Salesforce.com is an outstanding CRM platform and gives you the ability to send both mass emails as well as automated emails to individuals. If your organization uses Salesforce, you have the opportunity to create ongoing, automated drip marketing campaigns as well as distributing mass emails to your leads or prospects.

That sounds great, right? And it is. But once you get into the details you may notice a few potential issues with mass email and Salesforce marketing campaigns. Common issues that might impact your organization’s mass email strategy include:

1. Salesforce.com limits the amount of mass emails I send in a day.  Why can’t I send more than 1,000 emails per day?
2. We already use a mass email program such as Constant Contact, iContact, Vertical Response.  Will that work with Salesforce?
3. Can I connect my mass email solution to Salesforce?

Using Salesforce for Mass Email

One option is sending mass emails directly through Salesforce.  However, this may not always work with your mass email marketing strategy – here are some advantages and points to consider:

Salesforce  Mass Email Advantages

• You are paying for Salesforce and mass email is part of the package – so no additional cost.
• The mass email solution Salesforce supplies is native (within the application and fully compatible).
• You can easily target and segment list based on campaigns you create within Salesforce.
• Templates and Customization. Salesforce offers html, text and template options. You can also customize your email templates and personalize messages by inserting Salesforce fields.

Salesforce  Mass Email Considerations

• The daily email limitation – your organization will be limited to 1,000 mass emails through Salesforce per day.  That includes one off emails that might be coming from your drip marketing campaigns or sales team communications.
•  The email list limitation. Salesforce is not trying to enter the mass email market. Any mass email sent from your organization will be limited to 250 emails per send. Individual mass email limits are dependent on your Salesforce version – Professional and below are limited to 250 per mass email. Enterprise edition can send 500. Unlimited edition subscribers can send a batch of 1,000 mass emails.
• Email Sender.  This is a concern when companies send mass emails from a generic email such as info@, sales@ etc.  Salesforce requires the email is sent from the address from the user name’s email.

Salesforce Mass Email Options

If your organization is currently using and/or engaged with a third party bulk email marketing solution or you are seeking a mass email application that offers more flexibility than the native Salesforce mass email marketing option, you have several choices.

Your best resources can be found through the Salesforce AppExchange.  But to make it easier here are some of the most popular third party mass email services that integrate with Salesforce:

• ConstantContact
• VerticalResponse
• iContact
• Boomerang

In a future post I’ll write a review about each option. All have their advantages and disadvantages. The key is identifying the best Salesforce mass email marketing option for your organization’s needs – that typically involves pricing and functionality. Then you’ll want to customize Salesforce on the back end to best suit the needs of your company and employees.

Salesforce Mass Email Integration

Integration of your mass email solution with Salesforce will provide your Sales team to quickly see which email a lead or contact received as well as more detailed data.

You will want to consider if your mass email solution operates outside of Salesforce or if the mass email application is native to Salesforce.

The primary difference here is one mass email option will require your sales team to create and send mass emails through the 3rd party application, such as Constant Contact. Mass email applications that operate native can be created and sent within Salesforce.  Easy to use application typically result in higher adoption rates.

Salesforce mass email integration will be easily accomplished by your Salesforce administrator or a qualified Salesforce marketing consultant.

Using SalesForce.com to Improve, Automate and Track Your Marketing

Would your business benefit from:

1.       More sales and higher conversion rates

2.       Optimizing your marketing budget

3.       Eliminating poor performing marketing campaigns

4.       Instant access to your marketing data

5.       The resources to deliver better marketing results

Well, if your organization uses SalesForce.com as its CRM system, consider these 5 SalesForce marketing tips.

Drip Marketing

If you are not using drip marketing campaigns, you should consider doing so. When used effectively, drip marketing campaigns lift conversion rates and boost sales. In addition to bottom line benefits, you will establish a regular communication stream with your prospects.

Whether you choose SalesForce or another CRM marketing system, ongoing drip marketing communication boosts sales.

If your business runs SalesForce’s Enterprise edition or higher, then you have access to workflow automation. Workflow automation is a powerful SalesForce marketing tool and is the foundation for automating your marketing.

If you are interested in reducing costs and freeing up resources while improving sales and conversions – strongly consider using workflow automation to automate your marketing and sales processes.

