Click here to read Rick’s article “SEO and PPC are Among the Most Measurable Channels” from Direct Marketing News.

Or click here to view a PDF of the DM News article – DM News article.

• 80% of visual content to be digested through digital devices by 2015.
• 5 billion people to be active on the web by 2020, up from the 1.9 billion active on the web at the end of 2010.
• 10 billion mobile subscribers by 2020, up from the 5 billion mobile subscribers in 2010.
• 53 zettabytes of digital information projected to be created by 2020, as compared to the 800 exabytes created at the end of 2010.

According to David Shapiro, Google’s director of small business marketing, “Mobile will be bigger than desktop in five years.”  He also pointed out that “Mobile searches grew five times in the last two years.”

He went on to explain that searches are the “web’s killer app,” with mobile and search functions becoming increasingly integrated.  Shapiro explained that one-third of all Google mobile searches have local intent, with consumers searching for information related to where local businesses are located, what products they carry and what their hours of operation are.

Initial steps toward local search optimization should include:

• Claiming your company’s listing on online sites. Essential sites to claim your listing on include: Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local.  Here are few to help:
  • Google Places
  • Yahoo Local
  • Bing Local
  • Best of the Web Local
  • Superpages
  • Citysearch
  • InsiderPages
  • Yelp
  • Local.com
  • Yellowpages
  • Hotfrog
• Embrace social media to promote your brand, interact and engage with your customers and promote your website.  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the obvious social media choices.
• Explore the use of location based marketing sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

All of these techniques work together to enhance the local search optimization of your site.  However of these three techniques, claiming your local listings on search engine sites can most quickly and significantly impact your ranking results.  When claiming and validating your local listing, you are taking control of the data that is seen online.  By taking control of your listing, you also prevent others from claiming your listing.

When claiming your listing, pay special attention to:

• Business Name. Be specific when identifying your business name.  Include the full name of your business.  However, if your company is just named “Qiigo”, consider adding a descriptor that includes keywords.  For example, enter “Qiigo Search Engine Marketing”.  Don’t be tempted to stuff your business name listing with keywords, but do add them when your business name is too vague to deliver adequate search results.
• Location/Address. The search engines place significant impact on your business address when ranking results.  Be as detailed as possible, including latitude and longitude information.  Don’t know your address’ latitude and longitude coordinates?  Find them here.
• Category. Choose the category that best describes your business.  If one category doesn’t exactly fit, test several over a period of time to determine which category garners the best results.
• Reviews & Ratings. It never hurts to ask!  So ask! Ask your current customers to go online and review your business.  Provide them with the link for easy access.  Good reviews and ratings not only help your ranking, but also drive new business.
• Citations. These are mentions on other sites about your business.  In Google Places, they can be found on the “What People Are Saying About” page.  This is another case of the more the merrier, so work on securing citations from many sources.

With these areas completed, you will be well on your way to improving your local search rankings.  The more complete you can get your profile the better.  It is also recommended that you claim your website and submit it to primary local providers listed above.  The time and effort you put into these tasks is bound to pay off in improved ranking results.

• Online ad spending rose 11.3% in the first half of 2010 as compared to 2009, reaching $12.1 billion in the first half of 2010.
• Second quarter spending for online advertising alone was up 13.9%.
• Search advertising accounted for 47% of all spending making it the largest segment of online ad spending.
  • Growth in this segment reached 11.6% and totaled $5.75 billion in the first 6 months of 2010.
• Display advertising also increased over 2009. 
• Spending increased 15.9% to $4.36 billion with banner ads remaining the largest segment of display advertising during the first half of the year.
• Spending on lead generation and email both decreased with lead generation spending dropping 11.8% and email spending dropping 19.5%.
• Classified advertising rose 13.1% during this time.

• Know the difference between SEM and SEO.  SEO, search engine optimization, is the process of increasing traffic through organic search results.  SEO is extremely valuable and offers significant long term results for your business.  SEM is the form of internet marketing that increases traffic through paid ad placement.  Also known as PPC, these paid ads are seen on the right hand rail and at the top of your search engine results.  Each time someone clicks on your PPC ad, you will pay a fee to the search engine.
• Know the value of PPC.  PPC advertising does net positive results from consumers.  According to a 2009 Engine Ready study, the conversion rate from PPC advertising is 2.03%, compared to 1.26% from organic advertising.  Additionally, consumers visiting your site through PPC links will spend an average of $117, as compared to the $106 spent by organic search consumers.
• Know how to pick your keywords.  Picking keywords isn’t as easy as just choosing your name, your competitor’s name and words related to your product line.  Do your research.  Talk to your customers; find out what people search on to find your site before you select your keywords.  Less refined keywords will increase your cost.  A little research will help you to get the most bang for your buck.
• Use the tools available to help you.  When choosing keywords, don’t overlook the value of tools like Google’s Suggestion, Google Trends, SEM Rush, EBay Pulse and others.  These various tools provide information on popular keywords for your business, historical data on keywords, keywords on the rise and other information than can help you to select the best combination of keywords for your PPC campaign.
• Make them want to click.  As with any ad campaign, your PPC campaign must have compelling copy.  Keep it clean, to the point and error free.  Don’t forget to include discounts, promotions or other offers to draw a searcher’s attention.
• Don’t be afraid to say no.  It can be hard to “turn away” potential business.  But with PPC the key to maximizing your budget is to only pay for those clicks that are likely to turn into sales.  Don’t be shy about only including prospective customers and excluding those who don’t meet your customer profile.
• Don’t forget the landing page.  There is nothing more frustrating for a shopper than to click on a PPC link only to end up on a page that has nothing to do with the product they wanted.  Minimize customer frustration and improve conversion rates with quality landing pages.  For the best results, it is vital that your keywords, ad copy and landing pages all work together.
• Strive for a top quality, quality score.  The quality score is used by search engines to determine the order of paid links on a search page.  This means that search engines are watching to see how much value you provide to your potential customers.  If your keywords closely correspond to your products, if your click through rate is good and you have good quality landing pages, your quality score will rise.  It is important for search engines to provide their customers with quality results.  Provide their customers with quality and the search engines will reward you with higher placement.
• Follow up research is essential.  As with any ad campaign, you must do your research to determine its success.  PPC is no different.  However, with PPC you can track as you go.  Use Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics to track your results and see how your keywords are working out.  This will help you to know when to make changes and refine your keyword selection.

Conductor helps companies gain information and gauge results of their SEO marketing efforts.  Their contributions to the SEO field help companies to capture search market share as well as measure ROI for their SEO investments. 

Founded by Seth Besmertnik and Jeremy Duboys, and based in New York, Conductor is poised for growth even within their competitive industry.  This extra funding should help Conductor differentiate their products and services from the competition.  Their strong management team will help make the most of this funding and continue to make them a leader in developing SEO technology.