Unfortunately for these dealers, most people don’t set out to buy a pre-owned vehicle. That isn’t how people refer to a car that isn’t brand new, and it’s not the way they search either. Let me give you a quick example of how a car dealership might be missing traffic and sales this way.

Google’s keyword tool indicates that the phrase “used Mercedes” (or used Mercedes Benz) is searched globally about 1.2 million times each month while “pre-owned Mercedes” is searched only 165,000 times. People looking for a Mercedes that isn’t new are seven times more likely to call it used rather than preowned.

Try this. Search Google for a “used Mercedes in Chicago”. One dealer I don’t currently find in the top 100 organic results is Mercedes of Orland (a suburb of Chicago). Now search for “pre-owned Mercedes in Chicago” and you’ll see this same dealership in the top 5 natural results. That is a nice position, but they are essentially missing out on 80-90% of the available traffic for the more popular way people search, simply because they don’t want to label their Mercedes as used.

I was talking with a potential customer on the phone today when I realized that we’ve made the same mistake. While we mention the phrase “search engine marketing” on more than 20 of our web pages, not once do we refer to it as SEM. SEM can have a couple of different meanings as it relates to Internet Marketing. Some of our customers use the term SEM interchangeably with PPC (pay-per-click). We tend to consider SEM as the umbrella over all of the services we offer to improve our customer’s website visibility in search engines (SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing being the main components). In either case, it is a popular search for our services.

Just as some car dealers are missing out on traffic by avoiding the phrase “used car”, we’ve haven’t done a good job of optimizing our website for SEM. Now it’s time to fix that problem. The lesson here is to listen to your customers to learn how they talk about the products and services you provide, and make sure you’re including that terminology on your website or blog. Words, phrases, and in this case - abbreviations matter!

Internet Marketing Firm to Hold Ribbon Cutting Ceremony in Urbandale

URBANDALE, Ia. – Blue Traffic Internet Marketing will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday, October 27th to unveil its new location in Urbandale. The event will take place from 5-6:30 pm, with the ribbon cutting occurring at 5:15 pm.

Blue Traffic is an internet marketing firm that specializes in enhancing the online visibility of websites. Serving companies from a variety of industries, they use search engine optimization strategies to improve organic search engine rankings. The firm also develops and manages Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns, which is an effective and relatively inexpensive means for generating targeted online traffic and sales leads for clients.

Des Moines area citizens, local business owners, and members of the media are invited to celebrate this momentous occasion with the Blue Traffic team, at the new location at 3220 99th Street in Urbandale. For more information, please contact Blue Traffic at 224-7606 or visit www.bluetraffic.com.

Come join us for appetizers and beverages. If you haven’t been here before, our office can be a little hard to find.  We are behind Stella’s Blue Sky Diner. Follow their parking lot around the back of the building to our main entrance. For your effort, be sure to register for our GPS giveaway when you arrive - a TomTom XL 325, 4.3″ widescreen car navigation system! See you soon…

Some want to dismiss social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as unsustainable fads that will soon be supplanted by some other crazy new fad, yet the truth is in the numbers - and the numbers illustrate that it’s here to stay. According to Compete.com the number of unique MySpace visitors has hovered around a healthy 60 million per month since August of 2008, while the number of unique Facebook visitors has risen from 40 million in August 2008 to a staggering 122m this July.

That means a combined 180 million-plus unique users visited these two social networking giants alone in July. When adding other social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Classmates.com into the equation, that number easily exceeds a quarter billion unique visitors per month. Such a number is difficult to grasp, but for those companies willing to develop social networking advertising campaigns it can mean this - $$$.

The hidden beauty of advertising on social networks isn’t the click thru rate, but, rather, the actual number of impressions. This is because when your advertisement is seen by hundreds of millions of people, odds are your target audience will be present somewhere in the lot. Thus, social networking advertising strategies are no different than those of other mass mediums like television and print, where the importance is not so much who is reached, but how many are reached.

The click thru rates of television advertisements would be low as well if viewers were asked to touch the screen when appealing ads aired, but this doesn’t dissuade companies from spending millions on commercials that air on Super Bowl Sunday. As many users of social networking sites visit their favorite sites on a daily basis, and as many of them spend several hours a day visiting countless pages of friends and acquaintances, advertising there enables companies to reach Super Bowl Sunday-like audiences on a daily basis.

