Internet Marketing Course BLOG

Part of the 999 Internet Marketing Tips Series

By Dave Ingalls
February 14, 2011

Internet Marketing Tip #6: Concentrate your Internet Marketing efforts on INBOUND INTERNET MARKETING Techniques.

As you begin your Internet Marketing adventure, I strongly urge you to focus your Internet Marketing efforts on what has become known as INBOUND (INTERNET) MARKETING.

What is inbound marketing and why emphasize it?

Inbound Internet Marketing is focused on:

1) Creating quality, useful content that addresses the needs of your audience and then “distributing” that content both on your Web site and on other Web properties that link back to your Web site,

2) Search engine optimization of that content so it can be easily found by those prospects actively looking for it via search engines like Google, and

3) Participating in the online “conversation” about your products or services via the use of online social media (for most B2B Marketers, this last point will be focused on blogging).

Why these techniques? Because the average sales prospect, whether B2B or B2C, is inundated with “Outbound Marketing” every waking hour of every day.

These outbound marketing techniques include trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and traditional advertising (TV, radio, printed media, etc.).

» Continue reading “Internet Marketing Tip – Use Inbound Marketing Techniques”

By Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
October 20, 2010

Great post by HubSpoter Emily Haahr!

You’re a small business owner who loves the concept of Inbound Internet Marketing, but only have a few hours each week to dedicate to it – how should you allocate your time?

The answer, in percent of time per Inbound Internet Marketing technique:

Blogging/Content Creation: 40%
Calls-to-Action/Landing Pages: 30%
Link Building: 20%
Social Media: 10%

To learn WHY you should split up your time in this manner, you need to read the full (but quite short) HubSpot blog post by clicking on the following link:

Breaking Down the Inbound Marketing Mix

Link to My Internet Marketing Course

Link to My Internet Marketing Consultant Info

by Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
July 8, 2010

OMG! The sky is falling! Or is it?

As Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz outlines in detail in his mid-May “Whiteboard Friday” presentation below, Google did in fact do something to their search algorithms in late April-early May (the “May Day Update”), but the KEY is to understand what Google did change, and if those changes affected your sites. The video is about 10 minutes long but well worth your time!

And if you haven’t already visited SEOmoz, this is a great opportunity to learn more about this SEO site and what they have to offer.

Link to My Internet Marketing Course

Link to My Internet Marketing Consultant Info

How Linking These Two Applications Can Improve Your AdWords ROI

By Dave Ingalls
Internet Marketing Consultant
January 23, 2010

You’ve got your AdWords ads click through rate (CTR) up in the 5-15% range, and sometimes higher, but those clicks are not translating into either online sales and/or product inquiries.  Sound familiar?

In Parts I and II of this article, we put the pieces in place to try to better understand this situation.  If you haven’t read Parts I and II, please do so by clicking on the following links before continuing:

Google AdWords and Analytics – Put a Bounce (Rate) in Your Step (Part I)

Google AdWords and Analytics – Put a Bounce (Rate) in Your Step (Part II)

And now to pick up where we left off in Part II:

In Part III we examine the possible causes of high AdWords ad bounce rates – leading candidates include ad wording, keyword phrases used, and landing page content and wording.

AdWords Ad Wording – let’s start by looking at the AdWords ad itself, although it’s going to be important to look at how all of these elements work together to produce clicks on a specific ad.

As all of you who run AdWords ads already know, there is not a lot of text to work with in a typical ad!  25 characters, including blank spaces, in the ad title line that is also the link to the landing page, then 35 characters in each of the next 2 lines, then the Web site Home Page URL in the fourth and final line in the ad.

I think the most important point to make about AdWords ad wording is to include the most important keyword phrase in the title line if possible, and then include the words in the phrase at least one time in the second and third text lines.  If you have more than one important keyword phrase (and who doesn’t?!), then I advise you to create more tan one “Ad Group” in AdWords.  In this way, you can dedicate each ad to a specific keyword phrase.

