****I know I’m posting this a few days late but as much as Las Vegas is a fantastic town, wireless internet is hard to come by.  And I refused to pay $15 a day for internet.  So I wrote this on the plane ride to Vegas****

Well it’s another glorious Monday and as much as I want to complain about having to write a post, I’m on a flight to Las Vegas so I can’t complain.  So I would just like to apologize for the post I’m about to post because honestly I have completely checked out.  But anyway I’m writing to you today about the Amazon tax.  I know it has already been touched on but there is some new info that I am completely against so I figured I would share.

So as you’re probably aware that the “Amazon Tax” finally got pushed through in North Carolina a little while ago.  (I think Tim wrote about the tax earlier)  As soon as NC legislation mentioned that they were going to try to pass this tax Amazon.com (and others) pulled its affiliate program out of NC.  Now this affected numerous people.  Ranging from small businesses that specialize in affiliate marketing (One owner told me that his profits have sunk 50% since the bill was passed) to college students trying to make some extra money for school.

So now that the law has passed and Amazon has pulled its affiliate program out of NC you’d figure everything would be fine right?  Well not so much.  NC’s department of revenue is going after companies like Amazon stating that “the state loses at least $200 million a year in uncollected sales tax from such businesses.”   So NC wants money they think they deserve and I am dying to know why they think Amazon and other companies owe them money.  Amazon dropped its affiliates in NC before the tax was pushed through but yet the NC government thinks that companies like Amazon owe them money.

So let me start my rant about why I think Amazon should be left alone and not bothered, after all the NC government is screwing Amazon out of a lot of money as it is.  So ok let us start with Senator David Hoyle.  He has been quoted as saying that he is completely for the NC government going after Amazon for money they believe is owed to them.  Now if we look at Senator Hoyle, he is 70 years old and makes over 200 thousand dollars a year (http://people.forbes.com/profile/david-w-hoyle/19915) Now this tax does not really effect people such as Senator Hoyle because he is by far not in our generation.  At 70 years old I can’t see the Senator doing a lot of online shopping; now I could be completely wrong.  All I am saying is that the younger generation does quite a bit of shopping online and that the older generations do not.  So naturally the older generation is not going to see eye to eye with us on the whole internet thing.  Another reason is that the senator makes over 200 grand a year, so even if David Hoyle was involved in affiliate marketing losing a couple of thousand of dollars would not affect him.  See my name argument with this tax is that it does not the generation that is in politics right now.  All the Senators and people in the House of Representatives are in an older generation then us.  They don’t see the internet as a tool for young small businesses to get a head start and expand their businesses.  They just see that there is a way for the government to make more money so  they say “hey let’s take advantage of this.”

So let’s look at the problems this tax has caused.  Before they passed the tax companies like Amazon pulled its affiliate programs out of NC, causing many small businesses to lose profits.  So now instead of promoting small businesses they are shutting them down.  Causing numerous people to downsize their small businesses or even shut down.  And on top of that NC is attempting to sue Amazon.  So let me get this straight:  In an economy that is supposed to be supportive of small businesses they have shut the door on numerous small businesses and now they are attempting to sue a large company, in which will cost them lots and lots of money.   So if they sue Amazon sure the NC government will make some money, but at what cost.  If Amazon get sued they will lose lots of money and be forced to lay employees off to save money, further weakling the economy even more.

It boggles the mind how the government thinks.  They plan on gaining money from passing this tax when in reality they are causing small businesses to lose money, cut employees,  and crippling the economy.  Now I would just like to state that this post is completely my opinion and the fact that I am on a flight to Las Vegas with a few cocktails in my system.  Now I just hope I can find some free internet so I can post this today.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, PPC Marketing by Matt Fern
No Comments »

Local Search has been “in development” for a long time. Since the invention of the internet people have been going after the big picture instead of the specifics, many have tried to have a local portal that encompasses all types of local businesses and services but not many have been successful. At this point I can only think of a few including City Search and Urbanspoon. Others have tried but they look and feel so automated (restaurants.com for instance, you can tell all the info is just scraped information) and don’t offer much to the user in the way of reviews, recommendations or even if the location in question is still in existence.

