You’re a marketing director in corporate America, and results are everything. Everything is quantitative. It’s all about the numbers. Work days can be stressful. Just take a look at that hierarchy! So many people, so many personalities, so many individual agendas.

Dealing with budgets, personalities, expectations, work ethic, and awareness make your day challenging. Fortunately, the world is filled with unique folks who are different from you in many positive ways. Unfortunately, it’s filled with unique folks who aren’t thinking the way you’re thinking.

Maybe you have big plans for next year, but perhaps your superior(s) think differently, which affects your budget. Your need to be efficient has never been greater.

You have two options: be qualitative or be quantitative.

Qualitative budgeting

Your decisions are value-driven. You realize the impact of one great partner over many partners. You may not be spread as far. Qualitative budgeting is for the researcher—the director who wants to understand why certain decisions are made. Often times, the qualitative budgeter relies on reason to make a decision. You’re engaged with your vendors, and you care about the organic process and its long-term impact.

Quantitative budgeting

Your decisions are cost-driven. It’s a numbers game. It’s about getting the most for the least as fast as possible. Although research is involved, you’re more occupied by the notion of diversification. Like a stock portfolio, you rely on many different outlets to generate progression. You sacrifice understanding and engagement for your top-level management. Your decisions are based on numbers alone, and you don’t deeply care how you get them.

Arguably, there is no incorrect approach—yours depends on what type of manager you are. Ultimately, quantitative budgeters are prone to overlooking specifics, and qualitative budgeters are prone to getting too involved with the specifics. A fine balance between the two types of budgeters is ideal.

As a corporate marketing director, you’re challenged with the task of being both objective and understanding. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Understand your vendors and your reasons to market. If you don’t, you may find that you’re not only jeopardizing your company, but your job as well.

Suggestion: Research trending data. Where are companies investing their marketing budgets and why? Don’t just follow the herd, use the herd as a barometer for your own success. Then pursue vendors to fill your marketing needs. Research and understand them and their service. Again, don’t hire based on trends alone—this is ignorant. Instead, hire vendors who meet your specific criteria and who understand your needs and your goals.

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I want to rank for 10 keywords for $10 each. You guys do that, right?

• Odd question?
• Reasonable  question?

If you chose reasonable, you’re not alone! Many small business owners know they need “SEO”. But, they don’t necessarily know what SEO is or where to find it. The reason for this is simple: ignorance.

Take for instance purchasing or leasing property. This is a learning experience, right? Both deserve preemptive research in order to avoid making a long-term mistake. Just like your home, your business deserved hours and hours of research and time to start up. From legal documents and fees to product and service development and employee training, the blood, sweat, money, sleepless nights, and tears that are associated with forming a business is your equity. Think of all your investments. Which ones turned out right? Which ones turned out to be expenses?

Three months after purchasing or leasing your property, did you notice the leaky plumbing? What about the age of the furnace? Or, your neighbor next door (or upstairs) who won’t quit throwing parties? Before you start thinking about the housing market or your 12-month lease, think about the decision-making that got you here. Did you do your due diligence? Did you educate yourself?

Of course you did (I had faith in you)! Why would your online marketing decision be any different?

I’m not saying go out and rent books from the library, comb the depths of the internet, or listen to Audible books until your ears bleed. You’re too busy for that. Rather, be aware and understand concepts.

For example, let’s revisit the acronym, SEO. What does it mean? SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. SEO can be understood within many different contexts relating to technical components of your website, backlink building, social media, content management, and on, and on, and on… The takeaway is this. SEO involves A LOT. So much so, SEO is better defined as online marketing today.

Let’s demystify SEO!

Search engines like Google evaluate hundreds of factors in order to determine your website’s rankings in search. When a vendor tells you that SEO is about backlink building and they’re charging $10 per keyword, be prepared to notice the leaky plumbing, the struggling HVAC units, or the crazy neighbor. You’re about to make a long-term mistake that could have serious implications on your business and the crazy amount of sweat equity within it.

SEO is online marketing. Just like your house, online marketing should be a long-term commitment you’re excited to start. It should be an investment, not an expense. By understanding the concepts and the benefits of online marketing, you’ll understand the difference between bargain bin solicitors and dynamic online marketing partners.

