Although Christmas might seem like a while away yet, in PPC marketing terms it really isn’t. Ideally now should be the period in which planning your PPC adverts takes place – in order to capitalise on the huge potential provided by the festive period.
According to Scott Smigler, writing for Practical eCommerce, there are a number of actions that should be part of what he defines as “your PPC ramp-up.”
In a summarised version, here are just two of those aforementioned actions that Smigler has suggested:
Focus attention on the Top Ads in Google AdWords – Recent data has revealed that PPC ads positioned at the top of the page can account for a click through rate up to 25 times higher than those positioned at the side on the SERP (search engine results page).
As a result Smigler recommends indentifying keywords with a level of potential, as well as those that are performing well. Subsequently those keywords should undergo “analytics and conversion testing to maximize conversion rates for their target landing pages.”
With a higher conversion rate you can then afford to make higher bids per click.
Finishing, he points out that undertaking an aggressive bidding strategy could leverage the keywords with a higher conversion rate, as well as the landing pages, to push your advert to the top – enabling your revenue, traffic and most importantly profits to be maximised.
Plan for the unexpected – With the numbers that trawl the Internet in the lead up to the festive period increasing significantly, servers can go down. It is vital – if you’re not to waste your PPC budget – to have a plan as to how to handle your PPC account if the worst does happen, and your site goes down.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Not showing any signs of slowing up following their recent spate of activity, Bing have announced the launch of an airport maps feature for Bing Maps, according to an article published by TechCrunch.
Currently launching to display maps for 42 airports located across America, the feature is expected to expand to encompass other airports over time.
Users will be able to find the maps simply by searching either the name of the airport, the city the airport is located in, or the airport’s code in Bing’s search bar.
The airport maps will also provide a useful link allowing users to send the map across to a mobile device.
Displaying the locations of terminals, toilets, check-in counters, baggage claim areas, information desks and shops – as well as other features – airport maps is expected to provide users with useful information during what can be a quite stressful experience.
Currently lagging behind Google in the search engine stakes, Bing’s recent introduction of a number of innovative new features – such as Adaptive Search, a feature that could potentially affect search engine marketing – could see them gain ground.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Following the recent launch of Promoted Tweets – a new paid social media marketing feature – and political ads, EMarketer has forecast that Twitter’s revenue for global adverts will increase by 210 per cent for 2011, according to an article published by Ad Age.
Twitter saw ad revenue for last year, the first in which they sold advertising, reach $45 million and EMarketer has projected this year’s figure to hit $139.5 million.
Though no announcement has been made for the upcoming self-serve adverts launch date, the feature is set to provide the micro-blogging site with a significant boost.
Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst for EMarketer, explained that self-service was extremely successful for Google and Facebook, with the latter making around 60 per cent of their revenue from self-serve adverts.
Continuing, she added: “So self-serve could really open up Twitter to a new category of advertisers that aren’t currently using the service.”
EMarketer have also cast further figures for Twitter’s ad revenues, projecting an increase to $260 million in 2012 and $400 million for 2013.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
The rise of SEO in digital marketing over the past few years has been impressive. It has now become a hugely important factor for large and small businesses a like – helping to gain new custom through high search engine rankings.
Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail has produced a list of what they define as the things “standing between you and a page one rank.”
Here is a summarised version, featuring just three of those factors that can improve your SEO strategy:
Social media plays a big part – Just last December (2010) it was announced by both Bing and Google that social media presence would play a role in rankings – factoring in search algorithms. As a result having some kind of meaningful presence on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook has been hugely important to achieving a good SERP (search engine result page) ranking.
It’s a tough market – The Internet is vast; there are billions of pages that you’ll find yourself competing against. Therefore it is vital to employ the use of any number of the SEO tools out there to help provide you with an in-depth and daily update on what your competition is up to.
All about quality content – Ensuring you have good quality content that is displayed, complete with keywords, both on your own website, external blogs and press releases will provide you with a boost. Doing this will prove to Google and other search engines that what you’re doing is relevant and consistent, thus increasing you rank.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
With the London 2012 Olympic games less than a year a way, BMW have launched their first social media marketing initiative using the Mini brand, according to an article published by Marketing Magazine.
Utilising the Official Mini Facebook Page, the car manufacturer want their fans to upload cheers via a specially designed “virtual infinity stadium” feature.
These sound effects will then be downloaded to MP3 players, which will then be given to athletes – along with a collection of public messages of support.
As part of the initiative Mini will also be touring the UK with sound booths innovatively created from Mini’s latest model – specially designed to commemorate the 2012 games.
Providing top-level sponsorship for the London 2012 Olympics, BMW is set to provide around 4,000 cars to both athletes and officials for use during the games.
BMW’s marketing director, Richard Hudson, previously stated that the German car manufacturer was looking to change consumer perception of the brand through its sponsorship of the games.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Part of good SEO practice is link building. But what does a good link actually constitute?
Nichola Stott, writing in an article published by Search Engine Watch, has created a short guide, encompassing five key features that a good link possesses.
