Cincinnati Internet Marketing Blog

Web Marketing Certification Classes in Dayton

Beginning on Tuesday November 29th, I will be teaching a series of web marketing certification classes for the Sinclair Community College Workforce Development department.  This series is geared to business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing professionals in the Dayton area interested in learning more about online marketing. 

Here is a short video of Hope Arthur from Sinclair interviewing me about the series.

Here is a link to the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/IX3NKm3ECKw

This series of three half-day classes is designed to give attendees a solid foundation of knowledge of online marketing principles for professional development and web skills that can be applied to their business or non-profit organization's marketing program.  The sessions are meant to be taken as a group, but you can choose to take individual classes as well.  Everyone who attends all three classes will receive a Web Marketing certification from Sinclair.  

The classes will be held from 8:30 to noon at Miami Valley Research Park in Kettering on three consecutive Tuesdays with the following topics:

• Tuesday, November 29: Class #1 - Creating an Effective Online Marketing Strategy
• Tuesday, December 6: Class #2 - Increasing Your Website Traffic & Customer Interactions
• Tuesday, December 13: Class #3 - Promoting Your Business Effectively Through Online Advertising

Click Here to get a more detailed outline of the sessions and to register online.

These will be small classes (class size is capped at 24) so there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions about the material being presented and how you can apply what is being covered to your business.  Baffled by SEO?  Don't know where to start with Google Analytics?  Not sure how Facebook or Twitter can help your business?  This is the series for you! 

If you're interested, sign up now as the classes are starting to fill up.  If you have further questions, you can contact Sinclair Workforce Development at 937-252-9787.

 

 

Small Business Online Marketing Seminar

Joanne Westwood of Westwood Virtual Associates and I are teaching a one-day Small Business Online Marketing Seminar this Friday at Indiana Wesleyan University in West Chester.  Topics include:

• Facebook Marketing
• Social Media
• Business Blogging
• Online Video
• Email Marketing
• Website Conversion
• Search Engine Optimization
• Online Advertising
• Google Analytics

This is a small class (capped at 20 attendees) in which Joanne and I will be walking folks through many of the most important elements of online marketing for small businesses.  Joanne will be teaching the morning session from 9:00-noon, there will be a lunch break from noon to 1:00, and then I'll be teaching from 1:00 to 4:00.

If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur or marketer looking to get a hands-on "crash course" in the basics of online marketing, this is the event to attend.  This is an "introductory" level course and prior marketing knowledge or education is not necessary, so if you're intimidated by these topics, don't be.  We're here to help!  

The price is $149 for either three-hour session or $249 for both sessions.  Additional details and secure online registration through Eventbrite is available at: http://nov18class.eventbrite.com/

AACC Business Seminar: Online Marketing for Your Business - A Three Step Process

I'm going to be doing three seminars over the next few weeks at the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce (near Cincinnati) and the series is called "Online Marketing for Your Business - A Three Step Process."

Each seminar will be two hours in length and designed to help small and medium business owners understand the basics of online marketing so they can develop an effective online marketing program. 

The topics and dates are:

    - March 30, 2011: Establishing Your Online Marketing Strategy and Tracking Results
     - April 13, 2011:  Getting Your Business Website Listed and Found
     - April 27, 2011:  Online Advertising: Developing Programs That Pay for Themselves

More information, including a flyer that has a brief outline of each session is available on this page of the AACC website.  You must register through the Anderson Area Chamber office, 513-474-4802.

Here is a short video of AACC Exceutive Director Eric Miller and I discussing the series:

 

Learn About Google AdWords at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber

On August 11th I will be giving a presentation at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber on Google AdWords.  I'm really looking forward to this event!  Here are the details including a link to the Chamber's website to register for the event.   