These sites aren’t perfect and they have a long way to go before they are but it raises the question, as a small business, how exactly are you supposed to effectively advertise in your community?

Know Your Area

Keep track of your customers and where they come from, you should have an idea at this point where your business is coming from. Is it coming from right next door or are you clients driving an hour to do business with you? This information is very valuable to you because it will help you target your online advertising, once you find your niche online you should try to expand to other places where you have previously had success or wanted to advertise. There is always a way to make a new customer and sometimes reaching out locally is the way.

Know Your Customers

Your customers have come to expect something from you whether it is your service, your product or just your personality. You should let people who come across your ads online in your local area know that this is you. Put a little twist on it that lets your local customers or potential customers know that it is you who is advertising online.

Leverage The Power of Google

Google Local Business Directory

Being in new to Los Angeles I am continually using Google Maps more and more to find things that I need, since L.A. is so big it helps me find things in relation to my location. One great (and free) way to get your business in front of other in your area is to add yourself to the Google Local Business Directory. Esentially it adds your business to Google maps and it shows up when people are searching within or around the location that they specify.

Google Local Search

Adwords is an incredibly powerful tool. One of my favorite features of the program is that you can select specifically where you want to advertise. I am pretty sure that if you wanted to advertise just on your block you could. Anyway, there are a few ways you can go about doing this. The first is to select a radius around your business, there are many preset ones but you can also make your own. The second is to select the specific areas, you can select certain states, certain towns and so on. Going back to what I said above about knowing your area can be very useful here.

Keyword Selection

You don’t know exactly how people are going to search but you can get a good idea, just because your campaign is targeted to a certain area doesn’t mean people will find you. Often times it is a good test to try variations with the areas you are advertising in. For example say you are a hardware store in Los Angeles, a good keyword would be “Hardware Store” a good variation would be “Local Hardware Store” or “Los Angeles Hardware Store” this way it ensures that you will capture the most searches for your products, business and services.

Going back to what I said before about local search portals not being successful may not have to do with the portals themselves. We have been trained since the beginning of the internet to just search for things in a broad fashion. I think slowly people are coming around more and more and realizing that local search is growing and is becoming a more effective search for them. Honestly, I like when I can search for something in my neighborhood and then go visit that place whether it is a store or a national park it is still nice to go out and meet the faces behind the company.

If you are looking to get started with local Search Marketing or looking for someone to explain it to you better contact us at 1.866.282.1903 or leads @7evenleafclover.com or come to our website www.7evenleafclover.com and sign up for our free analysis and proposal.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Adwords, Business Functions, Google, Local Search, PPC Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Dean Karasinski
1 Comment »

So it seems that half of my blog posts have had me complaining about someone’s interface.  If you enjoyed those posts then I have good news, I am just going to run with this theme for a while.  Well, at least until I get bored with it.  When I started doing internet marketing, the first thing I learned was how to use Google AdWords.  AdWords is pretty user friendly and I had no problems learning it.  I actually found it quite easy.  Then I branched out to MSN adCenter and Yahoos Overture, and they were the exact opposite of easy.  But that was many years ago and they obviously have made drastic improvements over the years.  Right?  While they have become somewhat more user friendly, they are still way behind AdWords (even with their new, unpopular interface).  So now that we have decided that Bing is cool, I am going to let MSN know what they need to change in order for adCenter to start having the same appeal.

My first complaint is the fact that it doesn’t offer you the option to save your password.  This is something that Linkshare changed in their new interface and I applauded them for it.  I go to tons of websites everyday that have my password stored in the browser.  If I thought there was a chance of someone ripping off my passwords, I wouldn’t do that.  So why don’t you let me decide whether or not I want to store my password, and at least give me the option?  There are few things I hate more than having to be slowed down by typing in a password.

