Search Engine Optimization » Kansas City SEO and PPC

The official blog of Scott Randolph - Online Marketing Consultant, managing director of 7xo Media and the founder of the 7xo Media Academy.

Online Marketing Costs

Especially in tough economic times, the cost of online marketing can be quite a concern for business owners. If you’re a small business owner, this can be especially troubling. How can you justify a $5000 pay per click budget, when you’re having trouble making payroll?

The short answer to that is, if your online marketing isn’t showing a direct contribution to your bottom line, you can’t. However, the ABSOLUTE BEST THING about online marketing, especially pay per click marketing, is that you can track it down to the dollar.

Let’s take my favorite example, a local family owned plumbing service - we’ll call them “John Smith and Sons Plumbing.” Well, ole John doesn’t know much about PPC, and blew through $1000 in a couple months, and decided to get stop advertising.

Instead, he is spending $500 on Yellow Page ads, and another $2000 a month on some remnant radio time. He’s doing ok, but he’s not really sure how many of the calls he’s getting come from his website, much less how many come in as a result of his Yellow Page or radio ads.

He’s throwing $2,500 into a void.

The neat thing about John’s business is, he doesn’t need leads, email opt-ins, or someone to purchase online - John needs PHONE CALLS.

Did you know there are CHEAP services out there that let pay per click managers like me track phone calls, down to the keyword? Instead of throwing money into ads you can’t track - why wouldn’t you want to put an ad in front of people searching for “local plumbers?”

I can tell you right now - I can deliver phone calls to your service business for less than $20/call (that includes my profit margins) - do you think your business could turn a profit on those kind of numbers?

Let’s make some assumptions in John’s case….he’ll turn 35% of those callers into customers, at an average revenue of $300/customer, at a $175 profit margin/job. So, if he gets 125 calls from his $2500 ($20/call), he’s going to get 44 new customers (35%). At $175/customer, that’s $7700 in profits. Remove the marketing spend ($2,500), and you’re left with $5,200 in pure profit.

Let’s go one step further and say John retains about 30% of his business for future jobs. Those people hire him back at the same profit margin, approximately once per year. Since I talked him in to setting up a monthly email newsletter, there is no cost associated in closing these guys again. So, for every 44 customers, he gets about 14 repeat customers the next year. For 12 months, that turns in to 168 repeat customers.

So, in year one, John spent $30,000 online, and netted $62,400 in profits after it’s all said and done. (that’s not revenue, that’s profit). Because of his repeat business, in the next year, he netted another $29,400.

You can imagine how this could compound year after year…right? If you’re interested in how using a system like this can help your business, just let me know in the form to the right!

Tags: Online Marketing, PPC Cost, SEO Cost

13 Jan 09 | Business, Finance, Online Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | Comments (0)

SEM vs. SEO, what’s the difference?

You may have caught my recent SEM Video - The Difference Between PPC and SEO. If so, then you know that PPC (Pay Per Click) includes the sponsored results on all the search engines, where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) includes the natural, or organic rankings.

Another acronym that gets thrown around a lot is SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and has been a cause of a fair amount of contention over the last few years as to what exactly it includes.

Some purists believe SEM and PPC are about the same thing (namely, SEM is any paid search engine placement). I, for one, have chosen the path of assuming that SEM is the over-arching discipline of providing customers through the search engines. So, it includes PPC, SEO, paid inclusion, and any other search engine related tactic you can think of.

Semantics aside, SEM (including pay-per-click and search engine optimization) is still the most cost effective form of marketing when done correctly. Feel free to contact me to learn more about how it can help your business!

Tags: Marketing Videos, Pay Per Click, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

06 Jan 09 | Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comments (0)

Local Search Engine Optimization

I know for a fact that local search engine optimization works, and works big time. I also know for a fact that many of the businesses that really need it either can’t afford it, or think that they can’t afford it.

