Posts Tagged ‘internet marketing’

Why Online Marketing Matters to Small Business Owners

November 19th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

How is the economy affecting small business owners’ thoughts and plans about their companies’ finances? In a recent Small Business Sentiment Survey conducted for Local Corporation, 92 percent of small business owners said the economy influences their financial decisions. Here are some of the changes small business owners have considered making as a result of the up-and-down economy of the past three years:

51 percent have considered reducing operating costs
46 percent have considered raising prices on their products or services
40 percent have considered reducing marketing spending
24 percent have thought about laying off employees
19 percent have contemplated cutting back their operating hours
16 percent have considered cutting either employee benefits or salaries

Most drastically of all, 16 percent have thought about closing their businesses either permanently (16 percent) or temporarily (11 percent). This, despite the fact that entrepreneurs are so dedicated, 61 percent have thought about taking a pay cut in order to keep their companies running.

Despite their financial uncertainties, small business owners firmly believe in the importance of investing in their businesses, with more than half (56 percent) saying they are prepared to make long-term investment in their company right now. The biggest areas where they plan to invest capital are business development (46 percent) and online advertising (37 percent).

As part of watching their finances carefully, small business owners are also seeking to get more from their advertising and marketing expenditures. As a result, more of them are turning to online advertising, which is projected to grow by $18 billion between 2010 and 2015, and fewer are using traditional media, which is projected to shrink by $5 billion from 2010 to 2015.

More than half (63 percent) of the small business owners surveyed report they are currently marketing their companies online, and 30 percent are planning to spend more on digital marketing next year. In addition, more than half (53 percent) of respondents think that launching a business website or improving their existing business website is the number-one way they could reach customers.

Have you made any of the financial changes the business owners in the survey are thinking about? How are you investing in the future of your business?

Image by Flickr user Terry Johnston (Creative Commons)

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Tags: digital marketing, internet marketing, Marketing, small business, Web Design
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Web Design | No Comments »

PPC 101: Basics of Pay-Per-Click Advertising

April 4th, 2012 :: Thomas Ford

By Thomas Ford

According to Google Adwords, the definition of pay-per-click advertising is “the pricing structure used by some online channels to charge an advertiser each time a user clicks on the advertiser’s ad. The amount is usually set by the advertiser, not by the channel.” More specifically, pay-per-click (or PPC) advertising is the placement of an ad on a search engine based on specific keywords or phrases. The advertiser sets a maximum price they are willing to pay for each click onto their website. This has become a favored advertising method because the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on their ad, not each time the ad is shown.

There are many benefits to pay-per-click advertising. Listed below are some of the most favorable:

• Quick Results: In some cases, once you have devised your pay-per-click ad, decided on the amount you are willing to bid, and lodged your application with the pay-per-click search engine, your ad will appear within minutes. Other pay-per-click search engines may take a couple of days for your ad to appear. So unlike organic SEO, pay-per-click marketing can generally give you immediate results.

• Fit Your Budget: You set your own budget, and the budget options are flexible. With pay-per-click advertising, you can tailor your budget to your sales goals and how aggressive you would like to be. It is also easy to modify your budget through the year to adapt to seasonal highs and lows.

• Track Your Results: You are able to track and measure the success of your campaign. Solid Cactus and Google Adwords have many options for you to be able to see which keywords are performing, whether through newsletter sign-ups, an online purchase, a form submission or a phone call. These actions can all be directly tracked back to your specific pay-per-click campaigns.

• Get Noticed: Pay-per-click offers the ability to for national exposure. With Google and Yahoo reaching at least 80 percent of all Internet users, pay-per-click advertising ensures your company is reaching a desired audience.

The potential to receive great success using pay-per-click advertising is high but there are some things you should do to help make this happen. The main factor to consider in assessing how successful your campaigns are is your ROI (return on investment). This is calculated by taking how much you are making from clicks and conversions through your pay-per-click ads and subtracting that from what you are paying to run your campaigns. If your ROI is low or even negative, here are a few things you may want to consider to help increase your profit:

• If you are in a highly competitive industry, such as healthcare, law or real estate, make sure you are putting enough money into your campaign to cover the cost of your keywords. Keywords for these industries tend to be on the higher end of the spectrum.

• If the majority of keywords you are currently running on are expensive, consider adding in some less expensive keywords. Typically, the more general a keyword, the more expensive it is. Try to get some targeted, less expensive keywords as well.

• The positioning of your ads is based partially on the price you have set for your cost-per-click. If your ads are showing in the top positions the majority of the time, consider lowering your bids a bit to achieve a more cost-effective position.

Anyone can create pay-per-click campaigns; the trick is getting right and making it successful. It takes time and effort to get a pay-per-click campaign optimized with the best-performing keywords, ads and landing pages. You need to acquire enough data to make informed changes and improvements to your campaigns. So remember, while you can get your account up and running quickly, it may take some time to get the results you are seeking.

Image Courtesy Solid Cactus

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Tags: ecommerce, internet marketing, Marketing, pay-per-click, PPC, Search Marketing, small business
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business | 1 Comment »