Keyword Phrases Used – The key here is to be very specific – remember, you are not trying to maximize the number of clicks on your ad – you are trying to maximize the ROI of each of those clicks!  Two things to keep in mind – one as you select keyword phrases for a specific ad, and one to watch just after the ad starts running to better target the ad.

As you select keyword phrases, FIRST try them in Google searches to see what search results are returned for each phrase.  If the keyword phrase returns too many of the wrong search results for your product or service, try enclosing the phrase in quotes (go from a “Broad” search match to a “Phrase” search match).  If it’s still not returning the results you want, try enclosing the phrase in brackets (an “Exact” search match).  Of course, if this process does not return the desired search results, then you need to rethink the use of that keyword phrase.

After you start running your ads, check the Quality Score for each keyword phrase (I use AdWords Editor to do this – this is a great tool for editing/evaluating a number of AdWords components – check it out/download it at AdWords Editor).  The Quality Score for each keyword phrase should be 5 or higher – if not, work toward achieving that score or eliminate that version of the keyword phrase.

Landing Page Content, Wording – Now that you’ve got the RIGHT folks clicking on the AdWords ad, you better be sending them to a page on your Web site that is INSTANTLY recognized by those same folks as RELEVANT to what they were searching for in the first place. And this is probably where most Web entrepreneurs drop the ball!  Admit it – if you’ve been using AdWords for a while, you probably do a decent job with the first 2 items (AdWords ad wording and keyword search phrase selection), but it’s creating and testing killer landing pages that ALL of us drop the ball!  Too many AdWords ads point to Web site home pages or all-the-products-for-sale pages.

So roll up your sleeves and create at least one unique landing page for an AdWords ad that currently only directs AdWords ad “clickers” points to your Home page or to a multi-product purchase page.  Split the traffic between the 2 for a week and then measure the respective “conversion rates” and bounce rates of those pages.

How do you do this quickly and relatively easily.  Use the Google Website Optimizer to put together your first A/B page test – here’s a link to the Website Optimizer Quick Start Guide.

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

Link to My Internet Marketing Course

Link to My Internet Marketing Consultant Info

How Linking These Two Applications Can Improve Your AdWords ROI

By Dave Ingalls
Internet Marketing Consultant
December 13, 2009

You’ve got your AdWords ads click through rate (CTR) up in the 5-15% range, and sometimes higher, but those clicks are not translating into either online sales and/or product inquiries. Sound familiar?

In Part I of this article, we put the pieces in place to try to better understand this situation. If you haven’t read Part I (steps 1 thru 4 of this exercise), please click on the following link:

Google AdWords and Analytics – Put a Bounce (Rate) in Your Step (Part I)

And now to pick up where we left off in Part I:

FIFTH, go to your AdWords account and follow these steps to see the “bounce rate” for your individual AdWords Campaigns (and even more detail if desired) compared to the overall bounce rate for all of your AdWords ads:

In AdWords, follow this link path:

Reporting (tab at top) > Google Analytics (in dropdown menu) > Traffic Sources (in left column) > AdWords > AdWords Campaigns

Once at AdWords Campaigns, select the “Comparison” icon located over the “Bounce Rate” box on the right side of the screen display. You are now looking at what the Bounce Rate of each of your AdWords campaigns is compared to the average bounce rate for all of your AdWords campaigns. If you click on an individual campaign, you will then see the Ad Groups in that campaign and their bounce rates.

Bounce rates in RED are BAD (visitors click on your ad and then immediately leave your Web site/Blog), bounce rates in GREEN are GOOD (visitors arrive and, on average, stay – they visit more than one Web site page/Blog post).

I think you’ll find this exercise to be a REAL eye opener – I know I did!

Even more informative (or potentially shocking!) is to find the bounce rate for your Web site/Blog without AdWords ads included and compare THAT bounce rate to your AdWords bounce rate. At the very least, you’ll certainly be more focused on where your bounce rate problem REALLY lies!

In Part III we will examine what the possible problems could be that lead to high AdWords bounce rates – AdWords ad wording, keywords being used, landing page content, wording, etc.

Next – Please come back for Part III of this exercise.

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

Link to My Internet Marketing Course

Link to My Internet Marketing Consultant Info