I say, they can’t afford not to do it. And, I’m not talking about getting some garbage $350/month off-shore SEO team to do it for you either.

I’ve been thinking really hard about this problem over the last few months, and I’m struggling to come up with a solution. The easiest answer is to give my services to individual companies at a bargain basement cost - but that’s not fair to me (and, eventually, not fair to the business either).

A harder answer is a way to make the practice of Local SEO scale. I know companies like Reach Local do a reasonable job in paid search - but, I believe, properly executed, an SEO campaign can provide better long term returns.

I’m going to try a little experiment this month and see - if I can generate 20 calls for a plumber in the Kansas City area by mid February, then I think I’ll be on to something.

Tags: Kansas City Search Engine Optimization, Kansas City SEO, Local Search Engine Marketing, Overland Park Search Engine Optimization, Overland Park SEO, SEO Tactics

05 Jan 09 | Local Search Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comments (0)

Local Search Engine Marketing in a Tough Economy

As I was walking my dog this chilly morning in Overland Park, I found myself thinking about all the businesses out there that are struggling in this tough economy. I’ve been doing a fair bit of networking for folks wanting search engine optimization in Kansas City, as well as pay per click in Kansas City and Overland Park, and one thing I’m hearing a lot of is that there just isn’t the cash flow to make these things happen right now.

I beg to differ. If there is one type of marketing you SHOULD be doing in a tough economy - it’s search engine marketing.

Why?

If you’re a service provider that has a limited area, or a small business relying on foot traffic in to your store, local search engine marketing is a very high ROI undertaking. For example, local search engine optimization for Kansas City delivers something Yellow Pages and Radio spots can’t - CUSTOMERS THAT ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR BUSINESS.

Let’s look at one example - say…auto repair. You can easily spend $5k on local radio spots that may yield 100 calls/visits to your store if you’re lucky. That’s if you have a really good ad, and a good offer. A pay-per-click campaign for Overland Park, however, might cost you $750 in ad spend, and another $750 in monthly ad fees - and deliver the same number of phone calls in to your store.

Since those people searching are actively seeking out auto repair in your area, they are more likely to turn into customers. It’s pretty simple math after that - same number of calls, more of those calls turn in to customers, and you’ve only spent $1500. If you get 25 of those calls coming in to your auto repair shop that month, at an average bill of $400, you’ve generated $10,000 in revenue for $1500.

When you look at it that way, can you really afford NOT to do some local PPC marketing?

Tags: Kansas City PPC, Kansas City SEO, Online Strategies, Overland Park PPC, Overland Park SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

04 Jan 09 | Online Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | Comment (1)

Beginning SEO

If you want to Get Started in SEO, you’re in the right place, because I’m going to tell you 4 things you need to do right now to start ranking better in the search engines.

1)Get familiar with Google.
Go to Google’s Webmaster Central and poke around some. You want to see if your site is being indexed by Google, get analytics installed on your site, and sign up for Google’s webmaster tools. Also, be sure to read their webmaster guidlines, because you want to make sure you’re following their rules, or else you may get blacklisted, and no one wants that.

2)Do some keyword research.
This information is vital - before you can start ranking for keywords, you need to decide WHAT keywords you want to rank for. To do this, start out at Google’s Keyword Tool. This is just one place to do your keyword research, but it’s a start. Enter some keywords that relate to your site - click “Get Ideas” and see what else comes up.

You’ll notice the approximate search volumes showing up for the groups of keywords. While the ones with the largest numbers may be tempting, I’m going to let you know up front that those will also be the most difficult to get a good ranking for. I’d suggest selecting 5-10 terms that are closely related to your site that come from the mid-range terms.

This will be the beginning of your keyword portfolio, and they will be the terms we’ll focus on for now. We should also note, that since we’re focusing on the local market you service, we’ll want to add the city name in front of all of those terms. For example, if you chose “house cleaning” and live in Kansas City, you’ll do well to rank for “Kansas City house cleaning.” Make sense?

