How to Attract New Customers With Google AdWords

Here is a very useful article on how to get started with Google Adwords for the first time. An effective web marketing plan will include Pay-Per-Click advertising from the very beginning and Google's system is one of the best to get started with.

Small Biz Resource - How to Attract New Customers With Google AdWords - Small Business Business Analysis

The AdWords program allows you to target your advertising to customers seeking your services by specifying key words with which you'd like to associate your product or service.

The best part is that Google's fee for the service is structured so that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad -- and you set a cap on how much you're willing to pay. Assuming that your goods and/or services are satisfying to customers and that they will become repeat consumers, the ability to use Google advertising to draw in new customers has tremendous value for small businesses.

The four-page article walks you through all the necessary steps with some well done screen shots to highlight the features and benefits.

More information:

• Budgeting PPC and SEO
• Tips For Enhancing Your PPC Results
• Understanding Click Fraud
• Keyword Density Analyzer
• Keyword Suggestion Tool

Don't have the time to learn PPC advertising yourself? Have Network Solutions Online Marketing take care of it for you.

Webinar Announcement

This was posted internally today.

Network Solutions and Google will offer a Webinar entitled "Discover a New Audience with Pay Per Click."

Held on Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 2pm Eastern Daylight Time, this Webinar will be moderated by Lara Mehanna from the Online Marketing team at Network Solutions, and Lauren Frandsen of Google AdWords.

This Webinar is designed to introduce pay per click services (PPC) to business owners who may not understand how important use of a pay per click company can be in an online marketing campaign. The moderators of this Webinar will explain the differences between PPC and organic search marketing, how to spotlight a business online, and how to obtain targeted leads while improving click-to-close rates. Mehanna and Frandsen will also detail the advantages of PPC in measuring the methods of delivery from search engine to site, as well as the quick turnaround and return of investment given by a successful PPC campaign.

"Pay per click advertising is really a great way for companies to get out in the forefront of the market, utilizing a tool that their customers are already using—the Internet," said Jeff Zimmerman, Vice President of Product Marketing and Management with Network Solutions. About 80% of internet traffic begins at a search engine, and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) was an $8.73 billion industry in North America in 2006, with $7.94 billion of that going towards paid searches.

This Webinar will also explain the benefits of going with a pay per click company, rather than trying to manage it in-house, focusing on the expertise needed to properly manage a PPC account, from daily budgeting to keyword research.

To register for the Webinar, visit the the NetSol Event Center.

What is Search Engine Optimization? Tutorial

This post is part one of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of "naturally" driving traffic to your site and is generally seen as the more cost efficient way. By making a website more search engine friendly, a site will rank higher on the search engine result page. To optimize your site for the search engines is to try to get it listed in the top rankings when any particular keyword phrase related to your industry is typed into the query box. SEO is particularly important for e-commerce sites. Site improvements include changing or adding content, improving internal and external links, and formatting meta tags. The most important thing to remember is that content is king. Without enough content containing the right keywords, you have very little chance of ranking well. Used correctly, SEO can lead to a very profitable search marketing campaign.

You can perform search engine optimization on your own site if you have the time and knowledge to do so, or you can invest in professional site optimization work. Here is a run-down of the essential elements needed to optimize your site:

1. Do Keyword Research.

Think you know what people are searching for in the major search engines? Think again. The only real way to tell is to ask the search engines themselves. Google and Yahoo make up the lion's share of search engine traffic. Here are some tools to help show you what consumers are searching for on a regular basis:

• Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Keyword Selector Tool

Choose only keywords related to your site. Check all synonyms and alternative phrasing such as plurals and singulars.

2. Adjust your title, meta keyword tag and meta description tags.

These are bits of code that do not appear on the page for visitors to view, but instead are placed into the code for search engines to pick up. You will want to place your chosen keywords throughout these areas of your site, but be careful not to overdo it.

3. Create keyword-rich page content.

Using the keywords that were researched, write paragraphs of information for your on-page content. You will want to describe your business and what you offer for your homepage text. Give a quick summary of brands and features in your category description, and provide detailed information in your product descriptions. These are all primary opportunities for optimized text. Make sure you take advantage of them. Here are some quick guidelines:

• Homepage: Write at least 200 words of text, including your main keyword phrases, about three times.
• Category description: Your description should be 1 to 2 sentences. The description should include the keyword phrase one time. Write a natural sounding sentence describing that product category.
• Product description: In your long description, add as much related content as possible: 200-400 words will help fill this page out. Try a <h1> tag or <h2> tag, using your keyword phrases. Include any phrases you are targeting one time only. Include variations, plurals, possessives or synonyms. Occasionally bold and italicize a few of the keyword phrases within your text.

You should also consider creating some custom pages of information about your products using your keyword phrases. Be sure to never copy information from another site or web page. Duplicate content can result in penalties from the search engines.

