MITX Awards
Last night was the 6th Annual Mitx Technology Awards at the Westin Copley here in Boston. While Helen Greiner of iRobot was awarded the Honor of Hall of Fame, Kiki Mills spoke about the continuity of innovation here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  With the combination of  top notch colleges and successful entrepreneur here in the area, keeping these companies in and around Boston.

The categories for awards included:

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Dean Whitney and David Gallant were featured in the Lowell Sun today, regarding social media and connecting with a new career. David connected with Dean over twitter, and that was how he began his work here at GGIAgency.  As social networks become an ever-increasing part of daily life, online presence and visibility will affect more and more of our digital resume. continue

There is a constant battle in the corporate world whether or not to allow employees to comment publicly about corporate events and interactions.  This can be great for a company because it increases transparency, and allows a relationship to develop between the buyer and seller, but it can also lead to negative impacts.

Trusting your employees to create and sell your projects should be treated with on the same level of publicizing your company’s operations, and public relations.  In many cases, corporate blogging outside of the PR department has proven very useful. continue

MITX Digital Combine

Yesterday I had the honor of discussing how to use social networking as a tool in the career hunt with Jeff Taylor of Monster.com/Eons.com, Rory Keohane of OAT CREATIVE, and Nazia Haque of Digital People. We were speaking to a crowd of ~90% unemployed job seekers, mainly in the high-tech, creative, and internet fields.

The discussion had a few key points; these were the resume application process and how to submit a digital resume, how to use social media to connect with employers, and finally how to approach the job search from a lifestyle standpoint. continue

While social networking websites increase transparency and allow a relationship to be developed between two entities, this relationship may not always be 100% truthful. Creating a company account on one of the many social interaction websites has proven to be one of the greatest marketing techniques of 2009, but users must be careful to avoid scams and false claims.

A prime example of this was the Dalai Llama who was a very prominent twitter figure, and very short lived. The intriguing part of this spoof was that the operator of the @OHHDL account was responding to questions with live links from the Dalai Llama website .

Famous news moguls like Keith Olberman and Stephen Colbert have both been impersonated inside of the Twittersphere. Famous celebrities(who are coincidentally also brands) Kanye West and Britney Spears have both had negative implications to using ghost twitterers, or people hired as media consultants to update internet profiles in their absence. continue

What’s next after Twitter? Watch this video from SlateV.com to find out.

Just because your small business has a corporate website, doesn’t mean that you are using it effectively. Are you landing the keywords that you want with Google? Are you capturing leads and increasing sales because of a contact form? Do your clients realize what you are selling and how you run your business?   Social media will enable each of these items to be taken to the next level, to increase your ‘Return On Investment’ of internet activities.

Twitter: As the famous phrase states, “any press is good press”. Twitter is currently receiving lots of press because of its connection to many celebrities, famous people, and media reporters. Because of its simplicity and ease of communication, one person can instantly communicate with 200,00 people without any SPAM in sight.  From a readers standpoint, everything on Twitter is voluntary, and there are zero advertisements, which has been a major turnoff for web pages like Myspace and Facebook.

Twitter can increase corporate transparency by feeding links to readers, sharing insights on products and services, and allowing a personal touch to be attached to the company.  Twitter can also allow customer interaction for testing, complaint management, and demographic feedback without hiring testers. continue

07/23/2007

So far in our series on Landing pages, we’ve discussed the basics elements of landing page tactics, as well as the importance of efficient design and consistency in content. After creating a set of effective landing pages, the next step is deploy them across your marketing channels and start gathering useful data. Landing pages should be grouped first into the channel they have been deployed into, then by the specific vehicle. Example channels may include such activities as:

• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertisements: Within your PPC campaign, you will have multiple segments supported by a few hundred keywords per segment. A specific landing page with messaging consistent with keyword segments is mandatory.
• In-bound links from Partner websites: Where you have the influence, place specific links to landing pages from your partner, client, or vendor sites - rather than a simple link to your homepage.
• Tradeshow Activities: All materials related to a specific tradeshow should have their own landing page.
• Print Campaigns
• TV Advertisements
• Radio Advertisements

Data Points to Measure

Simply having these landing pages in existence is not enough. Constant measurement of two key activities is required - visits and conversions. The number of visits is a measurement of how effective your marketing activities are. Effective PPC ads, targeted mailers, and strong TV ads will entice prospects to take the next step and visit the website link offered to them. Conversions, on the other hand, represent the number of people who completed the specific action you wanted them to take. In other words - once they arrive, do your web visitors reach your goal or objective? You may want to learn more about Goal Setting and Conversions. Briefly stated - the action that defines a conversion must be tailored to the specific nature of the product or service you are selling. In the end, this number is important to track because the number of conversions per landing page is a measurement of how effective the landing page design and content is. Common conversions are defined as:

• Making a purchase online
• Completing an online form
• Downloading materials or specific white paper
• Performing a search within your website
• Placing a call to a dedicated 1-800 #

Next, assign a dollar value to your conversion actions. For example, if 25 percent of the people who complete the online form on your landing page actually buy, and your average sale for a landing page is $100, assign a value of $25 to the event.

