Is your online business struggling to compete, experiencing a decrease in sales, or just not living up to your expectations?  If are faced with this predicament, it is probably time to rethink your total online presence.

A strategically planned and expertly designed website can make all the difference in the growth and success of your businesses.  It is intended to achieve your goals; therefore, it should paint a clear picture of your company’s image, promote your products or services, and elicit sales.  However, if you are not a skillful web developer, you will need to hire an expert who can design and implement a top-notch website that will enhance your online presence and set you on the path to achieving your goals.

Think of it this way, in traditional business a company hires the best sales team available, so you want to settle for no less when it comes to your online business.  Why?  Because your website is your sales team and you want to use it to entice customers to walk through your virtual door.  That requires promotion, advertising, image, trust, recognition, and incentive, so it is imperative that you have a website design that works for you.

What is a well-developed website:  it is credible, visually appealing, user friendly, and lets the customer what is in it for them.  It is used to captivate potential customers and convince them to buy what ever it is that you are selling.  If your current layout fails to meet these objectives, what good is there in having it?

If you have a quality site that others aspire to emulate, you can truly say you are ready for business, and a professional website developer can make this happen!

Meanwhile, here are ten basic benefits to using a website developer.

1.  Appearance counts!  A website developer will ensure that your site is attractive and pleasing to the eye.

2.  A website developer will ensure your site is compatible with all browsers.

3.  A website developer will offer design choices – HTML, which simulates a company brochure, or a custom design that is database driven and able to generate pages on demand.

4.  A website developer can design your website around a company logo, image, or both so it meshes with your marketing plan.

5.  A website developer will work with you to come up with an economical solution based on your budget.

6.  A website developer will build a website that allows customers to easily locate what they are looking for.

7.  An expert’s design will help set you apart from your competition.

8.  Your website developer will use reliable technologies that fit your specific needs.

9.  A website developer’s design will get your point across to your customer.

10.  A website developer will ensure your site is Search Engine Optimized, which can improve your page rank and boost your sales.

In the end, an expert website developer can get your business up and running as quickly, and efficiently as possible.

This webinar dealt with B2B buyers, the way they buy and how companies can adapt their PPC keyword strategy, and how to use the best keywords for B2B buyers.

There are three different categories of purchase for B2B buyers. First, repeat purchase, which is a purchase that is repeated and when the buyer is referring to the same company, an example of repeat purchase can be copy paper. Then, repeat modified purchases, which is when the buyer changes a product he needs by another product that falls into the same category (e.g. computers). And finally, Blank state purchase is when the buyer never bought the product he is buying. This type of purchases led to a lot of online research. These three different types of purchase influence the keyword strategy as well as other significant factors.

Online research is extremely significant in buying decisions, for simple purchases buying is more often online. On the other hand for complex and more expensive purchases, buying is less done online but the researches about the product are done online. Search plays an integral navigational role and the structure of query can help understanding intents and consumer behavior.

Besides, in every decision buyers are making a balance between risk and reward and the level of risk in B2B purchasing is high. High risk means more online researches to gather more feedbacks and information about the product. The risk is present for both users and buyers. From the point of view of the user the risk is the product, that is why the user wants a product that will be more efficient and make him more productive. For the buyer, the risk is in the purchase. In other words, how risky the transaction can be for the company and how credible the vendor is. Risk varies also according to the type of purchase.

Applied to the keyword strategy, vendors should determine the degree of risk and uncertainly for the customer to buy their product as well as defining the prospect’s vocabulary and intent. Quantitative and qualitative research should be conducted for the keyword list. The qualitative research should include one to one interviews, vocabulary exercises, over the shoulder observations and online surveys. The higher the degree of risk is, the more qualitative the research must be.

As a conclusion, B2B buyers will conduct more researches than B2C buyers and the main reason is the high level of risk and the facility and rapidity of online purchases for repeated purchases. This means that suppliers should considerately develop their PPC keyword strategy for B2B buyers.

How Intel Coordinated Search into a Global Ad Campaign

Search powered marketing is today part of marketing campaigns and represents a vital element and an important budget. With the recession, advertisers are more accountable for media budgets. Every dollar spend on a search powered marketing campaign has to provide results. Advertisers also have much better ways to coordinate campaigns. This webinar examines the last campaign of Intel and explains how Intel incorporated a search program into a global Ad campaign.