4. Properly link back to your homepage.

Whenever you link back to your homepage, always use your full domain name with the "http" (http://www.domainname.com/) instead of a relative link to /index.asp. This will help increase your site's link popularity.

5. Work on link popularity.

Having strong link popularity means that your site has a lot of other websites linking to it and that the sites that link to yours are also doing well in the search engines. You'll want to work on both quality and quantity when it comes to getting other sites to link to you. The more sites that are linking to you and the better those sites are doing with the search engines, the more search engine visibility your site will have.

• Submit your site to search engines and directories
• Trade links with related sites
• Read more about link popularity and how to increase it

These five basic steps will give you an idea of what it will take to start getting your site listed in the major search engines. Of course, search engine optimization is complex, and the methods for achieving top rankings change often.

What is Pay Per Click? Tutorial

This post is part two of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website.

PPC is the process of advertising your site through the use of pay-per-click advertisements in the search engines. The search engines sell relevant ads to anyone willing to join in a friendly bidding war. By bidding on keywords, advertisers are able to control when their ads are shown. In many cases the sky is the limit on how high the price will go. However, you only pay when the ad is clicked on, making PPC a very budget-friendly advertising option. With each bid, marketers are guaranteed a certain spot on the search engine page. Ads run on a search engine usually consist of a heading, body copy and a display URL. More often then not, the search ad will contain the keyword that was bid on.

Every day more and more people turn to the Internet to find information, products, and services. As a result, businesses and web site owners are always looking for ways to be found in search results and ultimately drive more traffic to their site. Pay per click, or PPC, is a cost effective and immediate way to do just that. With proper management and a clear focus, pay per click services offer some of the most well targeted, far-reaching, and economical advertising on the Internet.

Pay per click advertising is the fastest growing segment of online advertising. According to a Forbes Magazine prediction, companies will spend $8 billion a year on PPC advertising in 2009. While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) were the largest network operators as of 2006. MSN has their own PPC services, called MSN adCenter. Customers specify keywords that directly relate to their business and ones they think people will use when initiating an online search. When a user searches for a product, service, or category that matches what the customer has to offer, their ad appears on the results pages. This means they get clicks from people who are ready to buy. Search engines recognize users who are searching for these keywords and display the customer’s ad to them. Advertisers are charged based on the number of times a visitor clicks on that ad or web site; therefore the cost is action-driven. This means advertisers are only charged when a user who is searching for information directly relevant to their business, clicks their ad. This helps drive traffic, target leads, and convert users to customers.

How Pay Per Click Works

Pay per click involves using the right keywords and ad copy to attract visitors to your site.

• Right Keywords
• Attractive Ad Copy
• High Traffic to your Web site
• Good Landing pages
• The conversions you always wanted.

Benefits of Pay Per Click

There are several benefits to using a pay per click advertising program. Some of the benefits include:

• Quick and effective way to promote products and services
• Advertising is highly targeted and results are quantifiable
• Customer only pays when a prospective customer clicks their ad
• Results are immediate and provide instant traffic
• Different keywords, titles and descriptions can be selected for most effective results
• Effectiveness of the campaign can be measured
• Controlled spending by establishing predefined budgets

What Every Small Business Needs to Grow Online

If you own a small business, simply having a website is usually not enough to really grow your business online. Your website needs to be found online by potential new customers. Thankfully there is now an easy and affordable way to get found online Yola's newest hosting package, Yola Gold.

As you may know, Yola is a popular site builder and hosting provider that provides affordable packages to customers who want to start a website. Whether you're a blogger, a hobbyist, or entrepreneur, Yola's got the perfect hosting package for your needs. Yola Gold is a fantastic package for small business owners because not only does it offer a full set of features needed to create a great website, but also powerful tools to make your site stand out online.

How do consumers discover a new business? They might search for the service/product in Google or Bing. The higher your website ranks, the more people will see your site when searching - and this is what Yola Gold's Traffic Builder aims to do. A search engine optimization (SEO) performance management tool, Traffic Builder scans your website to identify opportunities to increase your site's search engine ranking. By finding important keywords and suggesting where they can be used most effectively on your site, Traffic Builder helps you snag a higher rank on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, giving your site more exposure to prospective customers.

Another way customers find new businesses is by browsing local business directories, which is where Local Boost comes into play. Another feature of Yola Gold, Local Boost includes all the tools you need to add your website to local search directories like Google Places and Yelp. It includes automatic updates and provides one central place to manage your business information and keep it up-to-date across the web with one click.

Yola Gold proves that you don't have to be an online marketing expert to grow your business online. For less than $20/month, Yola Gold includes: easy-to-use site builder, domain pointing, premium hosting, 10GB storage, 25 sites, 150MB upload, unlimited premium styles, CSS editing, $75 worth of free Google Adwords credits and $25 worth of free Facebook Ad credits, Mobile & Facebook publishing, 180 days of phone and email support, Traffic Builder (SEO) and Local Boost.

Ready to take your own business to the next level? Sign up for Yola Gold now.