Schedule follow up calls, send a series of emails based on prospect behavior, schedule tasks and more with this SalesForce marketing tool – you’ll love it and so will your sales team.

SalesForce for Google AdWords

If your business calls for paid search advertising you are likely using Google AdWords. Through an alliance between Google and SalesForce you have access to a powerful marketing tool.

SalesForce for Google AdWords provides the ability to tie in the front end advertising expense and performance to the back end sales and revenue data. This SalesForce marketing tool is the missing link in the chain between marketing performance and sales results. This allows your marketing department to calculate ROI, test more effectively and optimize your business’ marketing budget by eliminating poor performing campaigns and investing more in the winners.

If you are familiar with Google Analytics, SalesForce for Google AdWords operates in a similar manner – using a java script snippet and categorizing how a prospect came to your contact form (i.e. organic search, AdWords, web direct, etc.). If the lead came through Google AdWords, data is synched so you can identify the search term, ad version and more.  A powerful SalesForce marketing tool.

SalesForce Marketing Campaigns

In order to evolve your marketing efforts, you need to test different marketing strategies, tactics and channels. In order to evaluate your marketing efforts, you need to define the costs and the revenue (or marketing benefit) and quantify whether you should invest more or fewer marketing dollars, based on ROI.

SalesForce marketing campaigns allows your marketing department to automatically assign prospects to a marketing campaign and analyze cost, performance and ROI.

Consider this; you are hosting a webinar, your SalesForce marketing resource ensured:

• Prospects sign up on your website and are automatically assigned to the webinar campaign
• An email is automatically sent providing webinar details
• Attendance details are tracked and synched with SalesForce
• Revenue and ROI are calculated
• Resources are diverted from underperforming webinars
• Profitable webinars are expanded

SalesForce Marketing Reports

SalesForce offers a wide array of marketing and other reports. Plus, you can create custom reports – which also need not be limited to marketing.

However, if you are not doing so already, your management team should consider identifying your business’ KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators.  Once your top metrics are established you’ll find SalesForce has outstanding marketing reporting capabilities. These report s can also be summarized and displayed graphically on custom dashboards.

SalesForce Marketing Resources

If the concept of marketing automation, tracking and optimization appeals to you, the next question is how you acquire the resources to implement and manage this.

Basically there are three options:

1.       Do it yourself

2.       Hire a SalesForce Marketing Consultant

3.       Hire an employee skilled in SalesForce marketing

There are a number of SalesForce consultants out there, consider a consultant with marketing and sales background rather than a “techie”.

The SalesForce AppExchange is a good place to look for qualified service providers.

Marketing Practicality also provides CRM marketing solutions

If your business warrants it, you may also want to consider a full time SalesForce marketing resource.

Drip marketing is a relatively recent term to describe a marketing approach that has been employed for years by effective marketing companies.

You may ask, what are the benefits of drip marketing? Consider:

1. Increased sales conversions
2. Improved lead nurturing and qualifying
3. Better long term customer retention
4. Increased reselling and cross selling opportunities
5. More opportunity for customer / prospect feedback

And the rapid evolution of technology has made sophisticated drip marketing campaigns more accessible to the smallest of companies. Not to mention the introduction of new communication methods – now we have an array of social media and other channels to communicate with our prospects.  So how do we take advantage of this to better communicate our message / product / service and generate more revenue?

Drip Marketing Defined

First, let’s define drip marketing. I consider drip marketing to be a defined set of marketing and sales actions that are triggered by a series of target-based and time-based events.  Essentially you are defining, integrating and to a degree, automating your sales and marketing processes.

If that’s not so clear, here’s how Wikipedia defines drip marketing.

The Drip Marketing Toolbox

SalesForce.com can Automate Drip Marketing Campaigns

So let’s presume you wouldn’t read this far if you didn’t believe in the value of a drip marketing program. You want to know what tools are required to launch your own drip marketing campaign.

Here’s what should be in your toolbox:

• A CRM system capable of marketing automation – I have had good success with SalesForce.com
• A mass email service if you have sufficient leads in your database
• A diligent person who understands the value in effective sales and marketing process
• The ability to mail information if appropriate for your business
• Social media if appropriate for your business

Connecting the Marketing Campaign Pieces

If you use or are considering SalesForce as your CRM, consider a version, such as Enterprise, that permits workflow automation – it will take your drip marketing efforts to a new level. Here is a related article on SalesForce marketing.

