With only a limited number of lines and characters, and many rules about what can and cannot be said, format restrictions, and other parameters, the composition of the copy for PPC ads is a more complex matter than many realize. And within that complexity, there is a lot of room for variety and also maneuverability.

In “Writing PPC Ad Copy That Delivers: 6 Best Practices,” David Rodnitzky writes about the following parameters one should consider when putting together the content of your PPC ads:

1.  Test, test, test
2.  Victory is not determined by clickthrough rate alone
3.  Ad copy must not exist in a vacuum
4.  Make the most of bold and geotargeting
5.  Always have a strong call to action
6.  Use basic human emotions

Each item is accompanied by actual samples of PPC ads illustrating the practice to help the reader see the theory in action. And, BTW, what are those basic human emotions that can work in your favor with PPC? They are fear, greed, vanity, and exclusivity.

The complete article follows …

We publish a Calendar of Events in each issue of Search Marketing Standard print magazine and, once the magazine has been mailed, we post a PDF version of the Calendar online so you can download an extra copy to print out or pass a copy along to friends and colleagues. That way you don’t have to tear pages out of the magazine to put the calendar in a handy spot on the wall!

The Calendar of Events from the Fall 2010 issue of Search Marketing Standard magazine is located here.

Featured in this edition of Search Marketing Standard:

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How to achieve that higher ranking is a question with multiple answers, but the number and quality of the links pointing to your site is a big part of the answer. Content strategization is involved, no matter the subject of your site or the product/service offered.

In “Five Content Strategies The Competition May Be Ignoring,” Jeff Quipp identifies ways in which you may be able to outsmart your competitors in this all-important arena by employing content strategies that add value. The five suggestions are particularly well suited to attracting links to your site to augment relevancy and increase the effect of unique content.

The five content strategies covered are:

1.  Contests
2.  Unique research
3.  Doing something remarkable
4.  Awards with badges
5.  Widgets

Jeff provides details of each of the five strategies, with examples of successful implementation of each to get your creative juices flowing. He also throws in some tips for making the most of each strategy. With some application of thought and planning, you will be able to attract links from appropriate sources in a content-relevant fashion.

The complete article follows …

What Can Ping.fm Do?

Ping.fm allows you to post to your social networks at any time, from anywhere in the world. You could make a Facebook post or a tweet from your cellphone, from instant message, from an iPhone, from a computer, really from just about any electronic medium.

Ping.fm gives you a single access point to all your social networking sites. Instead of needing to log in to each site separately to do an update, just do it once and ping.fm will cross post your update for you. The technology is easy to use yet incredibly powerful.

What Sites Can Ping.fm Post To?

Ping can post to almost all the well-known social media sites, as well as many of the lesser known ones. Supported sites include: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Shout’Em, MySpace, Hi5, Blogger, WordPress, Xanga and many more.

Why Use Ping?

There are two main reasons to use ping:

First, it saves you a lot of time. Each social network requires you to go to their website and log in before you can post your update. Let’s say each one takes 2 minutes. If you’re updating 3 sites, that’s 6 minutes.

The difference between a quick update on your phone and a 6 minute interruption in your work flow is vast. It’s just far more convenient to do it all at once – and it doesn’t even cost you anything.

Another reason to use ping is that you can update on the fly. Something funny or relevant happen during your life? Send ping a text right away. You don’t need to wait until you’re in front of your computer. If a significant event happens, you may not want to wait until you’re in front of the computer to post. If a massive event happens that’s relevant to your industry happens unexpectedly, (oil spill, death of someone important,) you want to be able to post about it – immediately.

Ping for Mass Social Media

If you’re just getting into social media, if you’re not using many services or not updating often, then Ping.fm might not be for you.

On the other hand, if you’re taking full advantage of the social media sphere, if you’re on multiple services and you’re updating often, if you’re doing social media on a mass scale, then Ping.fm could be a lifesaver.

The interface is easy to use and the service is completely free. If you think Ping sounds like something that could help you and your social media, why not give it a shot and see if you like it? I love it!

1. Know Your Enemy

Malware is a section of malicious code and will normally take the form of a JavaScript insert, a Flash file that you did not upload or alien HTML tags. The code will often be placed between the </head> and <body> tags. During their web crawls, Google will identify this code as being a security threat and will flag up your website accordingly.

Google has built automated scanners as part of its online security detail. These scanners flag up sites hosting potential threats during the index process. A warning will then accompany the website in its search listings and through certain browsers such as Google Chrome when a user attempts to navigate directly to the domain.