Calculating ROI

The first step in calculating ROI is to be disciplined about keeping track of costs. A common metric used is Average Cost per Visit. Per landing page, your average cost per visit is defined as: Sum of Acquisition Marketing Costs / Visits = Average Cost per Visit. For example, if you sent a print campaign of 500 postcards the Sum of your Acquisition Marketing Costs would equal - design & content authoring fees ($1000) + printing fees ($750) + postage ($300) = $2050. If your postcard generated 500 visits to your landing page, the Average Cost per visit = $4.10.

You know you have done something wrong if your Average Cost Per Visit exceeds the dollar value assigned to your conversion rate. Either you need to generate more visits from that activity reducing the Average Cost per Visit, or you need to have more effective conversion methods in place.

Summary

Using the traffic acquisition costs from your marketing activities in conjunction with visit and conversion data from your landing pages, you can make objective decisions about where to spend scarce marketing dollars. By keeping Average Cost Per Visit low, conversion rates, calculated as Conversions / Visits = Conversion Rate, high, you will be on track for success.

06/19/2007
Designing for web and print are two entirely different design challenges. Just because a designer is proficient at one doesn’t mean they’ll be good at the other. It’s necessary to understand that web and print share many similarities, but they also have many differences.

Web Fonts vs. Print Fonts

Typography is a design topic that has been studied by some of the greatest Designers in the world. It is a topic that is extremely complex and involves years of study. Most Designers have a fundamental knowledge of typography and how it should be utilized in design.

Print Designers have the luxury of using an extensive array of fonts in design while Web Designers are restricted by the usage of only web fonts1. Computers and Internet browsers restrict the amount of fonts that Web Designers can use because computers are programmed with minimal amount of default fonts. When the font is specialized or stylized, the designer has to install the specific font into their personal computer, but cannot anticipate that other users will have this font installed on their computer. Web Designers can include these exclusive fonts, but have to create an image of the font instead of having HTML markup text, which hinders the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the site. SEO is a vital component in websites today as search engines such as Google and Yahoo! have become more sophisticated and are a critical marketing strategy for many businesses today. Learn more about Building a Search Engine Friendly Website.

Print Designers do not need to worry about SEO, computers or Internet browsers including the fonts. A print file is created and prepared with the fonts either imbedded within the document or the font is included in the file so the printer can install the font if it is not on their computer. Print Designers can also be remarkably innovative and creative with the treatment of typography. Because the layout is static, creating a printed design as an end result, the fonts can be manipulated and created in endless ways.

Executing a Website vs. a Print Piece

Websites are designed to be viewed on a computer monitor and are rarely ever printed out. Computer monitors are similar to television screens and utilize additive color mixing that mixes colored light together. Additive colors start with Red, Green, and Blue (RGB). When these colors are mixed, they create Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black) (CMYK). RGB colors are mixed in varying levels from 0 to 256, to form colors. Because websites do not need to be printed out, the colors on the monitors are the final viewing colors and the colors do not need to collaborate with a 4-color process printer. However, colors on monitors can be altered whether it is color corrected, old, CRT2 monitor, or LCD3 screen.

Collaborating with Web Developers is key to a successfully executed website. Web Designers should have a basic knowledge about web technology4 so that the design can be coded, and viewed properly on multiple web browsers. Web Designers have to be conscious that users are viewing websites with various web browsers5 and the variety of monitor resolutions6. Images on the web are generally 72 dots per inch (DPI) so that websites can load into a web browser promptly and without difficulty.

An important aspect of web design that Print Designers don’t need to be as concerned about is Information Architecture. Information Architecture is the method of organizing information that produces better usability and experience when browsing through a website. Both Web and Print Designers need to be concerned about how the information is portrayed through hierarchy of information by creating a clear concise message through typography and the layout of the design. Print Designers are more concerned with design characteristics and not the usability features since print design does not include interactive features.

