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Search Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses
By Darren Zapsky, Tue Dec 27th
b>Small Business Online Advertising Strategies While professional search engine optimization (SEO) is one ofthe smartest investments a Website owner could make it does haveits limitations. There are other search engine marketingsolutions that offer more flexibility than ever could. Thisarticle is not meant to suggest that these solutions should beconsidered above a professional SEOcampaign, but because is a long-term process thesesolutions could be considered as an addition to SEO. Statistics show that throughout 2005 b2b companies moved up to40% of their advertising budgets online and b2c companies movedup to 56% of their advertising budget online. Moving this muchof advertising budgets towards the Internet may not make sensefor many small businesses but we could still learn a few thingsfrom observing the larger businesses. One of those observationscould be that larger businesses are taking advantage of the sameadvertising opportunities given to the small business owners bythe major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN. Below are somesearch engine marketing solutions being used by businessestoday.
Pay-Per-Click Small business owners need to know how to effectively leveragethe Internet to their advantage. Investing large portions oftheir advertising budget into and playing the Google sandboxwaiting game really isn't a smart business practice.Pay-per-click is a great addition to and is an option mostbusinesses should consider. Pay-per-click offers so muchflexibility that it's almost silly for a business not try atleast a small test campaign. Pay-per-click offers theflexibility and convenience of setting your own budget andcreating your own advertisements. Other conveniences ofpay-per-click are that you can create a new advertising campaignin a few minutes and turn the advertisements on and off in aninstant. This feature is great for seasonal or holidaycampaigns. Other advantages are that pay-per-click can betargeted by geographical region making it is possible to narrowthe advertisements within a city location or globally. Site Targeting Site
Targeting is Google's new program that allows you tocustomize text or banner advertisements and display them acrossspecific Websites within the Google network. You can targetWebsites by suggesting keywords to Google and allowing Google tochoose from the network which Websites are relevant to thosekeywords. Or you could suggest a specific Website URL to Googleand Google will let you know if that Website is available withinthe network. You may even be able to specify which page withinthe Website you want to advertise your customized advertisementson. This form of advertising is new from Google and theadvertising opportunities within the network are slim;therefore, caution should be taken to test your market withinthe network before throwing a large amount of money at this formof advertising. The payment model for this program is CPM (costper 1000 impressions). Behavioral Targeting The Yahoo!Impulse program provides businesses with the ability totarget Internet users based on their past Internet behaviors.With this method of advertising we can target users with textand banner ads customized to whatever the user has recentlysearched or viewed online. For example, if you sell canoecamping products you could target Internet users who haverecently visited canoe camping Websites, or performed canoecamping searches. Yahoo! Behavioral Targeting allows you todisplay your banner advertisements across the Yahoo! Network andeven within the Yahoo! email. Google recently announced theywill offer their own behavioral targeting program in the future. These are just a sample of the online advertising opportunitiesavailable to small business owners. Transitioning your smallbusiness online may be a smart move for many businesses but besure to do your homework before diving into these programs.Before taking the leap to online advertising realistic goalsneed to be established and strategies need to be developed.Don't be afraid to consult a search engine marketingprofessional for assistance if you need to. They will save youmoney in the long run. About the author:Darren is located near Philadelphia and provides professional searchengine marketing and services throughout Pennsylvania andNew Jersey. If you use this article online please keep thelinks intact.
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