Often MSN adCenter, just like Google and Yahoo, will disapprove my ads.  Usually this is due to me typing in something wrong so I don’t mind when this happens.  However, adCenter give you no help in finding out which ads were disapproved.  Instead, it will simply give you a message saying that “Some ads or keywords were disapproved.”  This really does nothing to help either of us out.  Google has a nice tool that lists the disapproved ads so I know it shouldn’t be too hard for MSN to add this feature.  If they told me which ads were disapproved, I could easily fix them and then they would run, resulting in a win-win situation.  Instead, I just check the ads that are performing well to make sure that they are ok, and ditch the others, thereby helping neither of us.

Just like Yahoo, MSN adCenter makes it “easy” to import Google campaigns.  Please make sure that you notice the quotation marks, because it is a super huge pain.  The importing part isn’t too bad.  Well, actually it is a pain, but it is doable.  The awful part is what comes next.  Once you upload your campaign, you have to manually go through each of the steps just like you would if you were starting a new campaign, except this time all the information is already filled out.  So if you import 90 ad groups, you have to go through each of the 90 to make them active.

When most people were using dial-up to connect to the internet, I could see the argument for only listing so many items on a page.  It made the site load quicker and worked within the bounds of the technology at the time.  I don’t see why this still happens.  When I look for something on eBay, I want 200 items to show up at a time, not 50.  In the time it takes for me to load 4 pages, I could have quickly loaded 1 page with all the items.  So I don’t understand why adCenter only loads 50 ad groups at a time, when I have 91 of them.  If I am looking for a particular ad group across 3 or 4 accounts, I then have to remember to look on page 2 for it.  This is also something that Google’s new interface does, but it at least gives me the option to increase it to 100 ad groups.

With Bing now riding high there is plenty of momentum for MSN right now.  If these changes were made it would make me way more likely to recommend it to more people.   There are still plenty of other problems that I have with the platform, but I believe that these are the major ones that are holding it back from being user friendly.  Is there anything that I missed?  Let me know in the comments.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Microsoft, PPC Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Chris Cremen
No Comments »

Hi Everybody! (bonus points for anyone who read that in Dr. Nicks voice.) Is it Monday already?  Well last week I talked about composing a solid keyword list.  This week I’m going to go deeper in detail about keywords and keyword matching options.  Keyword matching options allow you to control how precise a user’s search must be to trigger your ad.  Remember, the more targeted your keywords are, the more likely you’re likely to reach potential customers.  There are four matching options for you to choose from; broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match.

Broad match keywords are your default setting.  Broad match is pretty simple. If you enter a keyword in without any punctuation, it’s a broad match keyword.  These keywords produce the most impressions and will get your ad seen by more people.  The problem is that is usually a vague word/phrase and will produce a lot of clicks, but those clicks might be untargeted traffic which will not result in conversions.

Phrase match keywords are entered by adding quotations ( “ “ ) around the word or phrase.  Meaning your ad will only trigger if someone search has the exact words in the exact order.  If your keyword was “free games,” the search for free download games would not show your ad.  Phrase match options are fantastic for question based searches.  The phrase “engagement rings” would be shown for searches like “How much are engagement rings” and “cleaning engagement rings.”

The exact match option is entered by putting square brackets around the phrase.  ( [ ] ) Exact match option means that only search queries with the exact words/phrase without any additional words or letters before, between, or after the keyword will trigger your ad.  Example: The exact match [cheap video games] means that only a search of “cheap video games” would trigger your ad.  A search for “where can I find cheap video games” or “cheap video games for sale” would not trigger your ad.  Exact match tends to not get as many clicks but the resulting traffic will increase your click-through rate.  Having you enter every possible combination of words/phrases you want to trigger your ad is more time consuming and could restrict some traffic if you have forgotten to include something.

Finally negative keywords, WOO HOO!  Negative keywords are words that prevent your ad from appearing and are entered by using a minus sign ( – ) before the word.  If you sell used video games on your website, negative keywords can help you immensely.   A good negative keyword would be –free.  That way for any search that is for “free used games” your ad will not be triggered.

