Local Google Marketing

There are times Google’s heralded ad affiliate program isn’t in your long term business interest. Oh no I said it!

Adsense isn’t the unstoppable revenue engine for every eBusiness. Before I am taken out and flogged by the eCommerce pundits — please let me explain what I mean in my defense.

I make revenues from Adsense at a very high click-through rate. I experience high click-through rates with AdSense without resorting to questionable tactics like tricking site users with photos (the AdSense trick and tip dujour).

So my perspective is from one who has made decent income from Adsense to fund aspects of his business like advertising seminars — and outsourcing to his virtual assistants. Yes, AdSense is a legitimate and significant revenue source. However evaluate AdSense with some type of balance.

But there are obvious and not so obvious times not to use Adsense ads on your sites. Let’s list – examine – and explain them below.

1. On Sales or Mini-sites

This is a no-brainer. If you are trying to sell a particular product that is important to your bottomline, for more details visit to www.instant-adsense-dollars.com you don’t want AdSense ads distracting your customers from either joining your email list, or hindering your site’s online sales process.

However I do see hybrid sites that are mini-sites or full scale eCommerce sites, with AdSense at the bottom of their pages. This might not be so bad since only 1% – 15% of your site visitors will either buy from you or fill out a form.

2. SEO Business Sites

If your livelihood depends on search engine optimization or marketing for a living you might want to think twice about displaying AdSense Ads on your site. I can tell you this from personal experience. I once was on top of MSN for search engine marketing in my local area. I concentrated on my local area because I found people felt more comfortable hiring an eCommerce consultant locally.

I analyzed all the top ranking sites in MSN and noticed the only difference between me and the other top ranking sites was I had Google AdSense ads on my site. Someone at MSN felt that my AdSense ads, and perhaps to a less extent, for more details visit to www.google-atm-machine.com my book on SEO, was getting a free ride in the MSN search engine database.

Many of the leading SEO gurus have sites that have been banned from the top listings by the search engines. It seems the more visible you become, the more of a target your sites are to the search engine auditors.

Think about it, how long will MSN and Yahoo! sit back and watch SEO driven websites use their search indexes to fund Google? Did you know SEO in MSN and Yahoo(!) — is much easier to obtain.

Therefore optimized sites are creating an ad sales wealth transfer from MSN and Yahoo into the pockets of Google! It won’t be long before Yahoo! and MSN begin to devalue ranking on AdSense sites in their databases — if not outright ban them.

If you are in the search engine business stay search engine neutral, or create multiple sites for different search engines.

3. When AdSense Becomes Your Only Business Model

When you become so myopic in your thinking that you build a business solely on AdSense revenue — think again my friend. Why build a business solely on the largess of Google?

I don’t know if your realize it or not, but the sites making the real big AdSense money usually have a following that doesn’t depend on the search engines. Internet mavens like Chris Pirillo or Joel Comm have been on the Internet a while and have followings for their websites. Therefore they can consistently make six figures with AdSense.

These content powerhouses are an asset to Google and not the other way around. But do you think Google is going to sit back and watch just anybody make big bucks off of their top rankings?

If you do a search on most keywords you will notice many of the top ranking sites are news sites, .gov sites, or .org sites these days. The only exception is in industries where these sites don’t really exist like eCommerce industries (clothing, shopping, etc.).

No doubt in most industries you will notice a conspicuous scarity of AdSense sites in the top rankings. In other words don’t bet your future fortunes on AdSense.

An IPO based on projections of AdSense revenue isn’t in the future for the average eBusiness. Think of Google AdSense as supplemental income. Building a business solely on AdSense revenue isn’t just silly — it’s just plain stupid.

Amit
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/adsense-isnt-the-unstoppable-revenue-engine-for-every-business-745077.html

I was selling my motorcycle on my local Craigslist and I received a telephone contact from someone at this company. For $129, one time, they assured me they would create a web page for my bike and cause it to be highly visible from Yahoo, Google, eBay and a dozen other web marketing sources. Foolishly, I signed up and spent the $129. The only place I can find my ad is on their web site, www.nationalmotorsales.com. It’s not available anywhere else that I can query.
Is this a common reaction or am I looking in the wrong places?
Bob W

i never heard of them but my thoughts are if they are so good why are they violating Craigslist policy by contacting you. if they are as good as they claim you would have called them not the other way around. sounds like you where taken by a slick telemarketer.do you have face book or twitter? if so warn people about them that way. and if they see your warning you might get a refund.

EARNING AN INCOME FROM HOME can take a little time to gather momentum, therefore it is sensible to keep outgoing expenditure to a minimum until your HOME BASED INTERNET BUSINESS begins to provide a sustainable return.

One of the major budget expenses in WORKING FROM HOME is advertising. You need to be both aggressive and constant with your marketing methods, so it becomes very difficult to cut corners when you take into account the importance of the placement and volume of advertising required to promote your HOME BASED INTERNET BUSINESS. After all, you do want to be successful, otherwise you would not be here.