Think of it this way. If someone offered you $1m to drop a beach ball off a ten-story building and hit any of the ten people waiting in the street below, chances are you walk away empty handed. But should that offer be to drop a golf ball off a hundred-story building with one million people waiting in the street below, you will more than likely walk away a millionaire. Such are your chances of reaching your target audience through social networking marketing campaigns. The odds are that good.

At the same time, Facebook and Myspace ads can be created with a strategy that allows advertisements to only be seen by people within very specific demographics. One tip when creating your ad campaigns on these networks is to try marketing not only to the masses, but also to a laser focused audience. This could include people in a specific city or those who have expressed a certain interest in something you offer. And, unlike most other forms of advertising, you choose the specs here. This tips the potential success rate in your favor.

Social Media and Social Network advertising is a lot like the “Wild West” right now. You may find some useful guidelines out there, but for the most part this is still uncharted territory. Keep your eyes peeled for a coupon or promo code, dust off your banner and saddle up!

In searching for ways to increase online traffic, you stumble upon this thing called search engine optimization, also known as SEO, but cannot determine whether it’s a silver bullet or an online hoax. After conducting diligent research, you conclude that SEO is, in fact, a genuine marketing strategy that can offer tremendous return on your investment, so you begin searching for the right company to hire. You understand what SEO is and how it will benefit your company, but you are still uncertain of what your realistic expectations should be.

Can I rank on the first page of search results in one week, one month, one year? Am I confident that our website will rank number one for some of our top key phrases, or are top five and top ten rankings more realistic? How do I know if my website can even rank well enough to attract new visitors?

If this predicament sounds familiar, then you came to the right place.

Expectations

Before signing on the dotted line with an SEO firm, it’s important that you are in agreement about what will be accomplished, how it will be accomplished, how these accomplishments will be measured and reported, and how long it could take to accomplish specific goals.

First, realize that instant results are not a plausible expectation. If an SEO firm promises top organic rankings and tons of new traffic in little or no time, it likely isn’t a reputable outfit. Search engine optimization is a gradual and ongoing process. Depending on the size of your website, the number of man hours allotted to your project, and the competitiveness of your targeted words and phrases, the process can take several months or more than a year in order to complete, and even then, improved rankings for your phrases is never guaranteed.

This isn’t to say some improvements can’t be seen right away. Within the first few weeks you might enjoy a modest increase in traffic, as well as improved rankings for longer-tail and less competitive phrases. You could even garner a few number one and top five rankings for some of your target keywords and phrases.

Highly competitive phrases, however, more often take several weeks or months to really improve, and even then, ranking number one for all of them isn’t going to happen. There are two reasons for this. First, your competitors are likely pursuing SEO professionals as well, meaning the competition for the most profitable phrases is high. Secondly, rankings constantly fluctuate, so maintaining high rankings (Top 5 or 10) might be a more realistic goal. Compare it to a college football poll. No team is permanently ranked number one, but the best programs always seem to be in the top five year after year.

To better ensure your site eventually ranks in the top five and top ten for your desired keywords and phrases, you should divulge as much information as possible to your chosen SEO firm, making it abundantly clear what phrases mean most to your company’s success. This enables the firm to target those phrases from the outset of the project, adjusting various elements as is necessary.

More importantly, this insight will allow them to conduct keyword analysis so you rank well for the phrases that will drive targeted traffic to your website. To increase your ROI, it is imperative that the right traffic is coming to your website, which is why proper keyword analysis is of the utmost importance. Getting another 10,000 monthly visitors might add nothing to your bottom line if most of those people are landing on a website that means nothing to them. Similarly, being ranked number one for phrases that no one is searching means nothing. If you can instead rank top five or ten for competitive phrases that your customers are searching for, the right traffic will follow. When the right people find you, your conversion rates will find the ceiling.

Measuring and Reporting Results

There are multiple ways to measure progress, and the data you receive should reflect the expected results you agreed to in the SEO agreement. In terms of pure search engine rankings, there are reporting systems that track how each keyword and phrase is currently performing in the major search engines. These reports are relatively easy to interpret and provide both detailed and general statistics.

