Denver SEO Blog: Web Development, SEO & Marketing

Hyper Dog Media is providing Search Engine Optimization tips at the Association of Strategic Marketing’s upcoming seminar. The full agenda includes information from experts in PPC (Pay Per Click), Web Analytics, and more:
Proven Strategies for Improving Your Search Engine Marketing

Are you optimizing your greatest asset? Website content is an essential part of online success. Help search engines see the relevance of your sonic payday loanadvance? cash loan online payday ?consolidate payday loan debt,consolidate debt loan paydaypayday loan store milwaukeepayday loan canadamoney tree payday loanquick cash payday loanno fax payday loan missouriapplication loan online paydayfaxless online payday loanfaxless loan online paydaycheap loan long payday term,cheap loan paydayhour loan online paydayfax loan no online paydayloan online? payday quick ?,quick payday loan without checking account,loan payday quicksonic payday loan,loan payday sonicameriloan loan paydaysavings account payday loanfastest loan online paydayloan online payday,2 loan online payday,payday loan online bad creditlow fee payday loangeorgia payday loanpayday loan on linebad credit loan loan payday,bad credit loan payday,bad credit loan payday quickchicago loan payday store,chicago in loan payday storeadvance loan mexico new payday,advance loan payday,advance loan payday software? ?cashquick payday advance loancash till payday loanpayday loan in savings account,account loan payday savings,account loan payday people savingsadvance fax loan no paydaycash loan payday tillcheck credit loan no payday,no teletrack no credit check payday loancash america payday loan,america cash loan paydayloan online payday quickcash advance until paydaycash advance loan online,advance cash loan online,advance cash fast loan online paydayadvance america cash advance,advance advance america cash center,advance america cash firstpayday cash loancash advance new yorkadvance america cash company,advance america cash advance center inc,cash advance americaadvance cash day pay,cash advance until pay daycash till payday loancash til payday loancash loan payday untilcash loan payday tillcash until payday loanfirst cash advance houston tx,first time cash advance,first cash advancegeorgia no fax cash advance,advance cash fax no,savings account cash advance no faxcash advance servicescash advance no credit check,advance cash check credit no online,advance cash check credit no pages, articles, press releases and more. Learn to identify and target ranking opportunities with titles, headings, bolding and additional techniques. Also, HTML can be used to communicate the relevance of your website and content to search engines. You don’t need to be an HTML whiz either!

Once you have the content, you must know how to maximize your search engine exposure. Find out how aggressive search engine submission may harm your ability to get into Google’s listings, as well as modern strategies on how to get your site indexed safely. Learn how to take an active role in getting pages indexed quickly in the major search engines as you add new content. Finally, links from other websites are an important source of traffic and search rankings. Several kinds of links will be discussed and you are sure to leave with new link building ideas!

5 reasons to attend!

• Translate the user experience to all online channels
• Learn about online measurement and analytics tools
• Use your SEM campaign to maximize your ROI
• Ensure you are paying for profitable clicks
• Discover 26 sources of links to target

BONUS! Free manual with registration

Hope to see you there!

Tags: denver web design, search engine optimization, website development, denver web development, seo, website design

There was an excellent story in the San Francisco Gate in May about Lake Champlain Chocolates, and the lessons they’ve learned with Pay Per Click Advertising. The story title is “PAY-PER-CLICK PROBLEMS: Emeryville gourmet chocolate company has a rough go of it“, but the real value of the article is the PPC secrets it gives away. The article discusses two chocolate retailers: Lake Champlain Chocolates and Charles Chocolates. Lake Champlain Chocolates has experienced successful growth due to their PPC campaign, but Charles Chocolates did see any measurable growth from theirs.

1. Use negative keywords
In the article, words like “cheap” and “free” were used as negative keywords to avoid showing ads to less affluent searchers. Every time you show an ad it’s like holding out a dollar bill for your searcher to snatch away. Be sure to get a prospective customer in return!

2. Refrain from using the content network
Google AdWords users expect that the content network will show ads in all the right places. In a perfect world, new customers would see your ad and keep you in mind for their next purchase. But it isn’t a perfect world(Don’t even get me started!). Consider:

- Visitors probably will not click. Content ads are like billboard ads. How often do you see a billboard and pull off of the highway to make an immediate purchase? It’s highly unlikely. Like the company in the article learned, “The return was never there.”