The 90-minute presentation is titled "Google AdWords: Getting the Biggest BANG for your Online Advertising Bucks".  I'm going to be going over how AdWords works and how businesses can cost-effectively run online advertising campaigns that produce measurable results.  While the focus will be on Google AdWords, I will also be emphasizing the importance of having specific advertising goals, how easy it is to track online advertising effectiveness and how this can fit into an organizations' overall marketing plan.  If you have friends, prospects or clients that are "on the fence" about advertising online or have expressed an interest in learning about how to advertise their business online, this would be a great event for them to attend.  I'm not going to be using PowerPoint much, it's going to be a high-energy and fun presentation that also has a lot of info.         

This event is only $35 for Chamber members and $50 for non-members and that includes lunch.  Folks can register at the link below and I have pasted additional info below you can pass along.  If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give me a call at 937-312-1400.

What: Google AdWords: Getting the Biggest BANG for your Online Advertising Bucks

AdWords has revolutionized advertising over the past decade by enabling businesses to reach people in a whole new way, track their results, and make program adjustments to improve performance 24/7. This lively presentation is designed for small, medium or large business owners and marketing managers who are interested in growing their business via results-oriented Google AdWords online advertising campaigns.

Attendees will learn how to:

• Generate sales or sales leads online via Google AdWords advertising
• Target prospects much more effectively with less waste than with other forms of advertising
• Buy online advertising for a fraction of what others pay
• Set a search marketing budget, return on investment goals and estimate expected results
• Avoid the most common search engine marketing mistakes when using Google AdWords

When:    Wednesday 8/11/2010 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Where:
Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber
300 Carew Tower, 441 Vine Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202

Event Page on Chamber website (to register):

http://www.cincinnatichamber.com/events/eventdetail.aspx?menu_id=144&EventCode=N1008PUL

Pay Per Click Advertising at AMA B2B SIG

If you're a member of the Cincinnati AMA or the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, you are welcome to attend the AMA's Northern Kentucky B2B SIG meeting this Friday August 28th where I'll be leading a discussion of Pay Per Click Advertising.

We'll talk about:

• What pay-per-click advertising is
• How PPC programs like Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and Microsoft adCenter work
• Google AdWords expansion from just search engine ads to include banner ads and mobile advertising
• Best practices for PPC campaigns
• Tailoring PPC campaigns to your specific needs through tactics like geo-targeting, demographic targeting and dayparting
• How PPC could fit into your overall online marketing strategy 

Time & Location: Friday, August 28th from 7:45 - 9:00 AM at the NKY Chamber, NOR-COM Room at 300 Buttermilk Pike. 

The meeting is for AMA and Northern Kentucky Chamber members only and there is no cost to attend.  If you're planning on attending, please register here on the Cincinnati AMA website.  

If you're coming, please let me know what you'd like to learn about PPC by posting a comment here on the blog.  Thanks, I'll see you there!

Nobody Ever Clicks On Those Google Ads

It happens less often than it used to, but it still happens.  I'll be discussing search engine advertising with a prospect, client or someone I've met at an networking event and they'll say something along the lines of "Nobody ever clicks on those Google ads, I never do." 

My typical response is a question: "Have you seen Google's revenue numbers lately?"

Thanks to numerous stories in the media over the past four years, most people know Google makes a lot of money but aren't aware of exactly how much they make or how they make it.  So I like educating folks on the details and making the case for advertising via Google on search engines and other sites.

Google announced their results for the second quarter of 2009 yesterday.  This Search Engine Land article breaks down the numbers for us with some handy charts.

Google had revenue of $5.52 billion last quarter.  Yeah, that's right: $5.52 BILLION.  IN ONE QUARTER!  That's over $61 million in revenue PER DAY.

As the Search Engine Land article explains, $3.6 billion or 66% of the revenue came from people clicking those text ads on Google sites with $1.68 billion or 31% of the revenue from clicks on ads on Google network sites (content sites that show Google text ads, banner ads on mobile ads). 

Obviously, it takes a lot of clicks on ads to generate this much revenue.  So, the next time you hear someone say "Nobody ever clicks on those Google ads" - just smile.  