Print Designers have to consider another realm of design rules when completing a great print piece. Instead of thinking about what the design will appear on a monitor or in a web browser, they have to reflect upon what it will look like when printed out. Print Designers use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black) (CMYK) and Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors. CMYK are the 4-color process colored inks used in printing while PMS colors are based on a specific mix to create new colors referred as spot colors. This allows for many specialized colors to be produced.

Unlike web design, Print Designers are not confined by the resolution of the monitor or just to the computer. Print Designers can design large-scale banners, small business cards, brochures, books, newspapers, magazines, on clothing, on assortments of paper, etc. A Print Designers surfaces and size of design is far more diverse compared to a web designer’s small canvas. Images for printing have to be 300 DPI or larger because the printer produces designs at a high resolution of 300 DPI or higher. If an image file is printed at less than 300 DPI the image prints out pixilated.

Experiencing a Website vs. a Printed Piece

Websites create a very unique user experience because users are able to interact and consciously make a decision by clicking a mouse, skip around a website at their own leisure by using navigation, and pages can scroll indefinitely. The user controls the website experience and where they want to go since it is a non-static environment. Learn more about the importance of website design with a focus on user experience.

Web Designers are often told that on the homepage of a website the most crucial information about a company or business needs to be designed above the fold. The saying, “Design Above the Fold” comes from how newspaper Designers layout news articles. The most important headline and news stories need to be placed above the crease of the newspaper because that is what will be viewed immediately when picking up a newspaper. This also applies to websites so users can quickly learn about the company or business.

Print pieces are two-dimensional contrasting websites. Print pieces can be held and felt by the user which can create much more of an impact when understanding and examining the design. Print layouts tend to have a high graphical and visual effect because the pieces are not restricted like websites are.

Summary

Both print and web design have their advantages and limitations. When designing either a print layout or a website it is necessary to take different design approach to develop the strengths of each medium and minimize its weaknesses so that the finest outcome is produced.
1 Arial, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Trebuchet, Veranda, Geneva
2 cathode-ray tubes
3 liquid crystal display
4 HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash
5 i.e. Internet Explorer v. 6,7, Firefox, Safari, Opera
6 i.e. 800px x 600px, 1024px x768px, 1280 x 800px

05/29/2007

AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It does not represent a specific code library or tool kit. Rather, AJAX describes an approach whereby web pages can be updated without being completely reloaded.

As opposed to reloading an entire web page to display updated content in response to some user action (Figure 1), AJAX can update smaller portions of a web page’s content. The page uses JavaScript to request new content from the server and place that content into a designated area on the page. (Figure 2).

Figure 1 - Flow of data in reloading a web page before AJAX

Figure 2 - Flow of data in reloading a web page with AJAX

For example, imagine you are looking for a doctor on a web site. The left side of the page contains a form, with search parameters such as the doctor’s name, name of affiliated hospital, specialties, and town. As you type “allergies” into the specialties field, results start to appear on the right side of the page. As you type the name of your local hospital, the results on the right side of the page update to match your request.

The Document Object Model (DOM) is a standard object model that represents every element of a web page. Tables, paragraphs, images and links are all represented in the DOM. Elements can also be given IDs, which should be unique on the page. JavaScript can make changes to elements in the DOM on the fly, which are then reflected in the browser.

When to Use AJAX

Using AJAX has its benefits. It is faster to interact with a page that doesn’t need to completely reload after every mouse click, as less data needs to move back and forth with each click, and the browser does not need to redraw the page from scratch. It is also less disorienting to the user if most of the elements on the page don’t change after clicking a link. This can make a web page feel more like an installed application.

Ideal candidates for AJAX treatment include:

• Sorting through dense amounts of information on the fly, as in a catalog of products. Without reloading the entire page, you can filter results and get more information on individual products.
• Updating small amounts of content that change rapidly, such as stock prices. If it is important that a piece of information be up to date, AJAX can repeatedly load that piece of information into the page.

When AJAX Can Get in the Way

While AJAX provides some useful tools, it also has drawbacks to consider.

AJAX (as the acronym implies) relies on JavaScript in the browser to write content to web pages, which will likely make the dynamic content invisible to search engines. In a situation where a user isn’t running JavaScript (either due to security concerns or because of the age of their browser), AJAX will not function at all. And due to differences in browsers’ implementations of JavaScript (and how it relates to a web page), AJAX pages may not work in all situations, even where users have JavaScript enabled. For these reasons, even if you choose to use AJAX for a page, you might want to also set up a non-AJAX version.

