You’ve undoubtedly heard a little acronym bandied about - PPC, for “pay-per-click”. And you may be wondering if utilizing PPC management services to conduct a PPC campaign is the right thing to do for your business.

The answer? Perhaps.

First, a little explanation. The advertising tool known as pay-per-click is called that because each time someone clicks on one of the text ads on a search engine’s results page, the advertiser is charged for it. The person who clicks on the ad is sent to a page on your site of your choosing and the advertiser - you - pays for each click.

This can be very cost effective. Your ads are placed only on pages that come up in the search results depending on the keywords you choose. For example, if one of your keyword phrases is “beauty salon Baltimore,” your ad appears only when someone searches for that specific phrase. (Do you see the links on the right of that search page for “beauty salon Baltimore?” Those are PPC ads.) What’s more, if no one clicks on your ad, you’re not charged. PPC can give you a nice return on your investment because only those folks who are interested in your services will see your ad; you’re not wasting your PPC management services budget on people who have no interest in your offerings.

However, you should begin a PPC campaign only if you have a somewhat “endless” budget to pay for it. You’ll need to run your PPC campaign for several weeks, if not months. In addition, because once your daily PPC “budget” is spent, your ad no longer appears on the search results page.

As you think about starting a PPC campaign, consider where you’ll spend your budget. Google is the best-known seller of PPC (its PPC management service is called Google AdWords), but it’s also the most expensive. Yahoo! and MSN also offer campaigns. You can also look into PPC management services programs with other search engines.

There are other, less expensive, ways to market your website via search engine optimization. I’ll discuss a few of these in my next post.

Let’s assume you own a small business. You’re an attorney. An electrician. A beautician. Day care provider. Interior plantscaper. Doesn’t matter – you’re a business owner.

You’ve heard about this marketing technique called “search engine optimization management,” also known as SEO management. It has something to do with marketing online, but you figure such marketing must be expensive and you’re doubtful you should add it to your marketing and advertising mix that has you advertising in “traditional” offline media such as newspapers, radio, “yellow” pages, and possibly even television. After all, budgets are tight.

An advertisement in a newspaper is seen or heard by people once – and then it’s gone. Yes, you may – and probably should – run your advertisement a number of times for best results. But that could easily cost you thousands of dollars.

Adding optimization to your website as part of your marketing mix is extremely cost-effective, as it renders your website an “always on” advertisement for your company and in the case of

e-commerce, an “always open” location for your company. Successful optimization makes it possible for your website to be found on the first page of search results by the folks searching online for the products or services you offer.

Keep in mind that optimization for the search engines is an ongoing process best managed by trained experts who start the process by analyzing your company, competitors and industry. SEO experts perform research to determine the most effective keywords to optimize for and they add keyword optimized content to your website on an ongoing basis. Getting a website to appear in the first page of search results is months-long process.

Working with SEO experts to perform your search engine optimization management for you will result in your website receiving visitors for months and years to come.

Let’s say a family new to your area is looking for a plumber– and you’re a plumber. They type into Google the keywords “‘My town’ plumber” and up pops a link to your website. You may have paid for your initial SEO work years ago, but there’s your link!

 Additional Search Engine Optimization Management Tips

• Head to Google yourself and search for local web directories (”‘My town’ business directory’). Or, list your business in Google Maps at Google Local Business Center. Get yourself a listing.
• For your website’s domain name, try to think of one that is as close as possible to the keywords you will target. For example, “‘Your Town’ plumber” could be www.yourtownplumber.com. Don’t be discouraged if this domain is already taken. You could try .net or .biz. You could hyphenate: www.your-town-plumber.com.

Keywords are the Search Engine’s guide to your web site

Hi All,

We plan to launch our blog sometime in November 2008.