3) Make sure your content matches your keywords.
Your best bet is to have 1 page on your site for each of your keywords. This may not always be possible, but it’s much easier to optimize for 1 keyword on a page than for two or three.

The content on your page is the most important factor when it comes to ranking for your search terms. The most important part of this content is the first 30 or so characters in your pages “Title” tags. Make sure to put your keyword in those tags.

On your page, you want to include the keyword you want to rank for as much as you can without sounding odd. Remember, we’re writing this for customers first! If you are using a headline on your page, make sure to include your keyword there. You can also use things like bolding and italics to emphasize those words.

Here’s an idea for you if you’re having trouble coming up with stuff to write for each of your keywords: do a “Services” section of your website, where you can create a page for each service you provide. For example, a Plumber might have the following pages in his services section:

- 24 Hour Emergency Plumber in Kansas City
- Drain Clog Removal in Kansas City
- Bathroom Repair in Kansas City
- Garbage Disposal Repair in Kansas City

(see where I’m going with this?)

Imagine if your site got 20 more leads a month for free because it ranked for the right words…would that improve your business?

4) Get some links.
One thing that is very important to the search engines is the number of links you have coming in to your website. These are other websites that have decided that your content is worth “pointing” to. We’re going to start out easy, with three tactics you can use right now:

Free directory submissions - There are a lot of directories out there - just Google “SEO Friendly Directories” to get started.

Links from related businesses - Go to Google and search for your keywords. Look at the top results that are ranking now, and see if there are any ways you can request a link from those sites. It may be as simple as leaving a comment on a blog, or exchanging links with another webmaster.

Links from Area Specific Sites - Google the city you service/work in. See if you can ask for links coming from those sites. Great sources for these links are City Websites, Chamber of Commerce sites, and local Newspapers. Many local papers have blogs that you can interact with and get links.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO Tactics

03 Jan 09 | Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comments (0)

Basic Online Marketing Strategy

Together, we’re going to go over basic online marketing strategy:

Distinct actions you want your website visitors to take (IMPORTANT!)
Explaining Conversion Rates (and how they affect your bottom line)
Discovering how much you should be willing to spend for a customer or lead
Simple, free ways to track your website traffic

This is a pretty intensive section, and the things we’ll learn here will be the foundation for everything we’re doing going forward. You may want to note the URL of this page, or bookmark it (CTRL+D) so you can come back and reference it later.

If you are already a savvy marketer - then you probably understand this stuff already. I’ll ask you to sit tight until next week, when we’ll start to get more detailed about actions you can take immediately to gain new customers.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

1) Figuring out what you want your website visitors to do.
Traffic (also called visitors) to your website is a good thing, right? Most of the time, it is. However, if you don’t have a clear ACTION you want your visitors to take when they arrive at your site, you are potentially missing out on a gold mine.

As a small business owner - you’re likely to have at least one of the following actions in mind (we’ll call these “conversions” from here on out):

Directly Purchasing a product online from your site
Contacting you electronically (either via email or a web form)
Contacting you by telephone
Registering for a newsletter or online community
Physically walking to your store/shop and making a purchase

The first thing you should ask yourself is, “Which of these do I need my customers to do?” Research indicates that, for many businesses, a phone call is the best way to get customers. If you don’t have the staff to answer the phone all day, maybe an electronic contact is best. If you’re selling online, the desired outcome is pretty clear - although adding an option to sign up for an email list is a great opportunity for on and offline stores.

We’ll talk more in depth about each of these in coming editions, but for now, it will suffice if you think about your best case conversion scenario.

2)Conversion Rates and how they affect you.
Using the information in #1 - we can define a conversion as: “A website visitor that performs one of my desired actions on my website.”

Hammer this into your brain: CONVERSIONS ARE WHAT MAKE YOU MONEY!!!!!