FREE ADVERTISING for your HOME BASED INTERNET BUSINESS can contribute solidly to keeping a tight restraint on outgoing expenditure during the formative stages of your business venture. At the same time, it will ensure the continued exposure of your program, product or idea to a captive worldwide internet audience.

Most FREE Traffic Exchanges offer you the opportunity to upgrade your membership. Generally, for a very reasonable and affordable once-only payment, you can receive extra benefits which ultimately leads to increased advertising exposure.

In the formative stages of establishing your HOME BASED INTERNET BUSINESS, the FREE versions of these Traffic Exchanges are a more than adequate marketing tool, provided you are willing to undertake some manual, time-consuming work. In order to earn advertising credits and have your advertisement shown to other interested parties, you will be required to click and view other subscribers’ advertisements. Personally, I subscribe to a number of these FREE Traffic Exchanges and maximise my efforts by surfing three or four of these sites at the same time. You will be surprised at how easily and fluently the manual surfing process will come to you.

Of course, you can always look at upgrading your membership status once your HOME BASED INTERNET BUSINESS is up and running. But for now, FREE Advertising is very much a plus for those on a tight budget.

Kevin Hiscock
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/free-advertising-for-your-home-based-internet-business-118690.html

In The Beginning There Was Marketing

Anyone in business who has any interest in using the Web to further his or her business is well aware of “search engine optimization.” Not a day goes by that my email in-box isn’t loaded with information on how to get the best search engine results, and not a week goes by that a client or potential client doesn’t request that their website be not just search friendly but search engine fanatical.

For some time we have been preaching the importance of delivering the marketing message and that your message should not be corrupted or distorted by techniques aimed at attracting search engine robots well driving away real people who may actually be potential customers.

Now I realize that in many circles this attitude is considered outright heresy, but hopefully there are a few marketing types around that understand websites have to deliver more than miscellaneous random eyeballs; websites have to deliver a message that is memorable, understandable, useable, and if you’re really good at your job, information that can be incorporated into your audiences’ belief system.

With that in mind we were pleasantly surprised when Google the primary target of this SEO obsessive compulsive frenzy of technical slight-of-hand announced that they were instituting Google Video Ads and to add a little icing on the cake, they purchased YouTube adding to their already considerable investment in Google Video. Somebody at the big “G” thinks video is a viable Web-medium even if the purveyors of search engine fool’s gold would have you believe otherwise.

The list of companies, including Forbes, Amazon, Wyeth, and Ford, delivering Web-audio and Web-video grows daily and we are not just talking about major corporations. Small companies are using multimedia to get the edge on their larger competitors who still have their heads buried in the search engine optimization sand.

Acknowledging All The Issues

In developing our campaign to promote the use of Web-audio and Web-video as an effective method of delivering marketing messages over the Web, we identified four key issues that would have to be addressed:

(a) We had to demonstrate that website design was about delivering the marketing message and not just search engine optimization.

(b) We had to demonstrate that even small and medium-sized companies could afford professional Web-audio and Web-video and that it wasn’t cost prohibitive.

(c) We had to demonstrate that professional Web-audio and Web-video required more than just the ability to use a video camera and that professional multimedia story-telling required a unique set of creative skills and technical ability not often found in-house in most businesses.

(d) We had to demonstrate that the development and production of creative multimedia marketing and professional webmedia content had to do with talent and experience, not size.

These were the challenges that informed all our subsequent decisions.

The Concept

In order to make people pay attention to what we had to say we needed a concept that was both familiar and edgy. Sure we were sticking a finger in the eye of all the search engine optimizers but you can’t be afraid to make a strong statement if you want people to sit-up and take notice, especially if you are fighting a tidal wave of misconception.

The fact that we were telling people that delivering your marketing message on the Web using multimedia was more important than search engine optimization was enough to make what we were doing controversial, but we also needed a vehicle that allowed us to present the opposing point of view. What we needed was a recognizable style that demonstrated our ability to deliver a memorable, comprehensible, useable, belief-altering message in the medium we were promoting.

Since we primarily use Macintosh computers for all our work and only use PCs to check for compatibility, we thought we would pay homage to the brilliant Mac commercials running on television. The format worked for us because it allowed us to create two characters of our own that would present opposing points of view over a series of videos that would comprise the campaign. We knew that some people would react unfavorably to our using such a familiar format but we figured it would demonstrate how even small but talented production companies can deliver high quality multimedia Web-based marketing on tight budgets.

A Market Primed and Ready

Our efforts in advocating the power of using the human voice and image to deliver marketing stories over the Web was finally getting through to companies who were fed-up with the cost and ineffectiveness of continually chasing the holy grail of search engine optimization. Company presidents and marketing managers were starting to listen, starting to realize there was another way. This campaign was aimed at pushing these business executives to act on what they already knew: good marketing is about delivering the message, not keyword density.

Preproduction, Production, and Post Production

We wanted to make sure we had a distinctive sound by composing our own signature theme music and creating our own cast of characters with a distinctive message promoting the concept of multimedia. In fact these planned web-commercials really don’t sell anything, all they do is make people aware that search engine optimization is not the only thing they should be thinking about when they are developing a website or webmedia campaign. In short, the medium was the message.