2. Act Quickly

If your site has been flagged up as one  that may harm a visitor’s computer, it’s important to act as quickly as possible in order to minimize long term damage to your site’s reputation. Being vigilant is the first step – simply logging in to your Google Webmaster Tools interface every so often will ensure you are notified sooner rather than later. When you log in to the dashboard, a large red notice will alert you to the fact that your site may have been hacked and is potentially distributing malware.

As soon as you see this notice, try and find the malware within the source code of your site. This is a laborious task, particularly for large sites as you will literally have you go through the source code of each page with a fine toothcomb.

Be very careful when browsing through your site for malware or badware as there is still the potential for your computer to be infected. Make sure that you have the latest version of your browser of choice installed and completely up to date anti-virus protection before setting off to clean the site. Google also recommends that you post to the Webmaster Help Forum if you’re having trouble finding the malware so that other community users can assist.

3. Request A Rethink

When you are sure that you have removed the code, you can request that Google recheck your site. Be proactive about requesting this, as the sooner your site is unflagged in the search results or browser navigation, the better it is for you. The evaluation of your site can only take place after source code cleaning has taken place so be very sure that you have got all of the problem code out before requesting a review. To file the request, simply log back in to your Google Webmaster Tools account and click on the overview page link.

4. Consider if a Reconsideration Request Is Also Necessary

If some of your content has been compromised by malware, it may be that your rankings are directly attacked. Placement of links for pharmaceutical products within your content pages, for example, could result in some indexed pages being dropped and rankings falling. If you believe this to be the case, you’ll also need to file a index reconsideration request to recoup lost visibility.

5.  Review Your Security

Just as you would ramp up your home security after a break in, take the time to sit down and figure out how you can prevent your website being victimized by malware in future. To do this effectively, you must know the shape the malware took and how your site was exploited – was it SQL injection for example, where the database powering your site is attacked in order to change site behavior? Or was cross site scripting to blame? This is where a form becomes the ‘virus’ carrier.

It can be very difficult to know exactly how your site fell victim to malware. Where the problem manifests itself quite obviously – such as when the home page has been defaced or if content has been changed, you can often trace the footsteps of the hack and then take sufficient remedial action. If it is less obvious, such as hiding links behind the background of your site to spammy websites (ads for pills or gambling), it can take longer to get to the root cause. In these cases, follow good practice guidelines such as always using the latest available versions of applications and software integrated with your website, routinely review your source code for alien snippets, and use Google Search site: query to trawl through your site for inserted, spammy keywords.

Follow this five-step process and protect your website from malware attacks and their consequences.

Even if you checked your website for browser compatibility at the design stage, it’s worth going back and redoing as new browsers are launched. The most recent advent to the browser market was Google Chrome and if you haven’t already done so, it’s a good idea to check that your site is compatible with the latest incarnation of Google’s browser software. Particularly if your site is an ecommerce one, a poorly rendered site can have a direct impact on your bottom line. Run through this check list to be sure you have the basics of browser compatibility covered:

1. Make accessibility a design feature

If you prioritize building an accessible website throughout the design process, you will have fewer problems when checking for multiple browser compatibility. Although all websites need to have flashy features that make them stand out and retain the interest of the user, sticking to the simplest version of the needed code and using plain HTML over more complex programming languages will make it more likely that your site displays correctly over numerous browsers and browser versions.

2. Use a code validation tool at the end of the design process

Even if you’re sure you have adhered to W3C codes of practice and have used the cleanest code possible to design your website, running each page through a proper code validation tool takes the guesswork out of the design process. It will also catch the smallest mistakes that you may easily have missed when checking and re-checking your own coding. Code validation is very easy to do and can be checked against the industry standard free of charge at http://validator.w3.org/. Simply input your web address and wait for the report to flag up possible conflicts.

3. Make use of the expertise of others

If you have gone as far as identifying a problem with your site but aren’t sure how to fix the issue for a particular browser or  platform, you can ask the wider internet community. One of the specific aims of Google’s Doctype service is to provide a library of test cases for checking cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility. Licensed sections of code can be found here, along with code provided by other users with similar problems. You need to use a Google account to log in as with all Google tools but once there, will find a helpful community who have ‘been there, done that’. Go to http://code.google.com/doctype/

4. Test as much as you can

It is often not possible to have different versions of a browser installed and running on the same machine – for example an earlier and later version of Internet Explorer . Unless you have the luxury of being able to install one browser or version of browser on a series of other machines, actually checking how your site appears yourself on other browsers will be tricky. Fortunately, there are a number of free apps you can download which will give you this facility without the hassle of installing and uninstalling dozens of browsers. Try http://spoon.net/browsers/ for example which allows you to run any browser and gives a screen shot of how your site appears in each. It currently supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. Similarly, http://browsershots.org/ will give you a screen shot of your page 800×600 and 1024×768 resolution on a plethora of browsers on Linux, Windows and Mac.