So, what is a conversion rate? It’s pretty simple - it’s the rate at which your website visitors turn in to conversions. If you have 100 visitors, and you have 8 purchase a product off your site, or submit a web form, you have an 8% conversion rate. You can calculate this by dividing the number of conversions by the total traffic.

Pretty simple right?

Right now, you’re probably asking “How do I track conversions on my site?” - never fear - that is coming next week, as it warrants a newsletter of its own!

So, how does this affect you? Let me present you with this scenario. It’s going to illustrate why the most important number in your marketing plan is your conversion rate.

	Business A	Business B
Marketing Budget	$650.00	$650.00
Traffic	1500	750
Cost Per Visitor	$2.31	$1.15
Conversion Rate	2%	6%
New Customers	30	45
Cost Per Customer	$21.67	$14.44

In this very realistic scenario, you can see how Business B got 50% more customers, at a much lower cost per customer, EVEN THOUGH HE HAD LESS TRAFFIC!

Our focus isn’t going to be to get you more traffic - that’s not hard. Our focus is to get your MORE CUSTOMERS.
We’re going to talk a lot in the coming weeks about how to take steps to increase your conversion rates - so make sure you stay tuned. Of everything we’ll discuss, those tips will be the fastest, most inexpensive ways to increase your profits.

3) Determining how much you should spend to get a new customer or lead
In the above scenarios, we introduced a new concept - cost per customer. When you’re putting together a marketing plan, an important number to keep in mind is how much you can spend to gain a customer, and still turn over a tidy profit.

Of course, we’re going to talk a lot about free ways to get customers - but you’ll need to know this number if you’re doing any sort of advertising.
The best way to figure this is to look at your product or service as it stands now.

Once you take away the costs associated with what you’re selling (wholesale cost, materials cost, salary cost, etc.), you’re left with your profit (also called margin).

For example, if you’re selling a widget online for $29.95 - and you pay $15 wholesale for it, and you have $5 in other associated costs you need to cover (salaries, web site hosting, etc..), you profit $9.95 for each widget you sell. This means, you can’t afford to pay more than $9.95 in marketing costs to sell this product.

The same principle applies to services - if your average plumbing job nets you $400, but costs you $50 in materials and $150 in salary costs, then you can only afford to pay $200 acquire that customer.

Of course, these are very simple examples - but you get the idea.

Homework Assignment #1 - sit down and figure out how much you’re willing/able to spend to get a new customer. You may want to find out the max you could afford to pay, then take off 25-50%, and set that as a goal (that will leave you a nice profit).

4) Simple and Free website tracking
I’m sure you’ve noticed that all of the things we’ve talked about require you to actually know what’s happening on your website. To do this, you need ANALYTICS on your site. It’s possible you may have some already. If you’re using something provided by your web hosting company, chances are it’s not as in-depth as you’re going to need as you become a sophisticated online marketer.

So, here’s your second homework assignment - You’re going to want to install Google Analytics. (If you’re using an analytics package you pay for, you can disregard this).

Just go to: http://www.google.com/analytics/ and click ‘Sign Up”
It’s completely free, and they will walk you through the process.

Tags: Online Marketing, Online Strategies

03 Jan 09 | Business, Email Marketing Strategies, Goal Setting, Online Consulting Services, Online Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | Comments (0)

The Difference Between SEO and PPC

Here’s one of the first Online Marketing Videos I ever did - back when I was working under www.mysempro.com. It explains the difference between PPC and SEO. It also shows you what can happen when you shoot a video on the first take (notice how often I say “uh”)

Tags: Marketing Videos, Pay Per Click, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

03 Jan 09 | Marketing Videos, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comment (1)

’tis been a while, no?

So - wow - a whole summer with no posting. I suppose you could say I’ve been busy, but really, I’ve just been lazy. You can only do so much before something falls off - and this blog was it.