Google is.    

Conquering The Online Advertising Universe with Google AdWords (It Isn't Just Search You Know!)

You are probably aware that Google AdWords three-line text ads (that look similar to search listings) appear on Google and other search engines above the organic, unpaid listings and along the right hand side of search engine results pages, like this Audubon Birds ad for my client Ship The Web:

But Google AdWords offers many other advertising options besides search engine text ads and I'm running multi-faceted online campaigns for several clients right now.  In fact, you can run a pretty broad online advertising program entirely through AdWords. 

Here is a quick rundown of some of the additional Google AdWords ad options:

• Text ads on Content Sites - You can run the same text ads on thousands of sites in Google's network, which is one of the largest in the industry.  The ads would be shown on pages with relevant content to the keywords you select, so for example if someone were to blog about Wild Republic's Audubon Birds the ad above might be displayed next to the post.

• Banner ads on Content Sites - If you have banner ads you can run them on content sites in the Google network that accept banner ads and you would pay the same price as with your text ads.  Don't have banners?  Google's Display Ad Builder will enable you to create simple banner ads yourself.   

• Text & Banner ads on Placements (Specific Content Sites) - Want to pick specific websites for your ads like The New York Times, MySpace or the Wall Street Journal?  No problem!  Google's Placement Tool will let you browse sites in their network by category, topic (keyword), URL or demographics and add them to your campaign.

• Local Business Ads - These ads are associated with a specific Google Maps business listing and appear in Google Maps with an enhanced location marker as well as on Google and content sites in a text only format.  Great for reaching people searching for a business in their area!  You can even upload your logo and additional information such as business hours.

• Mobile ads - Trying to reach users via their mobile phone?  Google offers text and graphic ads and you can choose to direct people to a regular website or a mobile website if you have one.

• Click to Play Video Ads - These are ads that allow you to display a static image which folks can click on to play a video right in the space of a regular banner and then click through to your website.  The kicker, like all of the other types of ads, you only pay if people click though to visit your site, so if someone watches the video but does not click through it doesn't cost you anything.

So as you can see, there are a lot of options available.  There are several advantages to running an online advertising program through AdWords, but the key advantages are the price savings and being able to manage and track your campaigns in one place. 

Since you are buying your advertising in AdWords and only paying for clicks (rather than for all the "impressions" or whenever your ad appears on a web page) and you are not having to negotiate a price with a sales rep from the content site directly, you'll more often than not pay much less.  In my experience the savings here can be HUGE!

Since you can log in 24/7 and see your all your ad results in one place and AdWords integrates very well with Google Analytics (you can link your accounts and view your site's Analytics data right in AdWords) it is much easier to manage multiple campaigns.

There's a quick snapshot of what you can do right now in Google AdWords.  I didn't go into a lot of detail due to this being a blog post, but if you have a question about something I have covered here or are interested in learning more about what might make sense for your business please leave a comment or call me at 937-312-1400 and I'll do my best to help you.         

Special Offer for Blog Readers: 50% off Search Marketing Standard

After my last blog post with online SEO resources my friend Kevin Gold over at iNet Interactive emailed me to make a great and generous offer to YOU, my blog readers: 50% Off a subscription to Search Marketing Standard magazine!

Yep, just visit the Search Marketing Standard website and on step two of the subscription process apply the coupon code (CINCY50) and you'll get 50% off the $29.95 subscription price. 

I subscribe to the magazine and can tell you each issue is full of excellent, informative articles by Kevin and other search marketing authors who know their stuff, so if you want to learn more about the latest trends and techniques in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, link building and other forms of search engine marketing, this is a great deal.

My thanks to Kevin Gold for making us this offer.    

Paid Search is Too Expensive. Not!

Over the past year I’ve seen a whole bunch of articles regarding the rising costs of paid search advertising, primarily as more mainstream advertisers come onboard and drive up click costs.  Some of these articles focus on the percentage or real dollar amount of the increase in average click costs and describe about how this huge “inflation” in paid search means that the ROI (Return on Investment) of paid search isn’t as good as it used to be.  The implied, or in some cases stated, message being that paid search is too expensive to be cost-effective anymore.