The Intel Company integrated search into the overall advertising campaign that started last year in May. The campaign “sponsors of tomorrow” is a globally integrated campaign featuring TV, print, retail, events, banners, video and web. All supported with paid search and PPC campaign. This campaign was designed for the brand itself and not for Intel’s products. The company wants to increase the notoriety of the brand and what Intel is doing and the fact that Intel is the “brain” behind PC’s. Intel wants to reach the target through the name, and want to tell people more about what Intel is and the fact that Intel is a forward thinking company. This campaign has no purpose on selling anything; it’s only about sharing information with the audience and let them know about the benefits of Intel.

The campaign is search marketing oriented in order to pick up key words when people go online after they saw the ads on TV or other offline support. Social media and specific landing pages on the blog were also a support in this campaign to allow viewers engage with Intel and giving feedbacks on the campaign and on Intel and on how they see the world of tomorrow. The landing pages also allowed navigating on the historic of the company, the products, the social media section etc. This gave Intel the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign and observe the tendencies from the different landing pages. The possibility to view Intel ads on YouTube has been facilitated by Intel. They created a YouTube page and could also analyze the video search PPC.

This campaign linked and combined off and online media. Each Offline support used for the campaign had a direct link to a web page or online “area”. This strategy allowed Intel to trace and measure the impact of each media used in the “Intel sponsors of tomorrow” campaign and if the campaign reached its goal. It also allowed Intel to evaluate manage they investments for the future campaigns.

Despite the recession, the interactive marketing environment is still growing and diversifying. This development creates many opportunities for actors of the interactive marketing market. The recession forces people to be more creative and more competent with their marketing campaigns.

The forecast for 2010 and beyond in interactive marketing is promising. The spending in interactive marketing (mobile marketing, social media, email marketing, display advertising, search marketing) will be significantly increasing for the next 5 years.

At the end of 2009 Google added some new ad formats. Site links, with more links appearing for the ranking results. Every result on the top page will have more clickable links, which can be seen as an opportunity for interactive marketers. Google’s product search is also another update. Product extensions and listings are getting more developed on the ranking results. When doing a general research like laptop, in addition to websites, you have a product view with a link and the price of the product. Make sure to have your images optimized if you want to benefit from this feature.

Google Caffeine will be released “sometime after the holidays”; it will bring some significant changes in interactive marketing. It will have direct effects on crawling, ranking and indexing. Google Caffeine will focus on real-time results by creating frequent content updates and participating in social media communities. Under websites links will scroll some recent social media activity as tweets for instance. This is another chance to maximize your ranking. It will also provide faster results. Page load time will be an algorithmic ranking factor. With webmaster central, Google gives you the time your page takes to load compared to the majority of websites. Page loading time will have an effect on quality score for PPC and SEO. The last point is that Google Caffeine will provide more blended search results as images, videos, blogs, social search, maps, etc.

In order to benefit from Google Caffeine you have to drive more traffic to your website through increased channel as social media and real-time. Use Twitter and other social media to increase inbound links to your site. Increase your brand visibility on the internet. Be careful when having a social media policy; be sure to develop a content strategy with frequent and consistent updates.

Don’t forget Bing and Yahoo! The factors when optimizing for Bing are almost the same as when optimizing for Google. If you follow the same strategy you should succeed. Be aware that your ranking results won’t be the same for Yahoo and Bing even if they have a partnership.

As a conclusion, in the future be sure to have SEO and content strategies for web, images, videos, social media, news and real-time.

This podcast will discuss the relation of Pay Per Click and the Long Tail and their importance for your website. We’ll also discuss the limits of broad matches and explain you how to manage cost effectively your keyword list and your tail.

In order to have an accurate definition of the tail we need to define the head. The head could be defined as a number of keyword and everything else would represent the tail. The head represents a measure of traffic volume. In this case the head is defined as, either the top 250 keywords by click volume or the keywords with 500 clicks or more in 90 days. The tail is represented by everything else.

The importance of the tail is determined by several elements. The tail varies according to the type and size of your business and more specifically of the number of the products or services you propose on your website and how people search in the category.