By using workflow automation you can automatically: schedule tasks for sales people to execute, send out email communications, trigger direct mail events, initiate social media updates and more.

Consider the following marketing process:

1. New lead comes in through your company’s website – an auto-response email goes out immediately
2. Collateral (hard copy) marketing material is scheduled to mail to the new prospect (or emailed in electronic format)
3. The new lead is automatically assigned to a regional (or product/interest based) sales representative
4. A follow up call is assigned to that sales person
5. Management has access to dashboard reports showing how many leads are followed up by each salesperson
6. Another email / phone call / mailing is scheduled based on the customer actions of the above steps.
7. This process continues in more sophisticated methods and your marketing and sales operations become more efficient
8. And it’s all tracked to determine ROI if done correctly

Closing the Loop – Drip Marketing and Drip Customer Service

These principles can be applied after the sale as well as before (and during). Consider sending out a customer satisfaction survey as part of your drip marketing efforts.  Simply schedule an online survey email a certain time period after the sale has completed. With the recent developments in technology, you are practically only limited by your imagination when it comes to effective drip marketing.

Drip Marketing Campaigns Work

That’s why effective marketing companies have been using them for years.

Drip marketing techniques can be applied to almost any business model but if your business model involves online lead generation and a relatively long sales process, drip marketing may be a very effective solution to improve sales conversions and your bottom line.

Send me a message about your drip marketing campaign success stories!  I’ll use it in a future drip marketing and SalessForce post.

Google AdWords recently introduced a new keyword match option called Modified Broad Match. At a high level, modified broad match fills in the gap between phrase match and broad match. Which is great news, especially for companies using Google AdWords in highly competitive spaces. So let’s begin the Google AdWords Training!

• What exactly is modified broad match?
• How do I use modified broad match?
• What does it mean to my AdWords Campaign?

What is Modified Broad Match?

Modified broad match provides more flexibility with the targeting of your AdWords campaign. You will find Modified Broad Match to be more useful if you are currently using both broad and phrase match types.

This new match type option allows you to better control your broad match targeting and in the case of long tail keywords – you can select which keywords you want to apply the modified broad match rule to.

By placing a + sign in front of a broad match keyword, your AdWords ad will only be served for search terms that contain the exact keyword or contain close variants of the keyword. Google defines close variants as misspellings, singular and plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings. Related search terms like apple and fruit, or synonyms like smart and intelligent are not close variants.

So you can now tighten up your broad match keywords or even portions of your broad search terms that contain multiple words (i.e. cakes, chocolate cakes, red velvet cake).

Google AdWords Training – How Do I Use Modified Broad Match?

The implementation is pretty straightforward. When you add a new keyword, you put a plus symbol in front of your keyword.

For example:

+Google +AdWords +Training

Applies modified broad match to all three individual words for the keyword: Google AdWords Training

You could also elect to put a + sign in front of one or two of the individual words in any combination you choose.

Incorrect examples of applying modified broad would be:

+Google+AdWords+Training or…

+ Google + AdWords + Training

What does Modified Broad Match mean to my AdWords Campaign?

Well, that depends on your campaign(s), your industry, your budget and a whole host of other questions. But modified broad match appears to offer a much needed tool to fill the gap between phrase based and broad match types.

You will need to test this new match type for yourself and determine what is best for your business. I have seen clients that run AdWords campaigns in competitive markets where phrase match was the best option. Broad match produced too many generic, unqualified clicks, phrase match worked well but their budget could support more clicks. Modified broad match presents an opportunity to expand reach to qualified impressions without serving ads to unqualified surfers. Especially if you are targeting multi-word keywords that are fairly generic “tree houses”.

Google AdWords Training for Modified Broad Match

If you are a highly proficient Google AdWords professional, I would recommend setting up structured tests to evaluate the effectiveness of modified broad match on your AdWords campaigns.