Ranking reports should depict where each individual keyword and phrase is currently ranking, and whether it improved or fell from the previous reporting period. These reports will also give comprehensive statistics that provide a broad overview of the successes and shortcomings of your entire SEO campaign. This includes such statistics as:

Total Number One Rankings
Total Top 5 Rankings
Total Top 10 Rankings
Total Top 20 Rankings
Rankings that Improved or Fell
Total Positions Gained (Net difference between previous two)

Some clients are more interested in overall traffic numbers, leads and conversion rates. For this, many SEO firms use tracking programs like Google Analytics, which provides detailed reports that illustrate most everything you need to know about your traffic. This includes:

Total number of visitors
Total page views
Total unique visitors
Average time spent on site
Referring Sites/Traffic Sources - How visitors found your site
Bounce Rate – Number of visitors who left immediately

Understanding Your Website

Numerous factors contribute to search engine rankings, and evaluating your website before signing with an SEO firm enables you to temper or heighten your expectations. Search engine optimization is not an exact science, so understanding your website will provide insight into the challenges your SEO firm will be up against, and give you an idea of how quickly your SEO campaign can yield the desired results. 

1. Age of URL/Website – Search engines tend to trust older websites more than newer ones, and thus regularly award the former with better rankings. Imagine you are walking down the street in an unfamiliar town and need directions, and there is an elderly gentleman and a young child standing on the corner – who do you trust will give better directions? That’s how search engines look at most websites.
2. Internal structure – Search engine web crawlers are not without faults, so they need directions, too, in order to effectively navigate your website. The more simplistic and organized your website is, the easier it will be for search engines to explore your site and index information. Imagine standing in the center of a circle. Walk in any straight line and it is an equal distance to the perimeter. If your website is designed as such, where you can reach any page from any page, search engines can navigate your site with ease. Conversely, imagine a straight line that goes from point A to point Z. If the only way to get from A to Z is going through points B through Y, then it will take greater time and effort.
3. Content – Search engines value nothing more than quality original content. Thus, if your website predominately features pictures and images with no text, then search engines will have a difficult time determining what your site is about. It’s similar to going to an art museum and seeing a beautiful, albeit ambiguous, painting. Even the most sophisticated art critic will read the adjoining description to gain further insight into the idea behind the painting. Thus, if your website is a masterpiece with no description, the search engines won’t know what it really means.
4. Size – In general, the bigger your website, the more phrases it can rank for. This is a good and a bad thing. It’s good since you have more content opportunities and phrases with which to lure visitors, but bad since it requires more work to improve individual rankings for every word and phrase. If yours is a bigger website, you should consider what phrases are most valuable to your company when forming your expectations. This is similar to running a fine steakhouse or a buffet. If you know your specialty is steak, then you can invest most of your culinary efforts in making it the best steak possible. But if you’re running a buffet, it becomes more laborious to perfect 50 individual items.
5. Nature of your business – Some phrases are simply easier to rank for since there is less competition. If your company sells sea shells with pictures of past presidents painted on them, then it won’t be difficult to get your site ranked for related phrases. But if you have a small sports blog and hope to rank ahead of ESPN.com for the word “Sports,” you might want to temper your expectations.

Have you ever wondered why some website ads on search engine side-bars are higher than others? Well, there’s a logical, yet very sophisticated reason. It all began with the simple theory of using an auction to drive traffic and revenue. I am talking, of course, about Adwords, Google’s distinct method of online advertising. It’s the world’s fastest auction, with bids occurring tens of millions of times per day.

So, how does it work? If you decide that you want to advertise on Google to help drive traffic to your site, how do you determine how much to bid for one of the top ad spots? If your bid is too low it might not garner much attention; if it’s too high, you might waste a bunch money…right? Fortunately, Google automates the process quite nicely.

As an accountant in Ankeny, Iowa, Tom wants to bid on the phrase “Des Moines Accountants”. Let’s say $2.00 is what Tom is willing to bid on this phrase, while another accountant bids $0.99, and yet another company bids $0.75 (all on the same phrase). To avoid advertisers having to pay more than what is necessary to win the bid, Google charges each advertiser just one penny more than then next-highest bidder. Therefore, Tom would pay no more than $1.00 per click even though he bid $2.00.

In the industry, this auction is often referred to as pay-per-click advertising. In addition to deciding how much to bid per click, advertisers also decide how much they are willing to spend each day/month on their entire ad campaign. So, Tom can decide that he only wants to spend no more than $200 per month utilizing pay-per-click advertising.

At the same time, the auction itself is only part of determining where an advertisement ranks. The other major factor is what is called the “quality score”, which is determined by (1) keywords, (2) the quality of the web page where the ad is linked, (3) the relevance of the ad in relation to the keyword being searched, and (4) the percentage of times users actually click on a given ad from the results page.