Suggestion: You’re a small business owner. You’re very busy. Take some time or have someone on your team review our FAQ and other online resources. We’re advocates of informed decision-making, and we’re more than happy to answer any questions you may have!

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This lack of attention leads to several gaping holes, causing advertisers to lose money on irrelevant clicks. There are several easy changes that small business owners can make to save money.

Let’s Break It Down:

Campaigns:

Campaign settings are some of the first decisions you make about your AdWords or Bing Ads account.

1. Location: Target your ads only to the locations surrounding your business. It won’t do you any good to pay for traffic in California when your law office operates specifically in Little Rock, Arkansas. Google provides various options for location targeting. You can include locations by city, state, zip code, or radius from an address. There is some debate on the benefits of utilizing excluded location targeting. Personally, I find that a combination of the two is effective.

Note: If you imported your Google Adwords account to Bing Ads, you will need to manually adjust the location settings in that account, as they do not transfer.

2. Language: Unless you speak multiple languages and provide customer service in those languages, select English.

3. Network: I’f you’re not a graphics wiz planning to utilize the Display Network to its fullest potential, stick to the Search Network. If you want to utilize images and focus on branding over clicks, the Display Network may be for you. Whichever you decide to use, make sure that it is a conscious choice that matches your search advertising goals.

4. Additional Settings:

– Ad Schedule:  Whether you operate a 24 hour emergency clinic or a dental office that is only open from 8-5, you can schedule your ads to meet the search needs of your customers. Perhaps you only want to show ads during your office hours when someone is available to answer the phone. Maybe you want to show ads only on the weekends. Whatever your scheduling desire, Google gives you the option to target your ads based on day and time.

Making mistakes in settings is completely normal for new advertisers. Fortunately, the campaign settings are easily editable.

Ad Groups:

One of the most significant issues I encounter with ad groups is the lack of a highly targeted theme. There is no worse feeling than logging into an account with a single ad group.

1. Create Themed Ad Groups:  Your ad group is the place that connects your keywords to your ads. Using a single ad group means that Google can not distinguish which ads are most relevant to your targeted keywords. In this form, any ad in your account is eligible to appear with any keyword.

Suppose you are a law firm with practices in both family and criminal law. If you use only one ad group, you are potentially paying to show ads for a criminal defense lawyer to someone who is searching for a divorce attorney.

Keywords:

1. Avoid Single Keywords: I once hear of an account in which the advertiser was trying to acquire relevant leads for a children’s boutique by targeting the broad match term “kids”.  The mistake here is two-fold. First, “kids” is a decidedly non-specific term. There are thousands and thousands of ways the word “kids” could be incorporated into a search term, and very few of them relate to purchasing quality children’s clothing from a local boutique. Second, using a broad match search term means that the keyword is eligible to appear in a variety of variations of that term. This contributes to a lower quality score and less relevant traffic.

2. Be Specific: As in the example above, non-specific keywords can increase your costs and lower your conversion rates. Long-tail keywords such as “motorcycle accident defense attorney in little rock” or “car accident injury attorney Ft. Smith Arkansas” are more likely to result in clicks than “motorcycle accident” or “accident attorney”. The more specific the search, the more relevant the searcher. Your potential customers should know exactly what you can do for them before clicking on your ad.

This is not what you want your customers to ask.

3: Include Geographic Keywords: If you are marketing to customers in a local area, including location keywords can increase your relevancy to searchers in those areas. For example, searchers may be more likely to click on an ad for the search “restaurants in St. Louis, MO” than “steak restaurants”. This local relevancy increases the odds of conversions for the searchers who select your ads.

4: Negative Keywords: If you’re not adding negative keywords, you should be. Inevitably, searches will slip through the cracks and you will find that your ads are showing for keywords that weren’t exactly what you had in mind. Negative keywords give you the ability to prevent your ads for appearing for these related terms. For example, for a client who is a wedding planner, negative keywords would include wedding-related items such as dress, cake, honeymoon, and more. While these words are all related to the general search topic of weddings, they are not relevant to the wedding planning business.

Bonus: Negative keywords can also prevent you from appearing for searches including your own name (Why pay for a click when they’re already looking for you?) or those of your competitors.