The use of Web-audio and Web-video is the best way to implement this kind of marketing presentation. We sat down and started to write and before we know it we had eighteen scripts each featuring a different issue in the search engine optimization versus multimedia controversy.

The next step was finding the right actors to play the part. Whereas Web-audio allows us to draw upon a vast number of voice talents across North American, video is much more limiting, especially if were wanted to keep the cost down to a reasonable amount. Even if we were prepared to blow the budget on actors, we knew our clients wouldn’t, so it was important to demonstrate that we could get the job cast at a sensible cost. The casting proved to be an interesting exercise of frustration and humor. We had all types of applicants ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous to the outright bizarre, but ultimately we were able to find two fine young actors who understood exactly what we were doing and who took to the parts as if they were written specifically for them.

One of our greatest assets as a firm is that we do everything from concept to implementation, including writing, videoing, editing, graphic, motion, and website design; but if you want to produce a campaign at a sensible price you still have to be careful you don’t write overly elaborate scripts that require multiple sets, locations or hard to acquire props. That said we still had to find a cute dog we could trust on set, links of various kinds of sausages, a hard to put together toy, and best of all a real straightjacket from an interesting website that specialized in rather strange items of clothing.

The shoot itself went extremely smoothly and we ended up shooting all eighteen videos in less than two days. We assumed some of the videos that looked good on paper just wouldn’t translate to the screen, but to our surprise every one of the scripts worked. We knew what we wanted to say and weren’t afraid to say it, even though we were flying in the face of conventional wisdom.

While Josh Bader our Director of Photography was digitizing, color correcting and editing the raw footage, Simon Bader our Director of Audio composed a number of theme music compositions to choose from for our signature sound. Once all the pieces were put together into a series of finished videos, we were ready to implement the campaign.

Implementation

The first set of six videos were uploaded to Google Video and YouTube as well as onto a webpage (http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads/) that was created to house the full campaign of eventually eighteen videos, each presenting a different issue in the search engine optimization versus multimedia controversy. Versions of the videos were also used to create a Google Video Ad campaign.

Credits

Produced by MRPwebmedia
Executive Producer: Jerry Bader
Written By: Jerry and Josh Bader
Director of Photography and Visual Design: Josh Bader
Director of Audio and Music Composer: Simon Bader
SEO Guy: Sean Kaufmann
Multimedia Guy: Erez Bowers

Jerry Bader
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/anatomy-of-a-webadvertising-campaign-82411.html

Your dreams, ideas and creativity have carried you to the point where you are now the proud owner of your own business. Now is the time when your success or failure will be determined. Your doors are open for business, but do people know that you are here? Take the time to analyze your marketing efforts and make sure that the message is getting to the appropriate audience. Your customers are out there, you just need to find them.

New business owners must find alternative marketing channels, as television commercials and print ads are generally cost prohibitive. Fortunately myriad options exist, each with its own pros and cons.

Many companies use direct mail advertising and its email equivalent successfully. This type of advertisement can be guaranteed to get into the customer’s hands (or email box), and may encourage a second look. However, this method has a number of potential drawbacks. First is the expense. Postal direct mail requires a heavy outlay of both money (paper, ink, stamps) and labor (printing, folding, stuffing, addressing).

Electronic direct mail eliminates the monetary costs, but requires an equal amount of labor. Electronic direct mail has less chance of reaching the targeted consumer, however, due to Spam filtering in most email programs. Additionally, much direct mail of either type is simply trashed without the customer ever considering the offer. Due to the significant drawbacks, this type of advertising is not generally recommended for a new business.

For many years, an advertisement in the local Yellow Pages was practically a requirement for reputable businesses. Customers went automatically to their phone books when in need of a product or service, and the Yellow Pages advertisements offered a place for companies to describe themselves to an interested audience. However, in the past few years, the Internet has replaced the phone book as the source of choice for consumers to gather information.

A significant portion of the population no longer maintains landline phone service, which translates into a smaller customer base of people who are even able to access the local phone book. Therefore, Yellow Pages advertising is still an excellent secondary market, but can no longer be used as the sole or even primary means of reaching potential customers.

A more modern source of advertising can be found on the social networking sites. Though appropriate only for products and services aimed at a younger market, certain businesses have found success through creating profiles and sending “friend requests” to a targeted audience. This is a variation on direct mail marketing; however the more personal nature of social networking sites can bring some success. However some sites prohibit this type of advertising, so you must carefully read the member agreements.

Perhaps the best source of advertising for those who provide a service is a lead-generation Website. These sites allow the company access to the personal information of potential customers who register with the site and request information. You will need to pay for the initial account setup and background check, then a small fee for each lead that you accept. However, the ability to directly reach, by phone or email, interested customers is worth the investment. The services generally allow the company to use their logos in other advertising, thus generating an air of reputability.

For better or for worse, the most publicity that you get will come from your current customers. Make sure that you treat them well so that the word of mouth messages about you and your business are positive. As people talk, your reputation will grow, and as your reputation grows, so will the enterprise that you have poured yourself into.

John Edmond
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/advertising-and-marketing-when-starting-a-business-95259.html