So, lets’ say Tom decides to bid on the phrase “Chicago Accountant” and we’ll assume that his bid is the highest. Even so, his ad may be positioned lower than ads from accountants near Chicago, Illinois since their location is more relevant to what people are searching.

Once someone clicks on an ad and he/she lands on a webpage, it is crucial that the page and website are user friendly. They need to be easy to navigate, have relevant content, and have obvious titles and subtitles for searching. All of these will help improve conversions and sales. The faster and easier it is to find a product, the more likely a customer is to purchase it. Therefore, making sure the landing page is fully functional with plenty of good content is just as important as getting an advertisement noticed.

Whether you’re looking for a way to improve traffic to your website, profits for your business, or you simply want to learn how Google determines which ads go where, you must admit, it’s a fantastically unique and efficient process that helps businesses and consumers worldwide.

At one time or another, you have likely browsed through the myriad listings on Craigslist. Some visitors search for a particular item or service, some look for the random bargain, and others are just curious of how one man’s list spawned an internet sensation. It matters not what you are searching for. In much the same way death and taxes are guaranteed, it can be perfectly expected that someone is advertising your product or service of interest on Craigslist.

One benefit of the site that few have yet to knowingly capitalize on, however, is its utility as a springboard for increasing website traffic. In taking the proper, not to mention scrupulous, steps when preparing your listing, you can simultaneously generate website traffic and sell the respective services or products your company offers. It is incumbent upon users to respect the established rules and guidelines of Craigslist, for although it’s an enormous online venture, it’s not so large as to allow spammers free rein, so violators can rightly expect imminent bans.

There are two primary ways of using Craiglist to generate website traffic

A.  Use the search engines

The major search engines are enamored with Craigslist, as it’s one of the top 20 most visited sites in the United States, and one of the most popular sites worldwide. Thus, even the newest Craigslist listings quickly garner top search rankings in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Therefore, sprinkle a moderate sampling of keywords and phrases into your listing content, while also placing a link to your website nearby. Although Craigslist will be the URL garnering the improved search engine rankings, visitors who click thru will land on your Craigs List posting and in turn may very well navigate or click thru to your website. You can use html tags, but do so sparingly. Use http:// in front of your web address to make sure it becomes an active, clickable link.

B.  Lure Craigslist users

Millions of people circumvent the search engines and head straight to Craigslist, and as mentioned before, some know what they’re searching for and others are just curious window shoppers. Nevertheless, the culture of Craigslist breeds ample opportunities for driving spontaneous traffic to your website. Whether your company sells musical instruments or automobiles, there are people in your geographical area who are searching for your products or services, so it’s your duty to stand out amongst the litany of competing listings.

Tips for optimizing your Craigslist listing

1.  Put keywords and phrases in your subject line. This brief subject line distinguishes the Craigslist champions from the failures. Either be blunt in declaring your product or service “Online Marketing Company in Iowa” or employ a call-to-action “Increase your website traffic today!” Obviously, grammatical and spelling errors should be avoided at all costs (unless you are also employing a strategic effort to also rank for typical misspellings).

2.  Only submit relevant and well-written content. The back button on web browsers is mighty popular during the Craigslist experience, as many subject lines misrepresent the actual listings. Not only does compelling content enhance your chances of driving traffic to your website, but it also assures Craigslist that yours is a spam-free operation. Another tip to improve your click thru rate is to include one or more photos/images in your post.

3.  Only submit unique content. Companies targeting a national clientele will be understandably compelled to post a listing for each major city. While this may be acceptable, Craigslist will not tolerate duplicated content. Make sure each listing is unique in its own way, even if the products and services are the same. Similarly, you might consider targeting one or two cities at a time, in lieu of hitting 50 cities at once. The Craigslist.org FAQ section recommends you post in one category and in one city no more than every 48 hours.

4.  Use Geo-targeting techniques. Each listing should be unique to its targeted city, so search for definitive ways to compose your content around the superlative traits of a given town or city. Even alluding to a unique landmark like the Statue of Liberty or the St. Louis Arch is enough to distinguish one listing from another. This not only appeases Craigslist, but offers some assurance to local customers that you are familiar with their community.

5.  Be prudent with your listings. Just because Craigslist is a valuable tool for driving online traffic to your website doesn’t mean it should be abused. Only post a few times a week or month, and even consider posting from multiple emails. If Craigslist identifies your company as one taking advantage of its community, you’ll likely be banned from the city limits forever.