 

While there’s no doubt paid search advertising costs have gone up, I think it’s important to understand a) where we started from and b) how this fits into the overall online advertising landscape today. 

 

You may ask yourself: “How did I get Here?”

Paid search click costs have gone up from where they started because they had no where else to go.  For the first few years after GoTo.com began offering paid search advertising in 1997 the minimum bid was a penny, and since it was a brand new medium with few advertisers, you could be #1 for lots of search terms, for just that – a freaking penny per click!  In 2000 when I was managing the paid search campaign at PlanetFeedback I was #1 for most of my terms and driving a couple hundred people a day to the site at an average cost of 4 cents.  Paid search bid inflation has hit some industries harder than others; even today I have one client who is only paying an average of 8 cents per click to drive targeted visitors to their site.      

 

In the past paid search was like fishing in a barrel, it was hard not to reel in a big catch of visitors and be successful at it because the costs were so low.  Even if your site wasn’t very well designed, your boss was obsessed with being #1 for a certain term regardless of cost or both; you could still generate decent results without a lot of effort.   Now that the effectiveness of paid search (and Google’s subsequent awesome financial results) have been reported to no end and hundreds of thousands of advertisers have entered the fray, it is tougher to get the same kind of gaudy results we did in the halcyon days of penny clicks.  That being said, if you have clear performance goals in mind (such as a specific acquisition cost target) and manage your paid search campaign with those in mind, you can still achieve great results, though it does takes more work than in the past.

 

You may ask yourself: “Where is that great online ROI?”

So paid search costs have gone up and the ROI isn’t what it used to be seven or eight years ago, the real question advertisers should be asking is: Where can I get the best bang for my buck right now?  Check out this eMarketer artcile from February with the results of a recent survey of online advertisers by ad:tech and Marketing Sherpa and you’ll see that when asked what form of online advertising provides the best ROI, paid search was #1 for the second year in a row.  (Search engine optimization (SEO) was third by the way, so remember that the next time someone tells you they do SEO but can’t afford a paid search campaign).

     

It’s important to note these results aren’t hype from Google or Yahoo’s CEO, but unbiased reporting from the online marketing professionals like me who are responsible for producing results for their clients.  Right now I’m managing paid search campaigns for almost all of my clients for one simple reason - it continues to produce the best ROI.  When something comes along that consistently produces better ROI, I’m all over it.

 

Rob Bunting

Czar, Cincinnati I-marketing Group

robbunting@gmail.com

513-481-5689

Google Ticks Off eBay - and finds out partnerships can be difficult

As detailed in this Clickz article Last week eBay pulled its advertising on Google Adwords and while their spokesperson claimed it was the result of eBay doing optimization testing and choosing to reallocate their marketing dollars, the blogosphere has another theory.

Google has been pushing it's Google Checkout payment service, which competes with eBay's PayPal.  Well eBay wants folks to of course, use PayPal, so they do not allow people to use Google Checkout on eBay.  So Google, posted an invitation on their Google Checkout Blog invited eBay sellers attending the eBay Live conference in Boston last week to a party with the theme "Let Freedom Ring" and described the party as a "celebration of user choice."

eBay was not happy about this and pulled all of its advertising on Google, which by some estimates is just under a cool million dollars a day.  Google cancelled the party but still has some fence mending to do.

I understand Google wants to promote Google Checkout, but ticking off such an important (and lucrative) partner and advertiser as eBay with such a blatant dig seems like a really bad idea to me.  Of course Google has been singularly independent and successful to this point, but as Google branches out its businesses and expands into so many other areas they better getting used to working and playing well with others. 

What do you think?  Was Google out of line?  Or, do you think Google was right to promote Google Checkout this way and eBay should chill out a bit?