If you are learning your way in Google AdWords and are not sure how to most effectively use this new keyword match type, here are some recommended resources:

Google’s Official Page on Modified Broad Match

Inside AdWords Google’s blog and explanation of the new match type

Read, test, monitor and improve. If you need to learn more, you may want to consider some Google AdWords Training. Or hire a Google AdWords Professional to improve your AdWords performance.

According to Google, quality score is a measure of relevance.  I’ll cover Google’s definition of quality score and a specific tactic to improve quality score.

Here is Google’s exact definition of quality score.

According to Google, quality score is influenced by:

• Historical Click through Rate (CTR)
• Historical CTR of the display urls in the ad group
• Click through Rate of your account
• Quality of your landing page
• Keyword relevance to the Ad Group ads
• Relevance of the keyword and ad to the search query
• Ad Words account performance
• Other AdWords relevance factors

So to improve your keyword quality score, those are the levers to pull.

There are several articles out there on ways to improve your AdWords quality score.  One of the simplest methods I know is to create highly targeted, focused Ad Groups. But in the end, you need to improve your click through rate – quality score is, in my opinion, a way for Google to optimize the ROI of their Ad Words revenue stream, but that is a separate topic.

How Ad Groups Can Improve Quality Score

If your AdWords keywords are experiencing low quality scores you are paying more money for the same placement. Here is an easy way to give your quality score a boost.

1. Identify your AdWords keywords suffering from low quality scores
2. Group those keywords into relevant clusters, for example
   1. Widget Keywords separate into clusters: Blue Widgets, Red Widgets and Yellow Widgets
3. Create highly targeted Ad Groups for each cluster – 3 to 5 keywords per Ad Group
   1. Title the Ad Group with the targeted keyword
   2. Use relevant, focused keywords for your Ad Group
4. Use the various keyword match types for each keyword
5. Create ad versions using the targeted keyword theme for each Ad Group “cluster”
6. Direct each ad version to a landing page
7. Optimize the landing page for the targeted keyword for the Ad Group

More Ways to Improve Quality Score

There are many resources out there on improving your Google AdWords quality score.  Remember, your click through rate (CTR) is going to have a large impact on improving your Ad Words quality score so fundamental marketing principles come into play. Here are some other resources to help you improve the quality score of your AdWords keywords:

Improve Quality Score

And for the basics, here is a

Google AdWords Tutorial from Marketing Practicality

Finally, a great video explanation of the Google AdWords Quality Score directly from Google – as you watch it, consider ways to improve your AdWords quality score.

SEO and web design are critical components of your company’s internet marketing – most small business should agree with that. So which is more important? Is one more critical than another? And does how does a small business best address website design and search engine optimization?

Well, yes and no.  First of all – I am a search engine optimizer, not a web designer. That should not surprise you if you are on my website (you found it and you are looking at it). But this is about growing your business, so where do you focus your efforts.  It is also geared towards marketing strategy – not a discussion about html validation, keyword density or the emotional influence of warm colors versus cool colors.

Web Design: If You Build It, They Won’t Come

In my experience, the typical business owner focuses on website design.  Website design is more qualitative and is therefore subject to being driven by the opinion of the viewer.  Many business owners make the mistake of focusing on website design because they can clearly deliver an opinion on it, whereas SEO requires technical knowledge. So unless the business owner understands SEO, it’s human nature to focus on website design. The problem is building a beautiful website means nothing if your target market can’t find it – and let’s face it, that means Google and high Google rankings requires SEO.

SEO for Small Business: One Piece of the Puzzle

Search engine optimization brings traffic to your website. SEO is one of the most cost effective ways to drive highly targeted traffic and prospective customers to your company’s website.  But website design can’t be ignored, driving traffic through an effective SEO campaign is critical, but if your website visitors bounce off your website because it is visually or graphically unappealing, then you have a bucket with a big hole in it.

Good website design will be visually appealing to your target market, provide intuitive and inviting navigation, convey your company’s brand or image, and support your company’s brand and strategy.

Website design and search engine optimization are both important to your internet marketing strategy.

Website Design and SEO Are Both Important…

But resources are limited so where do you focus you energy and money? This depends on your business goals.

In the early stages of a business you need a quality website with good design and layout.

Quality content is always important.