I’m working on several projects at the moment - not the least of which is still pushing to get HHOD off the ground. I pursuit of that, I’ve moved back to working completely from home, cutting down my hours at the agency significantly. This has allowed me to focus more on my clients, as well as new projects to enhance my personal life and hopefully help fund HHOD.

I’ve been looking in to a lot of personal development tactics to go along with this - and I can honestly say, over the last 6 weeks, my overall level of happiness and productivity has skyrocketed.

I’m also currently shopping for some sort of fitness program to get back into the swing of things - since I moved, I’ve been lax in hitting the gym. Thankfully, I haven’t put any of the weight I lost back on, but I doubt very seriously if I could hit the sidewalk and cruise through a 4 mile run like I could have 4 months ago.

I’ll try my best to keep things posted here - lots of stuff going on to offer my completely unqualified opinion on

08 Sep 08 | Business, Email Marketing Strategies, Goal Setting, Online Consulting Services, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comment (1)

Assumptions on Sorting Importance…

This post is inspired by Seth Godin’s “Alphabetical Order is Obsolete” Post a couple weeks back (sorry, sorry, I can only get through my aggregator every so often).

Anyway, he makes some pretty awesome observations about how senseless the alphabetical system is for some applications…..

Your address book is in alphabetical order, right? Why? If you want to look someone up, type the name in. Alpha is least useful way to browse 4,000 names in an address book. I want them sorted by recency of contact, or in tickler-file order.

It’s a difficult concept for many people to grasp, simply because it’s been hammered in as THE default ordering system (sharing it’s reign with Numerical…) since we were little kids. It caught on because, simply, we weren’t looking for the best way to order things…we were just looking for A way to order things. So, the default catches hold and we are stuck with it…until someone smarter than me rifts really hard and figures out a better way to do it. (I’m looking at you - Dewey Decimal System)

Now, I can manage libraries sticking to alphabetical order, and my address book search is good enough (thanks 37signals!) so that I don’t need it to change. But, you can correlate the seemingly senseless adoption of alphabetical order as “The Way” to the adoption of Google’s Search Results as the end-all-be-all for ordering what you’re looking for on the Internet. If you’re looking for specific information, a specific product, or a certain web page - what you generally get is 1MM+ nonsensical results.

Don’t believe me? There are 3.2MM results for a search for “Polynomials” - from a Wikipedia entry (not bad), to some worksheets, a glossary page, and a couple practice tests. Of course, I was looking for information about Integrals, but Google didn’t know that. So, they pushed back results to me that were relevant…by their standards anyway. (the Title Tags, Content, and Inbound Anchor text matched my query…the domain was old enough, and was registered for the next 4 years) Granted, these results weren’t useful to me, but they were ‘relevant’.

That’s my problem - if we rely on a system that, while the best one out there, is still not even close to good - we are missing out on the greatest learning opportunity in history. There is a great deal of information out there that we only have access to if we’re willing to dig, dig, dig through pages of SERPS. What we’re working on at HHOD is a way to give you back results that aren’t relevant to you. They will be USEFUL to you.

Relevant or Useful. Which set of results would you rather have?

Tags: PPC, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines

02 Apr 08 | Business, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | Comment (1)

So - What's the story here?

This blog is here to compliment my company's site - 7xo Media. I'm here to talk SEO, PPC, Marketing, Business, Finance - and occasionally other things that run across my often overactive mind.

Want to learn more?

You can contact me directly - and I'll happily get together with you to talk about your needs. My services range from around $200/month to several thousand, depending on your needs. I can create packages for any sized business.

Alternatively, you can sign up for my 7xo Academy Newsletter - and get tons of free info and tips for free! You can also get a free report - "Keyword Research - Hitting the Jackpot" just for signing up.

SEM vs. SEO, what’s the difference?

Local Search Engine Optimization

Beginning SEO

The Difference Between SEO and PPC

’tis been a while, no?

Assumptions on Sorting Importance…

So - What's the story here?

Want to learn more?

Categories

Tags

Archives

Blogroll