Another issue is that it might be difficult to send someone a link to what you see on an AJAX page. If you go to an AJAX page and click on half a dozen links to get new information, the URL of the page hasn’t changed. So instead of sending only a URL to someone, you’d need to also describe what you clicked on in order to see what ends up on your screen.

Places to avoid using AJAX:

• Content you want indexed by search engines. At least for now, search engines don’t appear to be executing any JavaScript on pages they index. Any content written to a page using AJAX is being put there with JavaScript, and will likely not be seen by search engines.
• Site navigation. In addition to making the site navigation inaccessible to search engines, AJAX could make the entire site inaccessible to some users whose browsers may not support the AJAX code being used, or who may have turned off JavaScript in their browser.

Summary

Like any technology, AJAX is not the solution for all situations. But when used appropriately, it can make your site more responsive and useful to your customers.

Examples of AJAX in the Wild

Find a Diagnostic Test. Athena Diagnostics. 17 May 2007

Note the multiple search parameters which update the search results on the fly. And when you find the result you are looking for, you can bring up more detailed information on the same page.

Also note that a link to a basic, non-AJAX version of the information is provided in the left navigation. This solves two problems. First, users can get to the information if their browser doesn’t support the AJAX implementation. Second, the information is also visible to search engines.

The Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. 31 May 2007

This site (related to the game “World of Warcraft”) presents a large amount of information about characters in the game. Each character can have a large number of objects equipped, each with unique properties.

Only the icons for each of these objects is initially loaded on a character’s screen. If a user wants to find out more about their equipped footwear they can mouse over the icon for their boots, which makes an AJAX request for information specific to the boots, adds that information to a div, and displays that div next to the user’s cursor.

A drawback to all this functionality is that there is no simplified version - if a user is using an older browser, or has turned off JavaScript, almost all of the functionality is inaccessible.

04/05/2007

I hope to provide tips and tools to help you understand the ROI potential generated from a successful Channel Marketing Strategy. Channel Marketing is an indirect means of offering your products and services to the end-user.

For example, take organizations like Microsoft and IBM. Both companies have extensive partner channels that generate sales opportunities for their products and services. These include Value Added Resellers (VAR), consulting firms, and integration shops (ISV). The incentives for these partners are the ability to sell larger opportunities, ability to utilize the larger organizations sales team to help close, volume discounts on software, and access to training.

But before we get to the strategy of large partner networks, we should look at the foundation of how these channels are managed. How do organizations that wish to build a partner network engage and empower their channel? The first step should be the creation of an Extranet or Portal Web Site.

Collaboration Technologies: Extranets and Portals

Speed of communications is a measurable value of extranet and portal technology. Portals provide fast and secure web-based methods to improve relationships with key customers and facilitate communications. They also offer an efficient way to manage suppliers, vendors, training, resellers and partners. A well-organized and well-built web portal is far more efficient at managing these process than a manual system.

Many organizations depend on portals for sales activities. Portals improve collaboration, increase the speed of delivery of marketing support, facilitate training, and provide up to date resources and tools to help partners sell products and services.

A portal can be the best source of information for your partners, delivered through a self-service platform. Partner portals can provide sales and marketing material, training and certification programs, best practices, and the ability to schedule resources. Portals that serve content based on user profiles deliver product and service information immediately to the right audience.

Another major benefit to creating an online partner portal is the ability to keep information up to date in a real time environment. Many of the online portal technologies have some elements of content and or document management. These tools facilitate keeping information current for the partner channel.

Imagine a partner network that houses hundreds of companies, each with a team of sales people. How quickly can an organization provide updated information for their partners in a paper world? Not quickly at all.

Compare that to an online partner management system. An update is made to a document, it is then published to the Partner Portal. The changed document could be highlighted on the partner dashboard; and/ or an email is fired off to the members of the partner network informing them of the new document.

Portals and extranets are an essential tool for effective channel marketing. They provide the foundation that allows organizations to manage information, process, training and support to their partner network.

03/19/2007

Plan Early, Pay Less

You’d be surprised at the number high-budget, high profile websites that are surprisingly unsuccessful at achieving success with search engine marketing. This is usually a result of the neglect of search-related issues during website planning. Following a few design guidelines will ensure that your website is readily accessible by search engines and will give you a leg up on much of the competition.

Crawability is Key

Search engine “robots” are automated programs that “crawl” through websites, following links adding pages to the search engine index. A properly constructed site facilitates delivery of page content to search engines, while improper construction leaves pages undetected or disregarded.