1. Owning multiple domains can lead to more traffic

Back in the 1960s in the early days of the brand, Luciano Benetton experimented with the opening of a second shop on exactly the same street as an existing storefront. He found that rather than losing half of the custom in shop one to shop two, he drew in an entirely new clientele, therefore increasing his sales.  Half a century later and the same principle can be applied to multiple domain names.

Having more than one domain all pointing to your primary web address can help capture more traffic. This works well for domains that include very general keywords, where web users may be inclined to type in keyword.com in the address bar rather than use a search engine. For example, if you sell beds your main domain could be www.woodenbeds.com but you may also want to purchase www.kingsizebeds.com or www.childrensbeds.com in order to cast your traffic seeking net further afield.

2. Owning multiple domains can be a strategic decision

If you own the .com version of your domain, you may want to buy up other variations such as .net, .biz or .us even though you may never use them. The reason for doing this is purely strategic – you’re buying them to prevent your competitors from getting their hands on them and using them to misrepresent your brand. This is a smart business decision as any website appearing on a domain so similar to your own that is not controlled by you can have catastrophic consequences for your business.

3. Domain complaints or domain reviews

It’s a sad fact of business life that you can’t please everyone and while you try as hard as humanely possible to offer a decent service to each and every customer, there will always be those clients for whom your efforts fall below expectations. What that happens they may be tempted to go online and post a negative review. Bad press always seems to travel faster and have more power than a mountain of good press so buying your domain + reviews.com or complaints.com gives you a chance to limit the impact of the occasional bad review. It also gives you a forum to pro-actively engage with those who have suffered a bad experience and suggest remedies or offer compensation to protect your brand online.

4. To err is human

Everyone makes mistakes when surfing the web – how often have you typed in www.gogle.com rather than www.google.com? Buying up misspells of your domain means you can point the incorrect address at the correct one, thereby ensuring all of your intended traffic ends up at your domain. If you try the above example and type in www.gogle.com you’ll still end up at Google because they own the misspell and have it pointed at the correct domain. If you don’t buy up the misspell of your own web address, you may find that some of your traffic ends up at an error page. While some will notice their mistake and type in the correct version of the domain, others will not and you risk losing them to another website.

Only you can know for sure, but investing a little extra cash in some additional domain names to cover the above eventualities may turn out to be one of the smartest business moves you make.

How can you predict future trends? It helps if you understand the past. If you offer repair services in areas where it frequently rains, you can bet that people are going to be looking for keywords related to flooding and roof leaks. Many contractors with PPC campaigns will raise their daily campaign limits when they know a storm is on the way. On the SEO side, you just need to make sure your site is positioned in the search results prior to the next big weather event. Of you sell products, contractor leads, or services nationally, then some forward looking SEO will put you in the right spot when Mother Nature has her next seemingly random event.

Predicting the future also works for other events. If you run a political site, you have a certain amount of advance notice as to who the candidates are and what the issues will be in advance of an election. Since search engines tend to reward sites that establish content and links ahead of time, you may be able to corner the market on a point of view while it is still taking shape. Likewise, if you profile a wide field of candidates ahead of time, one of them is going to be the frontrunner and your site can feature support or criticism that is more likely to get found. Even though you may have put in the same work for the 12 candidates who got nowhere, you can still hold a nice spot for the one who reached the top. Usually the best way to segment out this kind of traffic is to buy candidate related domain names and put some basic content on each one, then flip the top one for a profit. In many cases, if the candidate’s supporters won’t buy the domain name, then the opponents will get it for their own purposes!

For years, people in brick and mortar businesses have counted on seasonality to make sales, whether it was for snow removal or Christmas gifts. In the world of search engine optimization, the way to capture seasonal trends usually involves keeping sections of your site active that may be out of season for a good part of the year. For instance, a site that sells chocolates may more success maintaining pages for “Christmas Chocolates” and “Valentine’s Day Candy” instead of having a “constantly changing “seasonal” page that is too vague to classify. The advantage of having a permanent page for every event is that you can find permanent inbound links to these pages, which can solidify search engine results year after year.

Are you a film junkie? If so, you can often build sites related to the topic matter of upcoming blockbusters, and cash in on the related search volume. Occasionally people are able to buy exact match domains related to a movie’s title (which can have trademark and copyright ramifications) but in most cases the subject matter of the film can be a good topic. For instance, the recent Vampire craze has led to an explosion of movies about overly emotional creatures with an insatiable appetite for human blood. A site that had anticipated this trend could have easily made money selling books, paraphernalia, or even impressions on pages that explored a particular film or the topic of vampires in general. Likewise, the person who builds on the next young-adult trend can also become the resource for a fad that is not as close to peaking.

