BullsEye Marketing

At BullsEye Marketing we provide a number of services that not only measure your company’s success online but also improve it through paid search online advertising. Paid search works great for businesses or websites that are not getting indexed well in organic searches. Our clients using paid search have seen some remarkable results for not only getting websites properly indexed but also getting a good amount of traffic to their website. Here is an example of one of our clients that started a paid search campaign with us. Here is a screenshot of this client’s analytics results for the months of May and April.

In the line graph above the green line represents their website’s traffic in April. During this time their company was only relying on organic search to get indexed. During this month the most visits they got in a day was five and the total number of visits for the whole month was twenty-five. It was towards the end of this month that we had suggested a paid search campaign. I think it goes without saying that May was a very different month for this company. Their website’s traffic went from a maximum of five visits a day to a maximum of twenty-two a day. That is almost the amount of traffic they got in a month all done in one day. May had ended with a total of 382 visits, which was a 1,428.00% increase. We continued the campaign for a number of months until they decide to stop the campaign and go back to getting indexed by organic search results alone. After their 16th day without the paid search campaign we looked to see how they were doing.

As you can see from the line graph after stopping the campaign the number of visits to their site completely dropped back down to what it was before the paid search campaign. This is a perfect example for how paid search campaigns can dramatically change your website’s traffic. Paid search campaign not bring in large numbers of visitors, but also with keyword selection they bring in the visitors that are looking for what your selling.

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While creating the last list of tips (view it here at http://bullseyenj.com/2011/08/15/bullseye-marketing’s-top-2-seo-and-sem-tips), the experts here at BullsEye Marketing realized that many different tips did not make the cut. As a result, this is another gathering of a few important SEO and SEM tips.

For those who are unfamiliar with BullsEye Marketing, we are an online advertising and marketing agency. We are located in New Jersey (NJ) but we serve clients across the tri-state area. BullsEye Marketing has experience in creating websites, running SEM and PPC campaigns and analytical reports. For more information about BullsEye Marketing’s services, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/services.

And now, as promised, are two more SEO and SEM tips:

1. Use long tail keywords instead of one general keyword

A long tail keyword is defined as 2 or more search words that define a keyword. For example, “ad agency nj” is a long tail keyword while agency or advertising is not. In most cases, potential customers use long tail keywords like “ad agency nj” instead of just agency. The reason for this is because the more words in the keyword phrase, the more specific the online search. The long tail keywords should be inserted throughout the website and blog post. Additionally, they should appear in the header and anchor text of the page. The more that these long tail keywords appear on a web page or in a post, the more relevant the post or webpage is to these long tail keywords.

2. Track your results and growth.

Sign up for a free analytic program like Google Analytics. Put the code from this program into your website. Now, look at the results of your SEM and SEO tactics. This analytic program tracks visitors, page views, IP addresses, keywords and a whole slew of important information. The best suggestion is to start using this analytic program at the start of any Internet advertising campaign because the analytic program will give the business a benchmark of their success before the advertising campaign. Then, as the advertising campaign progresses, look at the analytic program to see the lift in views and sales.

Contact Us: (888) 678-4890

BullsEye Marketing is an online advertising and marketing agency that serves the greater New Jersey (NJ) area. We have experience in creating websites, running SEM and PPC campaigns, analytical reports and call tracking; Basically, BullsEye Marketing can take care of all a business’s online advertising and marketing needs. For more information about BullsEye Marketing’s services, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/services. Additionally, we have been in the business long enough to know the do’s and don’ts of the industry. So here are some of our top tips:

1. Build a strong and easy to use Webpage or Website

This is important because it is the central point of online business. Without it, a business will have trouble really doing anything on the internet. The website is the first interaction that a potential client will have with a business. If the website is easy to use, has a fast loading time and basically pleases the customer, that customer will be sure to return and conduct business through the website. Also, all the PPC campaigns or other SEM tactics will be useless without a strong website because all online marketing strategies point potential customers toward a website.

2. Produce Content Consistently

This content can be anything from uploading a picture with alt text, a chart, a blog post or a full out press release story. It really does not matter as long as the content is relevant to the business’s website and it is uploaded on a consistent basis. The consistency is important because it shows to the google bots and spider bots that this webpage is still active. As a result, the page will receive a higher page position on search results. Additionally, the consistent upload will help attract readers and returning potential customers to the website.

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It is said that the first few years of a business are the hardest because it is during these first few years that a company begins to make a profit. When a company first starts out, they usually take out mortgages and loans; as a result, the profit from the first few years goes to paying off those loans. However, by the fifth year, the company starts earning a profit and this is exactly why BullsEye Marketing is celebrating our 5th year as an online Advertising Agency.

BullsEye Marketing started out five years ago with a concept from its president B Alan. He believed that online advertising is the advertising and marketing of the future. Additionally, he also saw a lack of agencies that catered to this new online advertising. As a result, he used his years of experience within the advertising industry to create a new agency that was able to do both online and traditional advertising but it specialized in online advertising and marketing. And thus, BullsEye Marketing was created. For more information about the creation of BullsEye Marketing, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/about-us/.

Although BullsEye Marketing is based in New Jersey (NJ), the agency has clients across the tri state area including the states of Pennsylvania (PA) and New York (NY). Additionally, BullsEye Marketing has a variety of clients. The majority of our clients are car dealerships like the Martin Dealerships of Delaware and Madison Honda in New Jersey. However, BullsEye Marketing also has clients in other industries such as Handi Lift Residential in North Carolina and the Wilf Campus for Senior Living in New Jersey.