We’ve taken just three of the key features from Stott’s list and summarised them below:
Relevant Visitors are from the Target Geolocation – In short, this means the linking site URL could have a ccTLD (country code top-level domain) of the country you are trying increase your traffic in.
Stott provides the example that: “a UK tech start-up product looking to grow its user-base, a linking story in eu.techcrunch.com is much better than techcrunch.com,” as the former is more relevant to a localised European audience.
To give you visitors, a site needs an audience – This can be determined, if the site isn’t one that you’re aware of, by looking on “reputable media databases.” Stott specifies that a site with a small but engaged user base can be significant indication of quality.
Visitors that are relevant are difficult to fake – As a rule; a good number of visitors will interact with your site – leaving them determined as relevant. Stott writes: “Pages properties such as toolbar PageRank can be easily inflated and may not be reliable or up to date,” – a significant deterrent from doing so.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Having gone from an invitation only model to one that allows open access, Google+ has unsurprisingly seen a huge increase in traffic, according to data released by Experian Hitwise, and cited in a report published by Search Engine Journal.
Experian Hitwise’s data has revealed that the latest buzz-maker is social media has seen a traffic increase of 1269 per cent in the week following it’s public launch last Tuesday (September 20).
Visiting stats also increased too, with 15 million visitors from the US boosting Google+’s ranking up to 8th in the highest visited social networking site.
As well as this rise in traffic, Google+ has also reached the landmark figure of 50 million users. According to the self-tagged “unofficial statistician” for Google+, Paul Allen, the social network is now gathering pace, with two million users joining per day.
Rival social network, Facebook, currently possesses a considerable advantage compared to Google+, with 16 times as many users – a huge potential audience for social media marketing campaigns.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Having launched a number of new features recently, Bing has just released it’s latest – an event planning feature – according to an article published by TopNews New Zealand.
Named “Bing Events”, the feature has been created specifically to aid users in planning nights out. It will provide a whole host of useful information about events, restaurants and parking, in a timetable format.
Information will be drawn from various sources to cover as many as 10,000 venues spread across locations in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, the Microsoft owned search engine has also announced that it will be encompassing moving images on its homepage.
The move is seen as a bid to compete with Google – the most popular platform for search engine marketing – and their hugely popular doodles, that change on a daily basis – often marking a significant event or past landmark.
Google currently have a huge advantage over Bing in the search market, possessing a 65 per cent share of the global market.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Singapore has been found to be the nation that spends the longest amount of time on Facebook, according to a recent study conducted by Experian Hitwise, and cited in an article published by utalkmarketing.com.
The length of time spent on the social networking site in country was found to last on average 38 minutes and 46 seconds per session.
Ranking at the bottom end of the table, users in Brazil spent an average of 18 minutes and 19 seconds on the site. Meanwhile the UK came fourth in the internationally conducted study, with users spending an amount of time somewhere in between – an average of 25 minutes and 33 seconds.
Experian Hitwise’s results provide a significant insight into the localized areas with the highest level of potential in which social media marketing campaigns could be utilised.
Global marketing services firm, EVP’s Jim Hodgkins emphasised the importance of not disregarding the emerging markets in future campaigns.
He said that lower session times in areas such as India and Brazil were “to be expected.”
“However that doesn’t mean brands should ignore Facebook in those countries – with market share for Facebook increasing by 88 per cent year on year, and 16 per cent in Brazil year on year, its influence and dominance is only set to grow,” Hodgkins added.
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Since implementing Panda over the summer, Google’s search rankings have changed somewhat – with a number of well-known brands seeing their rank fall significantly due to the algorithm changes.
However, Erez Barak, writing for Search Engine Watch, has recommended that efforts should be focused on the elements of SEO that will not change – regardless of any changes made by search engines.
Barak lists that there are “eight durable SEO elements”; a list from which we have chosen three points and summarised below:
Basic On-Page SEO Rules – Google Webmaster’s SEO Guide has a number of basic SEO keyword rules – following these makes it easier for Google’s bots to crawl content and will result in increasingly better results.
The basics, Barak states refer to ensuring your pages are correctly optimised – this means including optimised keywords, Meta tags, URLs, H1s and titles.
“Determine which pages rank for which keywords. Then use the right keyword to double-down your efforts on these pages,” he writes.
Ensure your content is fresh – To remain relevant, it is vitally important to keep content fresh. Relevancy and freshness are huge factors in giving off an air of authority.
If you’re adding new content on a regular basis or indeed updating, it is important to submit your sitemap to Google. This will ensure your site is crawled and fresh content picked up on for ranking.
Keep your site compatible with the newest technology – User experience is a big part of SEO; so ensuring that your site is compatible with the latest updates to for example, web browsers will ensure that you aren’t left lagging behind.
Barak warns that in the future “Google will discount sites that aren’t mobile device-compatible,” providing a stark vision of why it is so important to keep up with the latest developments.
Finishing Barak writes: “verify that your mobile site is indexed by Google and submit a mobile sitemap.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