As you develop your content, involve an SEO consultant or do your search optimization in house.  Once you start developing quality content on a well optimized website your traffic will increase, the more you do this (while applying effective SEO practices) the more your traffic will increase.

Revisit your website design and search engine optimization frequently. Ask colleagues, customers and others for feedback – and review your website’s analytics so you understand what keywords are driving traffic and what improves bounce rates.

Is Local SEO part of your overall internet marketing strategy? SEO for Local Businesses is an area that is increasingly competitive. Let’s cover some basic tips for local SEO and how you can quickly and effectively improve your local presence with the search engines.

Local Business Listings on Search Engines

First local SEO tip – claim your local business listings on the major search engines.

• Google Places (formerly Local Business Center)
• Bing Local Listing Center
• Yahoo! Local Listings

When you create your local listing in each search engine there are a few things to keep in mind. Try to include the name of your product or service in the local business listing title.  Categorize your business accurately in your local listing.  Add your product or service to your business’ local description.

Local SEO Tip #2 – Local Search Listing Reviews

Now that you have created your business’ local listing it’s time to start building your online reputation. Successful SEO for local businesses requires gathering reviews for your local listing. Ideally you want organically generated, genuine , positive reviews.

Local SEO Tip #3 – Local Directories

I recommend you also add your business to several of the top local business directories.

Yelp, Best of the Web Local (BOTW Local), Yellow Book, Localeze and CitySearch are some of the more popular local directories.

On Page SEO for Local Search

Additionally, you should optimize your website pages for local seo.  Let’s look at some simple things you can do to improve your businesses local search engine rankings.

Local Address on Website

Show your complete local address on your Contact page.  This is important. Also, include a local phone number as well, even if you offer a toll free number.

Also consider including your business’ complete local address and local phone number listing on every page.

Use Regional or Local Names in Page Titles

SEO for local businesses is done effectively when you include the region (state, city, etc.) in your web page titles. Consider targeting your money keyword – one that you wouldn’t expect to rank for on a National level, and add your local qualifier.  For example New Jersey Insurance Agency.

Additionally, consider creating individual pages that target your product or service and mention the actual town or city.   A local SEO strategy I like to use is to target at high level on the home page (e.g. Product, State) and then creating pages which target more specific locations (e.g. Product, City, State).

SEO Tips for Local Businesses

If you apply these basic tips for local SEO, you should see an increase in long tail and local search traffic to your website.  Local SEO for small businesses is increasingly competitive. As the web gets bigger, markets get smaller. The sooner your business includes local SEO in its internet marketing strategy the better positioned you will be.

Additional Local SEO Resources:

David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors – 2009 edition of this collection of top local SEO minds

A great Local SEO case study by Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com – I’ve done a similar test of my own agree with Aaron’s results

Most small businesses have dabbled in email marketing – whether it’s a newsletter, e-blast or other email marketing strategy.  Let’s cover some of the most effective email marketing strategies and some practical email marketing tips that will help your small business.

Email Marketing Strategy #1: The Email List

Your list is the single most important factor in your email campaign.  Your house list (you are developing a prospect database, right?) is your best email marketing list.

If you have integrated your email marketing platform and your customer database (typically requiring a CRM system) – that’s the best option.

Email Marketing Strategy #2: The Email Communication

Email communication comes in many forms – informational, newsletters, promotional, etc. For purposes of this article, let’s cover promotional (revenue generating) email marketing communicating.

Email Marketing Strategy #3: The Offer

This goes without saying but developing a compelling offer is critical to the success of your email marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Strategy #4: Segmentation

Once you’ve selected your offer and your email list – it’s time to segment the email marketing file. There are unlimited ways to segment your email marketing file – age of leads, geography, purchase history, recent activity, marketing acquisition channel – be creative and think about what is most relevant to your offer and list.

Email Marketing Strategy #5: Email Delivery

Depending on your business model the day of the week and time of the email delivery can impact open rates. Personally – for most B-to-B or B-to-C email marketing communications, I recommend Tuesdays (Wednesdays are second best) around 11am – eastern time.  That hits your email prospects before lunch on the east coast of the US as well as around the start of the day on the west coast.

Effective Email Marketing Tips

Let’s cover small of the most important design elements of your email marketing campaign. Follow these email marketing tips and you will develop optimal email marketing communications.

