Have you recently calculated the marketing or advertising cost of generating an incoming telephone lead or purchase? If so, were you surprised? This post explains tracking phone numbers and recording of incoming calls. The three main benefits of call tracking are: 1-to determine the source of business, 2- to monitor lead quality, and 3- to...Read More

In this posting, when we use “keywords”, it relates to search terms, also known as “queries”, which computer users type in the search box when searching online. The term “keywords” is also used elsewhere: regarding page code (“meta tag keywords”); and in describing content on web pages (“keyword density”). A computer user’s query with keywords...Read More

In our experience with search engine advertising, one of its unique aspects is that, in addition to directly generating online sales or leads, its robust settings provide an excellent tool for business research and planning. In the creation and management of search engine ads, the campaigns, ad groups, and more granular settings gather a great...Read More

Many business owners are surprised to learn that a website can look good, contain many pages of original content, and still not be found by the search engines. Or even when it gets traffic, the same site may not be effective at converting visitors from natural or pay per click traffic to customers. Depending on...Read More

It takes more than an attractive website with a good content to be efficient at converting web visitors to customers. Lately we are seeing clients put more focus into conversions from their website. For our purpose, a conversion is defined as the desired action we want the customer who is visiting the website to take....Read More

Before going further, we should describe what we mean by local businesses. Some have asked us, “isn’t every business local to some place?” The answer is yes, however, for this discussion, a local business sells products or services to customers or clients in their local geographic area. In contrast, an e-commerce site that sells products...Read More

Since pay per click (also known as PPC) ads on the top and side of a search engine results page appear simultaneously with natural or organic results in the center of the page, there is a lot of misunderstanding about them. The processes behind the two are very different, but both complex. The fact list...Read More

Reach Potential Customers While They They Are Searching The most powerful benefit of search marketing is remarkably simple: the link for your website gets displayed to your potential customers at the moment they are actively searching online. When there are fewer potential customers in your market due to a slower economy, it becomes even more...Read More

From our experience with search engines, online ads, and local advertisers, we can say with certainty that searchers looking for products or services to be purchased locally often do not include the name of their city, town, or zip code in their searches. We’re talking a lot of the time…around half or more in some...Read More

Ads on search engines, also known as “sponsored links” and a variety of other names, are highly targeted when properly structured and optimized. Two of the primary settings that control targeting are called “geotargeting” and “keywords”. The description below applies to search ads, whether they are text ads or advertising that involves graphics. When clicked...Read More