The tail is, or can be treated with a broad match strategy. The use of broad match has to be carefully managed. Broad match can be unprofitable and less efficient. If we take the case of a landing page for example, a visitor who is looking for something specific will arrive on the home page and will probably not continue its research on your site. Better landing pages means better conversion rate from each visitor, which signifies much value coming out of the traffic of the targeted keyword.

Because the traffic has different values you can differentiate the bids. With a higher value keyword you’ll spend more money, with a lower value keyword you’ll spend less. In other words more targeted bidding brings better resources allocation and a bigger program with better efficiency.

When building your keyword list, you need to spend a lot of time on the head about the language and how people are going to search for your products. For the head, your list has to be done by a human and not by automated software robot. Your keywords needs the right attributes as well as the landing pages need human verification. Whereas for the tail, you can use tools to build your keyword list, but you still have to control the results and the coherence.

When managing your keyword list, you must have sophisticated stats in order to make an accurate evaluation of your needs. Classification scheme and URL checking software is vital when you provide a wide range of products or services. It will help the classification of keywords and keep your strategy organized.

To conclude the best alternative is high bidding on exact match keyword ( for the head) and low bids on broad match and negative keywords (for the tail) is the most beneficial solution when managing your PPC plan.

Link building, as Pay Per Click advertising and keyword optimization is part of the search engine optimization process. Link building consists of maximizing your ranking on search engine by having your websites link on other websites. How many links you’ll have associated to your site will determine your ranking on Google for example.

A good way to make links is to build links from sites that are related to yours. They are several ways to have your link on a website. An easy example is becoming a member of a website from your community. You can also participate and write guest posts for a blog or forum. Don’t aim the quantity of links but focus on quality links. Choose relevant websites, pages and link text. If you decide to write an article, try to make it valuable and pertinent, in order to build a good and strong image of your website. You can also include some editorial links to relevant content on your site.

They are two types of links, reciprocal links and one way links. Reciprocal links is when you agree with a website that you will both display the others links on your website. One way links is when your website link is posted on a website but you don’t post anything on your website. Notice that those one way links are more valuable than reciprocal links for search engines. Be careful when managing links; avoid involving with site with bad reputation, and bet on quality, not on quantity.

As a conclusion, we could insist on the fact that link building is a key tool in search engine optimization. Besides increasing your ranking on search engine, link building can also lead people with similar interest to follow your link and be an excellent advertising method.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about volunteerism. This has come primarily as a result of me actually getting involved in different causes in my local community of San Diego and doing quite a bit of volunteering myself.

Lately, I’ve been volunteering by offering music, marketing assistance and supervision to groups in need of help and every time, I’m amazed at how rewarding it is. Not only do I come away feeling like I’ve done something worth doing, but when someone offers you heartfelt words of appreciation and gratitude, it’s a feeling like none other.

In today’s world, with unemployment at or near all time highs, funding being cut on a seemingly daily basis and everyone in both the public and private sectors crying mercy, it’s more important than ever to reach out and ask one question: “what can I do to make your life a little easier?” Regardless of whom you’re talking to, whether it’s an employee, a co-worker, a family member or a stranger on the street, that simple question could mean the difference between success and catastrophic failures in an organization, a company and especially a person’s existence.

Now I don’t mean to preach here but, when I read the paper every morning and I talk to the people who run these groups for whom I’ve been volunteering, I realize that there are troubling realities that can’t go unspoken or unattended.

So how can we fix it? In truth, I have no idea how to fix the larger problems. I’m not an economist; I’m not a politician or a lawmaker. What I am, however, is someone who manages a business that may be able to offer help.

Over the past year, there have been a lot of changes here at Score Consulting, as I’ve been trying to make some changes that, in a positive way, shake up the status quo. In the new year, I plan on adding staff to the rank and file of the Score Consulting: new consultants, new assistants and new project managers.

Along with these additions, I’m making a pledge to the communities in which Score Consulting employees reside. We will make mandatory one paid day of volunteering per month for everyone working in the company. The details will all be shaken out down the line, but essentially, we’re going to provide a full day’s pay, access to child care, any administrative and business support that our employees so that they can give back to their communities.

This isn’t a new idea, but I truly believe it’s a good one, and one that should be sewn into the fabric of my growing business.