Here are easy tips for writing Meta descriptions:

1. Write with flair and honesty
Sure your primary goal is to write something that will compel people to click thru to your website; however, your reputation (and perhaps your rankings!) will suffer drastically if your content isn’t as great as advertised. Thus, your description should be an honest depiction of what users can expect to find on that particular page. If your content truly lives up to the tantalizing description you labored over for hours, then great. Otherwise, consider tempering your description or enlivening your content.

2. Adhere to character limits
Each search engine allows for a specific number of characters (including spaces) to be shown beneath your page title in search results. Typically, Google gives you up to 160 characters, Yahoo! up to 165, and MSN upwards of 200. There isn’t necessarily a downfall for running long (it will cut it off with an ellipse…) but preparing your description within the given constraints means you have more authority over what appears. As you cannot compose a unique description for each search engine, aim for one that is succinct and 160 characters or less.

3. Keywords Keywords Keywords
Implementing keywords into your Meta description tells your targeted audience your site is the real deal. Users searching for particular words will naturally first examine page titles, but if they still cannot determine which site best addresses their needs, they then turn to the most relevant page descriptions. By placing 1-3 keywords into your description (which appear in bold), you’re assuring search users that your site isn’t appearing in their results by mistake or chance, but because it boasts content containing elements they are searching for.

4. What happens if you don’t write Meta descriptions?
It might seem peculiar for an article offering tips about writing Meta descriptions to suggest that you don’t always have to create a Meta description, but in certain instances it’s an alternative option. In my opinion, you should always write them when a particular page is optimized around 2 or 3 very specific keywords. However, by doing this, you could be limiting your potential of attracting visitors who might be interested in other content within your page, article, or blog post.

If you think a given page might receive greater traffic by allowing Google or another search engine to extract a Meta description from your content, you  can skip writing the tag all together. Individual keywords will  be bolded just the same, so any risk of missing out on users searching for them is neutralized.

The internet is generally viewed from two conflicting perspectives – either as a gateway to an endless wealth of information, or as a data wasteland where proven facts go to perish. No matter which opinion you subscribe to, search engine optimization for press releases can ensure valuable company information reaches the intended audience. Performing SEO due diligence prior to submitting press releases to online PR hubs will enhance the likelihood your targeted audience finds it amongst the thousands of competing releases.

Here are 5 easy tips for optimizing press releases, bolstering your chances of being found in the online marketing jungle, and finding new customers online.

1.    Research and Use Keywords
Diligent keyword research is the most crucial aspect of the SEO process, because increasing visibility of press releases is all for not if you aren’t being found for the right things and by the right people. Thus, if the release is about a new SEO technique that can quickly increase web traffic, it’s imperative you include related keywords in both the title and content. The title is especially important, as it will attract your target audience and divert unconcerned readers.

2.    Write Search Engine and Reader Friendly Content
“Content is King.” It’s a trite phrase that continues to hold true since search engines (as well as readers) absolutely love content. Writing optimized press releases isn’t a call to abandon traditional writing techniques; it’s simply adding keywords and phrases to garner improved organic search results. If done in moderation, readability won’t suffer and your main audience – the readers – won’t be overwhelmed or annoyed. Bottom line, write for your audience but don’t ignore the keywords and phrases they might be using to find your content.

3.    Insert Keyword Rich Anchor Text
Once you establish a list of keywords and sprinkle them moderately throughout the headline and content, it’s time to place strategic anchor text links directing readers to your web site. Inserting a link in a targeted keyword or phrase simultaneously accomplishes two things: 1) It provides a valuable link back to your site 2) Improves your organic search results for that keyword or phrase.

4.    Be Newsworthy
A press release notifies the public about company achievements and breakthroughs, but be wary that pushing too many releases can cause more harm than good if readers recognize the majority of your releases contain nothing of value. Congesting PR sites ultimately benefits no one, so it’s important to be prudent and submit press releases only when the content is truly newsworthy.

5.    Disseminate Your Press Release via PR Wires
Now that your press release is optimized, consider which distribution wires can achieve your primary goals. PR distribution sites are valuable resources, yet important options distinguish each from the others. Thus, ask yourself these questions before selecting one: What is your budget? Who is your audience? Are you more concerned with garnering links or simply having your release read? Is audience size or commonality more important? Do I want news media or potential clients to read the actual release?

