30 Days "Take Action" Program - Day 15

SEO - Marketing with SEO (Find 'em and Book 'em)

As with a lot of things Internet related, they seem to get increasingly more complicated as their popularity increases. They start out as a good concept and relatively easy – then along comes someone who rains on the parade and makes it more complex.

Such is the case with Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing – fast becoming the MOST popular form of Internet advertising, it’s also starting to become more and more complex and expensive. Pay-per-click means a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis.

Basically, you "bid" a price per click to be in a specific position of the search rankings for a particular search keyword or keyword phrase. For instance, the #1 position on the search phrase "pay per click" required a bid of $2.03 per click, but the 15th position was only a bid of $0.85. What position you want and what you’re willing to bid to get the position is up to YOU!

Budget and willingness to bid impact your site's ranking position when the search engine displays search keyword or keyword phrase results. You’re not charged the PPC "bid" until a searcher actually clicks or selects your website name or URL.

If you want to drive traffic to your site fast, THIS is the way to do it - almost instantaneously.

Just to add to your confusion, there are literally hundreds of PPC search engines you can buy traffic from. So, which ones are actually worth your time? Here’s the top ten with some tips to help you out:

• 1. Google AdWords - biggest and best for volume, traffic quality and user interface. Most expensive.
• 2. Yahoo! Search Marketing - First GoTo.com, then Overture, high volume and quality with a few bargains still around. $50 credit on sign up.
• 3. MIVA - One of the best, and under rated PPC search engines. $5 credit on sign up
• 4. Enhance - strong emerging PPC search engine, solid quality control. $25 bonus on sign up
• 5. GoClick- Cheap traffic, fast growing, loyal following, lets you start an account with only $10 and bid from one cent.
• 6. MSN AdCentre – new player on the block, still has some glitches to work out as it’s frustrating.
• 7. 7Search - smaller engine, good quality traffic good interface.
• 8. Search 123 - One of the first search engines. Cost effective, good support. Fund with $50, they'll give you $20 free.
• 9. SearchFeed - Strong return on investment, reasonable search volume. Geographical targeting available with 11 countries.
• 10. ABCSearch - Solid targeting, decent traffic sources, good customer service. Will Match your initial deposit up to $100

Marketing Online With Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Basically, marketing is about helping customers/ prospects find your website/business – looking to grow your business, increase sales leads, or lower customer acquisition costs. You’ve already read about one way to do that, but smart marketing means you’ll use a combination of both SEO AND PPC. Call it online search engine advertising if you will – it works and generates new business.

To be even more specific: organic search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a web site or page so it ranks well in the free listings of the search engines. This is the best (and least expensive) option for getting visitors. Why? Visitors click on free organic listings more often than paid listings.

Something else you need to know so you realize just how important this is for your site. Just about 65% of business websites were created solely for customers without any search engine optimization. Translation: two thirds of businesses on the web are in the bottom of engine results.

Since approximately 85% of online sales come from search engine traffic – you’ve got a problem.

Without getting into too much detail about “how-to” accomplish this organic optimization – suffice it to say the methods are called “White Hat” and involve keyword research, key phrase placement in your Meta tags and content, and the application of special formatting such as headers, bold and bullets.

Remember to do both online AND offline optimization. This includes regularly submitting to directories, writing press releases, submitting articles, and getting other links pointing back to your site. To get relevant links - start a blog about your key phrase.

Link from it to your web site, and keep the content on both fresh and original. The good news? 70% of search engine users visit organic sites, and 50% of them select the top results. Imagine what that will mean for your FOL site.