- Visitors who click your ad won’t buy that day. They were reading, not shopping. At best, they will signup for your newsletter or bookmark your page. Is the landing page converting them into bookmarking or signing up? Probably not. Either fix that, or turn off the content network for now.

- Clickfraudsters will click your ad and keep half. Click fraud is a plague of the content network. Last June, Outsell estimated that click fraud could be as high as 14 percent. The real estimate is probably a little lower, but click fraud does exist.

3. Use large sets of focused keywords
The successful Lake Champlain Chocolate seller had a keyword set as high as 70k at one time, and now has it trimmed down to 30k. That’s  a big keyword set!

4. Use advanced keyword features
One of the issues Internet Marketing Consultant Lael Sturm found with the struggling Emerville Chocolate Retailer Charles Chocolates was that they “hadn’t modified the ad text to match each specific keyword.” Be sure to use the advanced keyword options that PPC engines like Google AdWords provide. In Google AdWords, the code is {keyword: your keyword}. This option shows the keyphrase your user was searching for in the text of your ad.

5. Measure and adjust
Is money being wasted in your campaign? You won’t know unless you are measuring. Lake Champlain saw they spent money attracting a searcher for “Chocolate covered scorpions,” something they didn’t sell, and decided not to let that happen again. Along with measuring what ads are the most effective, be sure to measure what you are paying for and remove/adjust the ads lacking good ROI.

6. Outsource your campaign to professionals to dramatically increase your sales
Even with Lake Champlain Chocolate’s success inhouse, they were able to DOUBLE their sales by outsourcing their PPC management to professionals. You just can’t beat having the right help. Get to your friendly neighborhood search marketing agency today!

Tags: website development, seo, denver web development, denver web design, website design, search engine optimization

I’m still getting two copies of Search Marketing Standard magazine, but I’m not reporting it. First off, it’s so good that I don’t want to possibly miss an issue by having anyone mess with my subscription. With other magazines, I’ve found that fulfillment centers sometimes get confused, and it’s usually months before I realize a certain issue isn’t coming. I just can’t risk it. Every article is good.

Secondly, I’ll probably read through it twice. Might as well have a fresh crisp copy the second time. I wonder if I’ll even dog-ear the same pages?

Here are four excellent resources for anyone interested in SEO, internet marketing, ecommerce, and the affiliate scene:
1. Search Marketing Standard. If you’ve thought the SEO world moves too fast for print, think again.

2. Practical Ecommerce. Not just for ecommerce store owners. Every web developer creating ecommerce websites should be in tune with the industry.

3. Revenue. Great for affiliate marketers, ecommerce merchants, or any company creating PPC(Pay Per Click) campaigns on Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing.
4. Internet Retailer. Especially important if you are helping larger companies with their SEO, SEM, PPC, and ROI! This publication is best at industry trends influencing larger retailers and online merchants.

It is essential that web designers and web site developers start paying attention to the many facets that can make or break an online business. These publications can help get you serve your clients!

Tags: search engine optimization, seo, website development, denver web design, website design, denver web development

Website visitors have never been more impatient, and I’m the worst. Just today, I was looking up the lyrics to a song. I clicked on the site in #1 position(Like 90% of the rest of the world), but it was too slow. Before I even left the Google SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages), I clicked on the link in position 2. I’m going to bet I’m not the only impatient soul looking for lyrics… or even more important things(as if!).

Lucky, mother Google(our gentle overlord) is paying attention. One of the items mentioned in seomoz’s reent survey of perceived ranking factors is the availability of the server hosting a site. In this case lyricbarn, or whatever they were called, lost a visitor and a potential adsense click or two(Ads are fun to click).

Web Designers - Yeah, you - Reduce your page load times and keep visitors!

Tags: denver web design, website design, denver web development, seo, website development, search engine optimization

Many view the worlds of Pay Per Click Advertising and Search Engine Optimization as opposites. While they are certainly very different, the goals are similar: bring eyeballs(with wallets) to your site and make it easy for them to buy.  Here are 5 tips to improve your SEO based on lessons from PPC.
1. Converting keywords
Some keywords convert into sales better than others. Use your analytics to discover which keywords are bringing you sales, then target them with your SEO campaign. PPC(Pay-Per-Click) ads are a wonderful testbed to discover those converting keywords if you are pressed for time.
2. Your title and metadescription are your ad
When composing your titles and metadescriptions, remember they will be shown in the search engine result pages. It’s like having an advertisement to click, but without Google’s AdWords rules. Always remember you are competing against the other pages in the SERPS(Search Engine Result Pages) - who will get the click?