The most commonly used sites are Business Wire, Market Wire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire, PRWeb, PRLeap, PRLog and PR.com. Depending on how you answered the questions above, some of these sites will prove more advantageous than others. Some are free, some cost money. Some offer links, others do not. Some target only news media, others a more diverse audience. So look around and decide which one best accommodates your promotional needs before submitting your press release for mass dissemination.

It’s no secret that iconic websites carry greater weight in search engines because of the heightened credibility of a top PageRank. But what has long eluded many search engine optimization professionals is how to harness the power of these mega websites for the benefit of clients. Well, recent discoveries about Twitter might offer some valuable insight into how the social networking giant can be utilized for basic SEO strategies.

Few will openly admit to entering their own name into Google’s search box for fear of being labeled vain or conceited, however, we’ll reserve all judgments for the sake of this blog post. Assuming you do happen to Google yourself, and also assuming you have been somewhat active on Twitter, you may find that your Twitter profile holds a first page or possibly even a number one ranking.

Well, as prolific as this might seem, it begs the question how exactly does this relate to increasing traffic to a small business website if only friends and family members would ever think to search an individual’s name? In all honesty, it probably doesn’t. Not unless you are willing to expand the boundaries and conduct some innovative thinking. For instance, if you now realize Twitter is such a force in search engines, why not optimize your Twitter profile for keywords and phrases related to your business?

If your startup business sells designer t shirts, why not talk about designer t shirts in your Twitter profile and place your company’s URL right by it? Then when consumers search for “designer t shirts” your Twitter profile might rank in the top search results and many will be curious about just what it is you know about the subject. If they are interested enough to click through to your Twitter profile, it only makes sense that many would go the extra step and click the link to your company website. Thus you can increase visitor traffic to your website via your Twitter profile and maybe even score a few new followers while you are at it.

This is a pivotal discovery from an SEO standpoint because it’s a new means for increasing traffic to clients’ websites, without necessarily helping their sites rank better for targeted keywords and phrases. Even so, the majority of clients are predominately concerned with increasing visitor traffic numbers and not necessarily whether they rank number 13 or 15 for whatever product or service they might offer. Therefore, although it might wound a few egos in the SEO industry, it will bring smiles to the faces of clients seeing the nice influx of traffic.

In many competitive industries and where professional search engine optimizers have done their duty, it is unlikely that a simple change to your Twitter profile will forge you to the top of the SERPs. Another useful change that can help is to update your Twitter “Name”, provided you can do so in 20 characters or less. As an example, a Twitter account with the Name “Hybrid Cars SUVs” ranks #1 on Google for the searches “ hybrid cars on twitter “ and “ hybrid suvs on twitter”, no quote marks needed.

And, as Seth Godin and Shoemoney recently discussed and blogged you can also build your brand around a less popular phrase that you own, not only on Twitter but in all your marketing efforts. For example, a search for HybridGuy on Google currently reveals the same Twitter account!

Whether you elect to solicit the services of a reputable Pay-Per-Click management company or decide to become a PPC marketer yourself, you can reap incredible rewards by putting your company’s products or services before the eyes of consumers actually interested in the products or services you provide.

Whereas traditional advertising aims to reach the greatest number of people with the understanding that a small percentage of viewers will then make a purchase, a narrowly focused Pay-Per-Click strategy targets only those people already seeking a given item. Thus, instead of paying $20,000 for a print ad that 50,000 will see but only 50 will act on, a PPC marketer can pay $200 for an advertisement only 500 will see but 100 will act on. As bad as it may sound, this is truly a form of cheap Internet advertising.

Now some will argue that an entrepreneur with a small budget who becomes his or her own PPC marketer can never compete with a larger corporation capable of hiring a flashy Pay-Per-Click management company to run a huge campaign with practically limitless funds. Well, that’s not entirely true. By targeting long tail phrases your big competitors aren’t bidding on, you can get essentially the same clicks for a fraction of the price they are paying. And as a bonus, affordable online advertising is much more fun than the expensive stuff.

For example, the phrase “Search Engine Marketing” might cost more than $10 per click on average, which is rather excessive for small businesses with tight budgets. But researching similar long tail phrases will reveal some hidden gems that are both affordable and effective. The phrase “Best Search Engine Marketing Company” targets the same audience for roughly ten percent of the cost. A smart and focused Pay-Per-Click strategy like this will cut your marketing costs, increase your ROI, and make sure your company is reaching the customers most likely to want or need your services.