Rule 1: Keep the Site Navigation Simple (Don’t use Javascript)

Search engines don’t understand JavaScript. At least, not well enough. This means that navigation bars and menus that depend on JavaScript should be avoided, as the links will be invisible to search engines. “Pop-up links” commonly use JavaScript and should be avoided. If JavaScript - based links cannot be avoided, include footer links either directly to the other pages or indirectly to a site map page. This serves as a back door to your site’s pages.

Rule 2: Don’t Get Flashy

Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash animations have many ideal uses, but should not be used to display website navigation or important content. Search engines don’t readily access text in Flash animations, and valuable, keyword-rich text may be overlooked. Additionally, links in Flash-based navigation links may not be detected. If Flash links cannot be avoided, provide an alternate path to internal pages through html links, or a link to the site map.

Rule 3: One Page, One URL

Today’s increasingly dynamic, database-driven websites often commit the error of serving varying content to one page - or more specifically one URL. A URL is a web page’s unique address in the Browser’s address window, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seo. If page contents vary with the path used to reach them, search engines will omit the pages from search engine results. Existing web pages can often be given unique URLs rather easily - talk to your Webmaster.

Rule 4: Drop the Drop-Downs

Search engine spiders have difficulty navigating past drop-down menus and submitting forms. Pages hidden behind these remain undetected. When possible, use a list of standard links in place of drop-down menus. Alternatively, provide another route to the target pages via conventional links. The same is true for forms - provide an alternate path to reach pages that live on the other side of a form submission.

And the List Goes On

The above list of “rules” is not exhaustive, but describe a few commonplace obstacles to obtaining winning search engine results. Existing websites can often be modified to be more search-engine friendly, but careful planning in the design phase of a web site will enable compliance with search-engine best-practices with relative ease and greater effectiveness. It’s usually enough to pass a design specification by an SEO (search engine “optimizer”) to spot potential problem areas when they are easy to remedy.

02/12/2007

There is a dizzying array of content management system (CMS) options on the market ranging from free open source tools to enterprise solutions that cost more than $100,000. No matter how you slice it, the addition of a CMS to your web site will require an integration investment. In other words, you can’t just buy a $20,000 software package and install it on your web site. More than likely, your entire web site will need to be reworked to support the new CMS. This fact can make the software-licensing fee a small part of the over-all cost of adding content management to your web site. So if you’re planning to redesign or significantly update your website, now is the time to consider your CMS options.

The most important thing you need to know before investigating content management options is what you really need. To put it another way, you can save a lot of money by identifying what you don’t need in a content management system. You can also avoid the costly mistake of investing in the purchase and integration of a CMS that doesn’t meet all the needs of your web site.

Start by listing the sections of your web site. You don’t need to come up with an exact site map, but a clear idea of what will and will not be included in the site is crucial. With all content management systems, editing a page of static content is a basic feature, and unless you plan to have thousands of pages the number of static content pages isn’t likely to significantly alter pricing. The term “static content” used here is defined as a page of magazine-like content: text and pictures that stand alone and are not derived from other content on the site. Examples of static content include a page describing the history of your company or a set of pages describing your company’s services.

Dynamic sections you may want to include in your site are news, events, careers, home page highlights, landing page management and ecommerce. To manage this type of content efficiently requires features beyond the ability to enter static page content into an editor. For example, you may want the CMS to list news items in reverse chronological order, only showing articles from the last three months, and placing archived articles on a separate page. Or you may want jobs to be organized by location and then department, with a descriptive page for each department listing its open positions in the selected location.

As you can see, the requirements of your dynamic content sections quickly become complex and very specific. These sections should be considered carefully, and each content management system should be reviewed in terms of its ability to manage these requirements. Some packages will contain pre-configured modules to support News or Careers sections. In these cases, review the workflow and usability of how these dynamic sections are managed and compare them with your original vision. Are you willing to bend to a commercial package’s way of doing things?

Also find out what kind of integration effort will be involved in developing your dynamic sections. Even with built-in CMS features, implementation of dynamic content sections often requires custom development. Consult with your interactive services firm to determine the effort and associated cost of integration for each of your dynamic sections, and know that this can vary from CMS to CMS.

