rd party sites that use Google to power their results), content pages across Google’s entire AdSense network, or content pages that you specifically choose.  (Note: Google is in the process of rebranding its Content network as Google Display Network).

Choosing your networks

Ad Performance Can Vary by Network

Costs and performance can vary widely across the different networks (example below).  Bids and thus cost per click (CPC) tend to be lower on the content network, as that network generates a far higher number of impressions and lower click through rates than the search networks.  However, looking at the example below, you can see that rates can vary dramatically even within the search networks (Google vs. search partners) and within the content network (if you’re choosing your own placements).

Example of Campaign Performance by Network

Choosing Advertising Networks

So how do you choose which networks to run your ads on?  There isn’t a simple answer – it depends on your goals, spend available, and the topic or keywords of the campaign you’re running.  If you’re unsure of how your campaign will perform, a possible strategy is to setup two campaigns with the same keywords and ads, with one running on the search networks and one on content.  Separating them this way will make it easier to compare data using AdWord’s reporting tools.  Once the campaigns have been running for a while, you can tweak them, adjust the networks they’re running on, or cancel them if need be.

In B2B search marketing, getting backlinks can be twice as hard when compared to B2C marketing. The primary reason is that there’s a smaller pool of prospects. But, that doesn’t mean that B2B marketers can’t be just as effective at link building.

One of the easiest ways to create backlinks is to create a company blog.  Following is an overview of how to create a blog that becomes a backlinking machine.

Update Your Blog Frequently to Get the Best Results

Many B2B search engine marketing experts lament over just how inefficient some companies are when it comes to updating their blog. Some companies do it once or twice a month, others every few months.

If you’re trying to build backlinks, your company’s blog must be updated much more frequently – a few times a week at minimum. The reason is, you want to keep visitors engaged.

Think of it this way, if you were a retail store like Macy’s and updated your windows every few months, how many new shoppers do you think you’d pull in? Not a lot.

But, if they passed the windows every day or every few days and saw a new outfit, it keeps passersby intrigued. Many will wander in – and buy.

Same concept applies to this B2B search marketing concept. Blog frequently to keep passersby engaged and interested – interested enough to stop and read what you have to say, then perhaps leave a comment, or link to the post, or recommend it to a friend.

B2B search engine marketing is not difficult. It just takes doing what’s necessary – day in and day out – to be successful. And this is where so many fall down. Don’t! Create your company’s blog, update it frequently – and start reaping the fruits of backlink success that much sooner.

Learn more about Search Engine Marketing and Social Media strategies at the B2B Search Strategy Summit (June 23) or PPC Summit Presents…Search & Social Media Success (Sept. 2010).