Email Marketing Tip #1 – Value Propostion

You have (at most!) 5 seconds to communicate your value proposition through email. Think about how you go through your own email. Your value proposition must be clearly communicated and the first ways the recipient discerns that is through:

1. The From line
2. The Subject line
3. The Email Preview Pane (if applicable) – Images and Content

Email Marketing Tip #2 – The From Line

The is the most important line for establishing trust. If you are using your house email marketing file, the recipient should know you. If you segmented recent or previous buyers, you have a greater chance establishing trust. Send your email from an email address that builds trust and contains your brand.

Email Marketing Tip #3 – The Subject Line

Get to the point – early. And make it compelling to the email recipient. Most email recipients open their inbox, read the From Line first and then the read the Subject Line, and decide to open, delete or save.  Subject Lines and From Lines work together – don’t emphasize brand in the subject line – communicate value to the recipient, in 40 characters or less.

Email Marketing Tip #4 – Images and Content

Your content should clearly reinforce the value proposition and benefit to the prospect. Your images and layout should be attractive. If you choose to send HTML based emails with images – check the layout of the email in multiple email clients.  Odds are your email will arrive with the images turned off, so make sure your value proposition is clearly communicated with and without images.

Email Marketing Tip #5 – Personalization

Personalization, using the email recipients’ information in the email (i.e. name, etc.) is information you should leverage. Consider how you can capture and use prospect data to improve conversion rates. At a minimum, it is generally better to use Dear [first name] instead of a generic salutation.

Email Marketing Tips and Strategies that Work

Effective email marketing requires testing. Once you have the basics in place, it’s important you test and track your results.  Implementing effective email marketing strategies is very important. But out of all these email marketing tips the most important one is to track your results. Email marketing is iterative and specific to your business’ niche.

Contact Marketing Practicality directly to optimize your email marketing efforts.

All small business owners I know want or need more (qualified) traffic on their websites.  And they have varying degrees of understanding about search engine optimization.  The problem is how to find the best seo service – and don’t forget we’re talking small business, so the best seo service on a limited budget.

Since I do this for a living I thought I would provide some tips on choosing the best seo service provider for your budget.  Of course I would like you to choose my firm, Marketing Practicality, as your SEO Marketing Consultant. But this post is not a sales pitch, rather some practical tips for small business owners to select a quality seo service provider.

Searching the Web for SEO Service Providers

When one doesn’t know where to start, this seems like a logical place, right? Is it the best place to find an SEO service provider? Maybe yes, maybe no.  The problem is it’s incredibly competitive, so the first page of Google maybe not actually list the firm that might give you the best seo service for your business.  You have a few options:

1. Select a big SEO firm
2. Outsource your SEO overseas
3. Learn SEO and do it yourself
4. Do some digging and find a smaller SEO firm

The Big SEO Firm

Large SEO firms typical provide service packages. So for a set price, you’ll receive a defined service (updating content, submitting your website to a number of directories, changing title tags and meta tags, etc.).

• Expect to have the seo work performed for the price you paid.
• Expect to be up-sold on other products or seo services
• Don’t expect much help outside of the scope of your agreement

This level of service may be fine for your small business if this is what you are looking for,

Outsourcing SEO service overseas

I’ll admit, I haven’t run across too many companies or clients that have chosen this route when looking for the best seo service for their own company.  Most small business owners want a resource that is at least US based. My firm uses a programming resource in Europe from time-to-time with positive experiences.  But I would be wary of using an unknown resource for one of the many link building services that frequent my junk mail box.

Learn and Do Your Own SEO

Generally, I have two types of clients (which one are you? Be honest)

Client A

Developed a great website (it cost a fortune)

Cash flow is tight

Unfortunately, the website isn’t generating traffic like he hoped it would

After some research, he learned about search engine optimization, SEO

SEO has something to do with meta tags

So maybe he will try this SEO himself and then the expensive website will generate traffic and his internet fortune is made.

Client B

She has a great website (it cost a fortune)

Cash flow is tight

Checks her Google Analytics frequently

Has relevant title tags

Has her local business listing on Google and Yelp

Keeps trying to update her blog but doesn’t have time

Knows she should be doing more with social media – no time

Business is good, growing, even in this economy

She can even code a little HTML

But with all the business pressures, family obligations, etc. she can’t give the website her full attention. And cash flow is still a constraint – so hiring an full time seo is out of the question.