3. Landing pages
It’s great to optimize for your homepage, but setup some (even more relevant) landing pages and be sure they get some of the inbound links you are building.

4. Optimize landing pages for different steps in the buying process
As visitors reach your site, think about what step they might be at in their buying process? Are they conducting preliminary research?  Give them links to bookmark your content, send it to a friend, or signup for your newsletter.  Is their search so specific that they are probably ready to buy? Now is the time to wave the free shipping!

5. Split Test
Internet marketing is measurable. Why not setup split tests when you design your web pages? Create a couple of similar pages(avoid duplicate content) and use your analytics to measure performance. When your sample size tells you which one is better, adjust the worst of the two and measure again. Or create a third page. Hey, why not? HMTL is still free.

Tags: website design, seo, website development, search engine optimization, denver web design, denver web development

For those of you not currently signed up with MSN adCenter, you may want to give it a look(starting tomorrow).

On April 26, 2007, we’re upgrading Microsoft adCenter with the improved navigation, reporting, and campaign management features from our beta site…

While I currently like some of the MSN adCenter demographic targeting and PPC keyword bargains, I think they have room for improvement. Will this be MSN’s “Panama” upgrade that catches it up to Google? We’ll know soon enough!
Also from the email:

Additional feature upgrades will also occur on April 28, 2007. During this upgrade, adCenter will be unavailable for up to 24 hours starting at 12:00 P.M. Pacific Time. Your ads will continue to run as scheduled during both adCenter upgrades.

With these upgrades, you’ll experience new features that will allow you to:

• Search within your campaigns. Use full text search to easily find ads, keywords, ad groups, campaigns, and accounts. Please note that orders are now called ad groups.
• Save important items in Favorites. Tag your campaign items for follow-up using Favorites.
• Quickly navigate your accounts. Use the improved navigation to quickly navigate to any campaign or ad group in your account.
• Easily access help content. Hover over the green question mark icons for pop-up help tips.¹
• Manage keywords faster. Bulk edit keyword settings and delete low-performing keywords.
• Save time importing campaigns. Directly import your campaigns from other search advertising programs.
• One click downloads. Download your datasets into Excel with one click.
• And more! View our blog and watch the webinar for tips and training on these new features.

If you have any questions, please contact our adCenter support team.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft adCenter Team

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are you upgrading Microsoft adCenter?

Over the past few months, we’ve been running improvements on the adCenter beta site, which has been available to customers in our U.S. Content Ads pilot. Now, it is time to share these new and improved features with all advertisers.

Will my campaigns be affected?

Your campaigns will continue to run as scheduled. With this upgrade, using adCenter is now easier and more efficient. The updates provide you with improved campaign management, navigation, and reporting.

Where can I learn more about the most recent updates to adCenter?

Our webinar, walks you through the features that will be included in this upgrade, and additional information can be found on our adCenter blog.

¹ This feature will be available after the April 28, 2007 upgrade.

Tags: search engine optimization, website development, denver web design, seo, denver web development, website design

Google Adwords opens your advertisement up to a vast audience. Sometimes it’s an audience that is a little too vast. You can save tremendous amounts of money on adwords by excluding the wrong audience:

1. Exclude surfers during the wrong time of day
If your product or service is primarily marketed to businesses, be sure to turn off your ads during off hours. Business products and services are only sought during business hours, and there is little need to show ads in evenings and on weekends.

2. Never use broad match
Broad match can be a horrible waste of money. If your broad match is for red widgets, your ad will come up in searches that include the word red, and searches that include the word widgets. With so much of the wrong traffic - searching for red gadgets, red ipods, etc. - there are bound to be costly clicks upon your ad. Instead of using broad match, use phrase and exact match. This will help save your clicks for visitors that might actually buy your product or service.

3. Exclude keywords that are unrelated
For most any product, you can exclude some keyword. If you sell boats, you should exclude the word “toy” from most of your ads. Be creative, search Google and look for negative keywords.

4. Exclude other countries
Make sure you are not showing ads in other countries. Some continents are also notorious for being involved in PPC fraud.
More tips to save money with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing! Get Joy Milkowski’s “Amazing Results with Google AdWords” course - it pays for itself! Or you can continue throwing extra money to Google.