It’ll take some time and effort but if you learn the advantages and disadvantages to the keyword matching options it will greatly improve your online PPC campaign.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Adwords, Affiliate Marketing, Google, PPC Marketing by Matt Fern
No Comments »

Google has been generating a lot of buzz around the net this week with images popping up in the sponsored links section. This feature is seemingly only being tested in certain areas as many, including myself, have not been able to duplicate the results. The immediate WOW factor is high and should, without a doubt, help attract more attention to your ad and ultimately help Google to provide the best results to you. Let’s look at this from another perspective, mine.

Does anyone remember the old TV Guide channel? It used to simply show you what was on, they may have played some music and the listings filled the majority of the screen, then they started adding some advertisements (I can live with that, they need to stay on and I think it is a useful service), then they shrunk the listings to show the ads slightly larger, then they shrunk the listings even more so they could run a rubbish channel on top of the information I really wanted to see. I don’t actually care about Kimberly Caldwell interviewing a Jonas brother, I just don’t, but I digress.

The point is, doesn’t this seem familiar and applicable to the current Google situation? Their natural search listings have been getting smaller and smaller to make room for more and more sponsored links, how small will they actually get, will they become secondary to the ads, will Kimberly Caldwell appear in the search bar? Let’s hope that it doesn’t get to this point. I am all for making the sponsored listings more interesting to look at but not at the expense of the natural ones.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Adwords, Google, PPC Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Dean Karasinski
No Comments »

Lately it seems that everyone and their brother is calling themselves a Search Marketing Professional, but what do they actually know about it and how do you find out if they really know what they are talking about or if they are just a student in a dorm room trying to make some money and will leave your AdWords account to fend for itself?

If you are looking for someone to manage your PPC Marketing check out PPC Hero and their article titled “10 Questions You Should Ask a Potential New PPC Management Firm” then consider 7evenLeafClover for all your needs If you still have your heart set on doing it yourself then let me offer you some tips:

Account Structure

Account structure is arguably the most important aspect of your PPC campaign. If you have put together a great keyword list and then just threw it all into a campaign named “Company PPC Campaign” then you have just thrown all of your hard work out the window.

Structuring your account not only helps you to better organize your keyword list it also has some advantages when it comes to your overall online marketing strategy. Lets say you sell Red, Blue and Green widgets. If you through all of your keywords into the same account you wouldn’t be able to get a very clear picture of how each type of widget was performing and selling. It would take a long time to sort through this data to make any sense of it. If you have some account structure and did something like a Campaign for each type of widget you would be able to see what keywords were working for each type of widget, you would also be able to write custom ad text for each campaign to really tailor the ad to what you are selling.

Negative Keywords

Negative Keywords are another important aspect of your PPC campaign, while in my opinion much less important than account structure they are important nonetheless. Let’s say you sell widgets for camping the red, blue and green kind again. Your keywords consist of red widgets, blue widgets and green widgets, you are getting a lot of traffic but you see that a lot of it is just wasted or has nothing to do with your product. Many keywords like red widgets for weddings or green widgets for cameras keep showing up. These are not qualified leads to your site so you would set negative keywords in your account to combat keywords like this from wasting your money. By making weddings and cameras negative keywords you will ensure that you are honing in on your niche of widgets for camping. This is one of the easiest ways to optimize your account.

Match Types and Long Tail

One of the easiest ways to cast a wide net while still staying focused on your target market is to use the multiple match types (broad, exact and phrase). Using these match types will help you find how people search for your products and then you can create new keywords based around that. If some of them aren’t working for you turn them off or create new negative keywords  to combat their negative effects. Long tail keywords are another great way to help you get quality leads. Long tail keywords are often found by using a full product name, through phrase match keywords or just through trial and error. If someone is searching for a product in such a specific fashion (big red camping widget with three headlights) then they are probably ready to buy and if you have that word or something similar as one of your keywords I can almost guarantee that you will make that sale.

So go take a look at your adwords account, make these changes and let us know what changes happen as a result of them. I guarantee that things will start happening to your account that I didn’t mention here (*cough* Higher Quality Score *cough* More Sales *cough*) Excuse me, the smog here is Los Angeles is really rough sometimes.

Share on Facebook

Filed under: Adwords, Google, PPC Marketing, Search Engine Marketing by Dean Karasinski
1 Comment »