First, can it be accomplished? Yes. Is there a need for this type of SEO work? Yes. Do we think Simon Cowell is employing this tactic? No. Google him and judge for yourself.:)

If this is happening with you, then you should consider PPC even if it’s not part of your acquisition strategy. Because if your competitors are bidding on your targeted or branded keywords, then they are worth defending.

Of course, defending your ranking for competitive keywords can deteriorate into bidding war, so there are two things you want to do to keep your costs down. First, you want to make sure that your ads are getting you the lowest possible CPC possible. And secondly, you want to manage your bidding in a strategic way.

Quality Score and Ranking

Google wants sponsored listings to be as relevant as organic listings. Consequently, Google rewards PPC advertisers whose ads are more targeted by giving every Adwords ad a Quality Score. And the better your Quality Score, the less you have to bid to have your ads rank well.

The two main things that affect Quality are (1) the relevance of an ad’s content to the keyword being searched, and (2) the ad’s click-through-rate (CTR) — i.e. how well it performs.

There are three elements of an Adwords Ad that contribute towards its relevance: the title, ad copy, and the URL displayed in the ad. The more relevant that each of these are to the keyword or search term, the better a Quality Score the ad will receive, and the less you’ll have to pay to put that ad at the top of the SERPs.

The other criteria Google uses to measure the Quality Score of a sponsored listing is by monitoring how many clicks it gets. After all, the more often that users click on an Adwords ad, the more relevant it must be to those keywords.

Quality Score, Costs, and Managing Your Bids

Once you have set-up your targeted campaigns, you’ll want to be able to manage bids as effectively as possible. This will help ensure that you’re only bidding on keywords when it’s necessary — otherwise you’ll end up paying for click that you didn’t need to pay for.

Managing your costs can be challenging when you’re bidding on competitive keywords. Different keywords will have different values at different times. So if you’re defending many of them, such as when you have several popular lines under one brand, you might consider PPC software.

There are several options out there, but it’s bid management tools should (1) help you identify poor performing keywords at a glance, and (2) notify you via email you when keywords have poor Quality Scores. For example, if some keywords perform better on certain days, then you might shift some of your budget away from those keywords on their lower-performing days, and whatever keywords are performing well.

Ranking in PPC

The trick to using PPC to bolster your organic SEO is keeping your costs down, and you do that by making make sure that your PPC campaigns are optimized for all different days and hours of the week. Start off by making sure that campaigns are grouped with the best possible keywords, and then ensure that you monitor them on an ongoing basis and adjust bids, budgets, and keyword sets on an ongoing basis. Finally, depending on the size of your campaigns, you might also consider an automated tool with the right set of bid management functions.All this being said, using these tactics and automated tools does require a degree of skill and knowledge about the PPC market, and building those expertise takes time and experience. So if you lack them yourself, you may also want to consider enlisting the help of a professional Pittsburgh PPC consultant to manage your campaigns. After all, the money you invest in their services can easily off-set the costs of swallowing the steep learning curve often associated with gaining those expertise yourself.

Twitter/Facebook for Business 101

Veteran SEO and social media consultant, April Weitzel, leads you through the basics of using Twitter and Facebook to promote your business. The basics will be covered including learning about the Twitter and Facebook audiences, how to set up Twitter and Facebook accounts to maximize business impact, and walkthrough a successful case study or two. Attendees will walk away with understanding why and how using these social media sites will help their business grow. Audience Level – Beginner/Intermediate

For more information visit: http://podcamppittsburgh.com

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Which is Best a SEO Firm, In House Employee or Consultant?

Most small businesses will find working with a SEO consultant provides the most value for your money. A consultant typically costs less than a SEO firm or fulltime employee because he or she has minimal fixed costs. Conversely, most small businesses will find it cost prohibitive to hire an SEO firm or an in-house search strategist. SEO firms have fixed cost they must build into their pricing: rent, utilities, employee salaries, health insurance, and more. Hiring an SEO expert to work in house usually proves difficult to do because of the high salaries they command and the severe shortage of true SEO talent. If you are lucky enough to find a talented and experienced SEO expert who wants a fulltime job, be prepared to pay him or her upwards of six figures in compensation.

Qualifying Questions to Find an Experienced SEO Consultant

A business should be selective when looking for a Pittsburgh SEO consultant. The internet marketing and SEO fields are being diluted by web designers and developers claiming to have expertise with search engine optimization and traditional marketers who have been downsized looking for a quick income supplement. When interviewing SEO consultants, it is important to ask how long he or she has been actively performing search engine optimization. Look for a consultant with a minimum of five years ongoing SEO experience. Make sure the consultant provides case studies and proof of search engine ranking results for current clients. Be leery of SEO consultants who claim their client results are confidential. This may signal that he or she has no positive results to share, or worse yet, no results at all. Keeping abreast of the multitude of variables in the search engine ranking formulas requires dedication, years of trial and error experimentation, daily research, and true commitment and passion.

I was honored to speak at the Public Relations Society of America in late August. I spoke about the benefits of Youtube and walked everyone though “Insight”. It was a blast for me and the audience loved it. Here’s a snippet of video from the event for those of you who missed it: Internet Marketing Services Pittsburgh.

I just created a video and posted it on Youtube to introduce myself. It’s a one and a half long video that briefly touches on my 8 years of SEO experience and hopefully shows a little bit of my personality. Check it out on Youtube here: SEO Pittsburgh

You can also watch it on my website: www.seoapril.com

• Execution by an Expert - you know your website is being handled by a senior person and not somebody learning on the job possibly at your expense. Why take the risk of being the website given to the newbie?
• High Involvement - If you are my client, I am intimately aware of all aspects of your website and SEO campaign(s). An SEO company has dozens of clients and many just don’t get the attention a consultant provides, especially if your budget isn’t one of the larger ones in the portfolio.
• Personal Relationship - I form long term relationships with clients. An SEO company has a project manager or account rep handling your SEO campaign. Often times, you are NOT permitted to talk to the actual SEO expert for fear that you will lure him or her to a full-time position with your company.

In summary, with me as your SEO consultant you get: high involvement and execution from the SEO expert who cares about cultivating personal relationships with clients.