Tags: website development, search engine optimization, website design, denver web design, denver web development, seo

If you are using Pay Per Click advertising with Google or Yahoo, you are probably aware of what it feels like to light money on fire. If you have a limited amount of money, you get a bad feeling in your stomach.

Google and Yahoo have two main ways on displaying the advertisements you are paying for: to searchers, and across their content network. The content network consists of web pages that may have articles containing your keywords, and it is the focus of our five tips.

You see, these content ads are shown to a completely different audience than search ads. Search ads are usually shown to visitors actively engaged in the buying process. Whether they are doing preliminary research, evaluating features, or comparing prices, search visitors are on a completely different wavelength than the group being shown your content ads.

Here are some tips to make sure your Content ad campaign is as effective as possible:

1. Treat your content ad completely different from your search ad
First of all, consider placing your content ad in a new campaign. You want to keep it separate from your search ad, and let it evolve in it’s own direction over time. Don’t let it get too close to your search ad - keep them separated! Be sure to use different ad copy and ad titles: Everything about your content ad should be different than your search ad.

2. Setup Google link alerts to see where your ads are showing
Want to know where your ads are showing? Of course you do - It tells you where your money is being burned spent! Sign up for Google Alerts for the search term “domain.com”

Using this service, you’ll receive email alerts whenever Google comes across your ad. Sometimes, you will see your ad has shown up on a page that you don’t necessarily want it to. Google’s guess may sometimes be wrong. After all, “Pad Printing” doesn’t always refer to printing on notepads. You should log back into Google AdWords - or Yahoo Search Marketing - and exclude that site from your list of allowed sites on which to show ads.

3. Use different display URLs to split test

Your display URL is part of the advertisement. Google recognizes this, and so allows you to choose a URL different from the actual location to display to your prospective visitors.

Try different display URLs and watch the results: Is one getting a better “Click Through Rate”? Improve the worst of the two, and test some more.

4. Split test your landing pages, too

It might also be that traffic from certain content ads converts better than others. Set up a split test with two identical content ads, but send visitors to two different “landing pages”. These landing pages are just the destinations that your ad leads visitors to. They might be named “Contact-Us.html” and “Contact.html”, if you are selling a service. Using Google Analytics, you can sometimes see which landing page converts best into a visitor clicking your “contact us” form.

5. Make sure display URLs also redirect
Google crawls through javascript links, and we’ve seen several cases where links from AdWords get into Google’s index. The URL that you choose for Google to display may actually direct traffic right to your site! We call this effect “PPC leakthrough”, because these links are leaking out of the adwords system and into Google’s main index.
For example, on our myKarateStore.com advertisement for “Wing Chun Dummies”, we use “http://www.myKarateStore.com/dummy/” as the URL displayed in the ad. Even though that page is not the exact location Google’s AdWords system directs visitors to, we make sure it goes somewhere meaningful.

More tips to save money with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing! Get Joy Milkowski’s “Amazing Results with Google AdWords” course - it pays for itself.

Tags: search engine optimization, website design, seo, website development

I recently say another analysis showing that bidding for the number 3 spot  is the best use of money. Brandt Dainow, CEO of ThinkMetrics, after reviewed three years worth(1500 keyword sets!) of click-through trends and found the click-through rates (CTR) were virtually identical between ad positions 1-3 in his campaigns.

Others disagree, but in our testing (limited, not 1500 keyword sets!) we have found the same result: positions 3 and 4 are your best use of money. (In most cases. Your mileage may vary. Other standard disclaimers here. Banned where prohibited.)

Tags: seo, search engine optimization, website development, website design

Microsoft is increasing personalizing ads given to it’s users. Microsoft says privacy is kept intact, and advertisers using Microsoft’s new Adcenter Pay-Per-Click(PPC) service are indeed seeing higher click-through rates(CTR). So, what’s the problem? It sounds like a win-win, and behavioral targeting will certainly be seen with increasing emphasis at Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and other PPC advertising providers.

In a discussion of the article on Slashdot.org, one user writes:
Microsoft and friends are going to push ads at us either way, I would just as soon see ads for stuff that I am actually interested in. When I go to a store and the salesman knows me well enough to actually be helpful I chalk that up to good service. Why should a website be any different?

Has anyone noticed the behavior targeted ads - rolled out in September in the United States? Do you prefer them? Let us know what you think.

Tags: website development, search engine optimization, website design, seo