Finally, consider using the CMS offering from an interactive services firm. Most firms either have a CMS developed in-house or have partnered with a commercial CMS vendor. In many cases, choosing an interactive services firm is choosing their CMS. This can actually mean a significant cost savings in many cases. If a firm’s CMS meets the requirements you have collected for your site, you can save money by using them as a one-stop shop for planning, design and CMS integration. Interactive firms are most efficient when using their own tools, and can often customize their CMS to meet your exact needs rather than bending a commercial software package to your needs.

Call Embarc today to discuss the CMS requirements for your next web project.

01/22/2007

In the previous installment of Search Engine Optimization & Marketing series, we discussed the many avenues by which qualified traffic - the target audience - can be drawn to a website. Today, we will focus on lead generation through search engines and search engine services. There are two ways for a web page to become listed within search engine results. Natural, or organic search results, are free and generated by proprietary algorithms determining which pages are most relevant to search engine queries. Paid search advertising is commonly referred to as Pay-Per-Click (or PPC) advertising, but actually encompasses a broader set of options that leverage search engine services to display advertisements in various contexts. Payment structures vary.

It’s Not “Either Or”

It is important for a web site to be both “user-friendly” and “search-engine-friendly” for long-term success at drawing and converting qualified visitors. The benefits of additional website optimization vary, however. Paid search marketing may be appropriate from some businesses while ineffective for others. Explore the options fully and pursue the greatest ROI.

Natural Search - Pro’s

Natural Search Is “Free”. Search engines surf the web constantly, searching for new and changing content to add to their indices free of charge. The quotes exist around the word “Free”, because the creation of a website that will successfully appear at the top of natural search engine result is often not free, and may require a considerable outlay of resources. However, a website with high search engine rankings will refer a complimentary stream of visitors that is the lifeblood of many businesses.

Automatic Inclusion into Major Search Engine Indices. Build it, and they (the search engine “bots”) will come. Web pages are added to search engine indices automatically as they are discovered.

Users Prefer Natural to Paid Search Results. In most cases this is true, resulting in more clicks on to natural search results than on paid results. One exception occurs when users are ready to purchase a specific product, and are seeking a specific online vendor.

Natural Search - Con’s

Little Control Over Search Engine Results. Search Engines, not webmasters, are ultimately in control of natural search engine results. Guidelines are available to aid the construction of “search engine-friendly” web pages, but the inner workings of the complex, proprietary algorithms determining search ranking are just that - proprietary.

Slow Feedback Loop. Search engines wait weeks or months to reflect changes to web pages.

Cause & Effects Uncertain. Multiple uncontrolled variables make it difficult to determine the effect of a given change. Changes made to a web page might negatively impact search engine rankings. Was the drop due to that specific change? Or, was the search engine algorithm modified? Perhaps the drop is related to superior optimization tactics implemented on competing sites. This lack of certainty can be frustrating, but also leaves the door open for constant innovation and improvement.

Paid Search - Pro’s

Many Options. Many flavors of paid search advertising are available. Standard, national or global ads run against keywords suit global interests, while ads limited to specific regions suit local brick & mortar businesses. Ads can be displayed within or alongside content on participating 3rd party pages, and pricing can be based per-impression, per-click, and per-action (such as a purchase).

Precision ROI tracking. Paid Search is the marketer’s dream - every penny spent, every ad clicked, and every user action may be trackable.

Traffic Control. Ads may direct users to the destination of choice, allowing greater control of the user experience and a greater opportunity to convert.

Quick Turnaround. Changes take effect in a few hours - advertising performance can be assessed within a day in many cases.

Controlled Testing Environment. Landing pages provide an ideal environment to experiment and obtain rapid results. “A/B” texts may be performed, where a single element is changed on two otherwise identical landing pages. Users are directed to both pages, and reaction to the changed page is measured quantitatively.

Paid Search - Con’s

Price. Price increases as keyword popularity increases. Common prices for first-page ads on major search engines is $1-$2 per click. Ads based on competitive terms may be very costly, while “long-tail” search phrases containing multiple terms may generate excellent returns on investment.

Lower User Trust. Users generally click on paid ads less than natural search results. In some cases users prefer paid results - ready customers with credit card in hand, for example.

Active Maintenance Required. Best results require active monitoring multiple variables, such as keyword performance, ad performance, landing page performs, and website performance. Bid prices may need maintenance as demand shifts, and neglectful advertisers will pay unneeded premiums or see ads drop from sight.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Remember: what works in another industry or even for a competitor may not work for you. Be sure to explore pros and cons of available paid and natural search opportunities and select the strategy that best fits your organization. Regardless of your chosen course of action, the key lies in experimentation - and the disposition to adapt, innovate, and refine traffic-generation strategies.