Wrap It Up:

These small adjustments that occur when you are setting up you account can save you money without excessive managent or data analysis. Working with a PPC Agency or Online Marketing Team can help you expand upon these basic principals, as well as break down the data to get the most conversions possible.

The post Ad Words Edits: Save Money By Fixing These Common Mistakes appeared first on Clix.

“What do you do in that office behind those computer screens everyday anyway?” 

Every online marketing firm wishes they could answer that question simply. The fact of the matter is that the answer is anything but simple. Since online marketing is a continually shifting and evolving industry, it can be a struggle for an online marketing firm to effectively educate their clients.

General communication with clients can also become difficult. Of course, there is no lack of reports or emails sent back and forth, but there is often a lack of face-to-face communication.

Email is a great communication tool, but, let’s check out the reality:

Face-to-face communication is important in every business. A study by the MPI Foundation revealed that approximately 40% of prospective clients convert to clients as a result of meeting in person, and about 28% of current business may be lost due to the lack of face-to-face meetings. These face-to-face meetings help create value. If someone does not see the value in what they are paying for, then they will not want it. Companies that do not provide that face-to-face connection with their clients are losing out in their profit margins.

AOL provides a short video on a study by Government officials that shows emails cause elevated stress in about 83% of people. If a client associates stress with their online marketing firm, the effects cannot be positive. This emphasizes the fact that email should not be the only form of communication used to communicate between a firm and its clients.

Online marketing firms that provide services such as SEO, PPC, website design, and content creation, typically use industry jargon that does not make sense to their clients. Relaying information to clients in a language they understand is imperative. It is important for clients to understand the concept of what they are paying for, but it is also just as important that communication does not result in confusion. As a client, don’t worry about an online marketing firm “dumbing down” the material. You hired them to do the work, so you don’t need to fully understand all of the technical details; just the results.

How does an online marketing firm handle not being able to communicate face-to-face with clients outside of their location?

I know this can be tough because many online marketing firms service states, and sometimes even countries, far away from their office’s location. There is not much of a choice but to conduct a meeting by phone or video. I have found that video meetings often have poor connections, so it may be best to conduct meetings by phone. That way you will not get cut off during the middle of conversation.

Stay tuned for part two of this article, coming next week! I will provide communication tips for online marketing firms and their clients.

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I’m sure you’ve happened upon a magician at least once in your life. And, hopefully that magician was relatively decent at what he or she did. From elementary card tricks to elaborate hoaxes, magicians of all types have built their craft with the intent to entertain and perplex. However, what if every magician you met revealed how they do every trick? I think of this analogy when clients refer to SEO as magic, trickery, and manipulation. The reality is that humans (us) inherently question or push aside what we don’t understand. We try to lump the complex with what we feel is “digestible”. In this case, SEO is largely perceived as complex by small business owners, especially baby boomers. And, what is complex is categorized underneath an umbrella that is comprehendible, i.e., “online marketing” or just “marketing”.

Part of our job as online marketers is to reveal the secret behind what business owners perceive as magic, trickery, and manipulation. Hopefully after educational meetings, emails, and phone calls, the intangible becomes a bit more tangible and understandable. Today, SEO/Online Marketing is a recipe (minus the fixed quantities), not a series of magic tricks. Backlinks should not be brought, exact match anchor text abuse is not permissible, microsites with the wrong intentions are wastes of time in the long-term, and so on…

Given the in-depth nature of online marketing, capable and willing search engine optimizers are evolving into online marketers for better or for worse. On the other hand, search engine optimizers who solely relied on manipulation are drowning. Changing how small business owners perceive SEO by expanding their understanding of online marketing as a whole is crucial. Communicate the importance of:

In the outline above, it is obvious that optimizing your site for search is not what it used to be. Optimization is comprehensive. Additional weight has been placed on the importance and value of engaging content that is marketable both online and offline. And, today it’s not so much about redefining search marketing as it is re-evaluating it so that we can answer consumer questions for our clients like:

By catching up with online marketing, understanding where search is headed, and adopting the attitude that SEO is about marketing-not magic-a website online (even if it means through offline methods), then you’re ready to leave “what was” SEO behind and embark on a more collaborative and long-term online marketing approach.

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