Client A can become Client B with the right aptitude and time.  Client B can do SEO herself, if she feels it is the best use of her time.  Understand, SEO never ends (if you want to do it the right way) and it is dynamic, so it is a considerable time investment.

If you want to do it yourself, here are some good starting points:

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO – by Rand Fishkin

High Rankings Advisor – by Jill Whalen

Hire a Smaller SEO Service Provider

If you want the best seo service, this may be your best option. Smaller firms often provide a more customized and detailed approach the your website’s search engine optimization strategy. But, like anything else, there are good apples and bad apples.  Here are some tips in selecting your “best seo service provider”:

1. Ask your network for recommendations
2. Ask your potential SEO partner for references – current and previous clients
3. Get data from the SEO service provider (before and after ranking reports) from clients
4. Define what the SEO firm will do for you – get it in writing
5. Trust your gut – do you feel like you are entering a partnership or being sold?

Hear are things (at a minimum) to expect from an quality SEO service provider:

• SEO strategy development commensurate with your business goals and objectives
• Competitive market analysis
• Detailed keyword research to develop the SEO marketing strategy
• CLIENT EDUCATION – so you learn about SEO
• Analytics interpretation and analysis
• Effective link building strategies (off page SEO)
• Professional, responsive and consultative interactment
• SEO and practical use of Blogs and Social Media
• On page SEO – optimization (code editing) of all elements
• Qualitative and quantitative feedback of your website
• Knowledge sharing

If your SEO service provider regularly gives you these things, within your budget and sales and traffic are improving – congratulations! You’ve found a quality seo service provider.

The Best SEO Service – Where to Find it?

Like most questions, this has many answers. But I would recommend you start within your network and expand your research from there. Once you’ve made the decision to hire an seo service provider – and I believe this is usually the most cost effective and productive route – make sure you are getting results.

Best of luck in your search for the best seo service – there are many qualified firms out there which will help grow your business.

Of course you can always contact Marketing Practicality!

But here are some other resources:

Google - with a link to their SEO starter guide

World Wide Web Consortium

Webmaster World

Google AdWords has allowed image ads (display ads) on its content network for some time now.  But you may have noticed image ads ocassionally showing on Google AdWords search network.

So what is this all about and more importantly, how can you start showing images ads within your own search network campaign?

Example of Image Ads on AdWords’ Search Network

Recently I did a search on Walker Trays in Google and these results were shown:

I know it’s a little tough to read but trust me, the word in those red circles is Target.  They are showing in the #2 position for the Google AdWords text ad.  And Target has the first and third position on the right hand bar – typically reserved for AdWords text ads but currently displaying Image ads on the search network (i.e. PlusBox ads).  Not bad if you are Target, but if you are trying to sell walker trays is not a good sign if Target owns 3 of the top spots – and two ads are images!

Also note the Google Shopping results for Walker Trays – the five small boxes below the shaded sponsored links box.  Guess who has three of those five images – you got it, Target.

The Google AdWords PlusBox Ad

Image ads on the search network are called PlusBox ads.  And they are appearing more frequently in searches. So how is this done?

According to Google, PlusBox ads are part of a small Beta test offered to select advertisers. So outside of asking your AdWords account manager to try and get you in, it’s on an invitation only basis.

But here’s basically how it works:

The images that are displayed are fed from your Google Merchant Center Account.  So you need that first.

Then, by selecting Ad Extensions in your Google AdWords account, you allow the product information in your Merchant Center Account to by shared with your AdWords account.

Google summarizes how to run a PlusBox ad here: Plusbox Ads. Search Engine Land also covered this topic a while back, that article can be found here: Google Continues AdWords Product PlusBox

Images Ads for the AdWords Search Network

In my opinion, it’s a huge differentiation to  show an image ad among a sea of text ads – so hopefully this will be expanded beyond the Beta testing stage.  Or the testing will stop so the select advertisers who can run images don’t continue to benefit from an uneven playing field.  It depends on the product (or service) but I know several clients that would love to serve image ads on the AdWords Search Network.