Positioning your site for the unexpected is one of the best ways to capture a torrent of sudden traffic, but there can be a couple of pitfalls to consider. First, you want to be sure that you have a flexible enough bandwidth plan that your site doesn’t get shut down by your hosting provider when real traffic comes in. Second, you should consider that some topics, like ones involving celebrities, may bring up real-time news results during a celebrity scandal or death. Although this may seem a bit morbid, it may not pay to bank on a celebrity’s demise for search engine traffic if your site is going to be pushed back in favor of the latest gossip site. However, as the news gets stale, real-time results tend to drop off and your site may regain its previous position. No matter whether you’re preparing for a “possible” future or one that is guaranteed by virtue of seasonal search trends, you can achieve the best results by getting started today. Even if you’re in the midst of this year’s buying season, you can definitely position your site for next year. In any case, you don’t need a crystal ball to predict the future, but a few forecasting successes will make people think you’re a closet Nostradamus.

But, what if after a few happy years together you decide that it may be time for a change of scene, domain-wise? Even though you put a lot of thought and pre-planning in to your domain purchase, it can sometimes be necessary to diversify and consider a name change. A new domain name may be the next logical step after a corporate re-brand or, it may be that you choose incorrectly the first time and a more suitable domicile has now become available. Or, more commonly your business has simply outgrown its original residence.

Imagine that you run a store selling carpets, you have a shop that has a good footfall and you showcase your more unusual and sought-after designs at your website, www.mycarpetwebsite.com. As the years have passed, you’ve started to stock some wooden flooring for your modern minded clientele and floor protection products for your increasing number of industrial flooring clients. This area is a much more lucrative revenue stream for you and so, business plan in hand you decide you want a new domain that doesn’t include the word ‘carpet’. But, is it such a good idea?

1.  A change of domain name is a big business step first and foremost. If you’ve had your domain for longer than a few months, you will undoubtedly have built up a name for yourself amongst your target market. Your reputation will intrinsically be linked with your domain and as clients recommend you to others, they will often give the web address as an easy point of contact. If you change your domain, you risk losing some of this goodwill and word of mouth. You’ll also have to work hard to re-educate your clients about your new domain, some of which you may not be able to call or email. It’s important to weigh up this potential loss of traffic and business with the likely gains to be made from a new domain over the long term.

2. Any marketing material your already possess will likely have included a link to your existing web address. It will appear on business cards, printed pamphlets, brochures, catalogues, billboards and in radio and TV ads. Changing your domain will make all of this expenditure moot and will necessitate a costly reprint of any existing marketing material to include the new address.

3. Your branding may also be affected as a new domain online is akin to renaming your business offline. Reputations and impressions you have worked hard to build will not automatically be transferred to the new domain, simply by virtue of the fact that the same people are behind it. You’ll have to work hard to regain your sense of brand at the new address, should you decide to move away from your current domain name.

4.  You may need to invest in a new site design. While it would be nice to think that you could simply move your existing site lock, stock and barrel to a new address, the visual design of the site may need changing. Logos, headers and footers may need to be re-designed for example, to remove the old address and include the new one. Likewise, all copy will have to be thoroughly reviewed and references to the old address removed and replaced with the new one.

5.  Your organic search positions may be affected if you change your domain name and don’t use the correct forwarding techniques. A common mistake is just to point your old domain at your new site, without implementing a 301 redirect. If you simply park you old domain and point it to your new site, you’re opening yourself up to a duplicate content problem and will slowly see your old site slide down the rankings with your new site nowhere to be seen. Using a 301 redirect is essential as this will transfer all of the links you have built back to your old site, to the corresponding page on your new site. This link juice is a crucial SEO consideration and a great source of incoming traffic so it’s essential that the search engines know that the page has been moved.

With so much hard work going in to a domain change, is it ever worth introducing a new address? Absolutely. In the example above, a new domain name such as www.carpetandflooprotection.com would be a sensible choice. When a new service or product looks likely to be a very strong growth area for the company, it makes sense to include it in the domain. This will help you to cast as wide a net as possible and you don’t risk losing browsers who see the old address and think that you specialize in just the one service or product.

A new domain can also help search engine rankings and online marketing. It may be more memorable than the old domain, in which case visitors will have easier brand recall, leading to increased traffic flows. Including keywords in the domain will also assist with search engine optimization efforts and in the long term, could help secure higher search placements.