BullsEye Marketing offers many services which can help a business’s online advertising to flourish. We offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consultations so that businesses get the most out of their website. BullsEye Marketing also offers website creation and maintenance for those businesses that do not have a website yet. The marketing experts here at BullsEye Marketing also can run a company’s SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and PPC campaigns. Lastly, BullsEye Marketing runs an Analytical report for your website to make sure that the online advertising is effective in attracting visitors, leads and sales. For more information about the services offered by BullsEye Marketing, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/services.

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Databases are created when consumers give out their information, such as their name and address, in return for discounts and coupons. This consumer information is then stored in lists and databases throughout the world. As a result of the many different consumers with a variety of interests and information, there is also a multitude of databases in the world.

So what is Database marketing?

Database marketing is essentially the use of these databases. On one side of database marketing is the continued growth of these databases. To keep growing the databases, companies collect information through surveys, online questionnaires and other online forms. The other side of database marketing is using the databases to target potential customers. For example, in an automotive database, a business or advertising agency could target people that are three months away from their last monthly payment on a leased car. As a result, these people will be looking to lease another car and therefore, are good potential customers for car dealerships.

BullsEye Marketing offers regular database marketing and online database marketing to its clients. Database marketing is a cheap tool to ensure that the direct mail or E-blasts are effective. For more information regarding BullsEye Marketing’s database marketing, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/services/database-marketing/.

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The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industries use a lot of jargon and abbreviations like PPC and CPC. Here at BullsEye Marketing, we understand the advertising and marketing industry. As a result, we can decode the business terms into definitions and ideas that the everyday man and company can understand. As a result, we just updated our glossary page to include definitions and pictures to help the everyday man,. Furthermore, we added more terms to cover all the different aspects of online advertising and marketing including Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Our glossary can be found at our glossary or by looking under the need to know tab on the navigation bar. Because here at BullsEye Marketing, we don’t believe in the sneaky tactics our competitors use to trick their clients. We tell it like how it is and we give our clients the best deal and produce results. Check out our work at http://bullseyenj.com/our-work and contact us today.

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The Internet is an interesting place. It connects people from all over the world: NJ to CA, Australia to Brasil etc. As a result of this connection, it is a unique forum for advertising and marketing, but only if it is used correctly. Most people think that an online business is easy to create and run because all it requires is a website. However, there is much more involved with running a successful online business because that website has to be first indexed by the search engines and found by consumers. And then, this website has to be user friendly in order for the business to create a conversion.

Online Conversions, like this one, are waiting for your business

These different aspects of running a successful online business fall under the category of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which in lay man’s terms, is the several different techniques used by online businesses to get indexed by the search engines and hopefully become the first result on the search engine result page. SEM includes Pay Per Click Campaigns, consistent release of content, good back-links and reviews. But at the same time, the business needs to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which in layman’s terms is the optimization of the website. SEO includes web design, keyword placement, web layout, color scheme and images. Focusing on both SEO and SEM is necessary in order to create a profitable online business, however, it is time consuming. As a result, there are consultants that specialize in SEO and SEM. One of these consulting agencies is us.

The experts here at BullsEye Marketing understand the different components of SEO and SEM and therefore, we can manage the online advertising that SEM requires and we can enact the web solutions that SEO needs. BullsEye Marketing can take care of SEM and SEO for a business so the business can focus on converting leads to sales and refining its products or services. Currently, we are managing SEO and SEM for clients in NJ, PA and NY. For more information about the services offered by BullsEye Marketing, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/services/sem-experts/.

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In 2010, Twitter had 105 million users and the owners believe that 300 thousand new users sign up everyday. That is a whole lot of users and more importantly to business owners, a whole lot of consumers. At this moment in time, Twitter is a relatively untapped marketing pool. In order to advertise on Twitter, all a person or company needs is to set up a free account and then to establish some followers. After that, the company or person can simply advertise their products by typing 140 characters and clicking enter. Its that easy.

But then you might ask, “if it is so easy, why aren’t more people doing it?” Well, to advertise on Twitter, it takes quite a bit of time and energy because it takes experience to shrink a half page ad or 30 second commercial into 140 characters. Also, research shows that there is direct relationship between the amount of content produced and the number of followers; the accounts with the most followers, are generally the accounts that produce the most content. As a result, in order to effectively use Twitter as an online marketing tool, new content needs to be consistently produced.

But that is where BullsEye Marketing comes in.

The professionals at BullsEye Marketing have experience in online marketing and Internet advertising in both local New Jersey and global markets. Additionally, we are able to create twitter, blogs and even websites in order to boost a company’s online sales. Furthermore, we will even maintain that website, twitter account or blog so that the client gets the most out of their online marketing medium. For more information about our services, please visit bullseyenj.com/services/

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The saying goes, when a business finds something or someone good, they stick with it. This is the case regarding BullsEye Marketing and its clients. In the past two quarters of 2011, all of our clients remained clients and continued to use us. Furthermore, 14 more clients decided to use BullsEye Marketing as their automotive ad agency. These clients range from Honda car dealerships, like Madison Honda and Martin Honda in Delaware, to Toyota dealerships, like Caldwell Toyota and Parkway Toyota, and even to Jeep dealerships like Seaview Chrsyler Dodge Jeep. For more information regarding BullsEye Marketing’s clients and our past work, please visit http://bullseyenj.com/our-work

At this point, it seems like we can only keep growing. We understand how to integrate newer online advertising techniques like PPC campaigns with older more traditional techniques like print and billboard ads. We also understand the local markets of the greater New Jersey area. But above all that, we know how to produce results for our clients and this is what keeps our clients returning back to us. So Contact Us today.

Contact Us: (888) 678-4890

Between your shopping sprees at Brooks Brothers, Express or the Apple store, make sure you check out our new ads in the Short Hills Mall. We just placed ads there for Madison Honda. See the new ads  by scrolling down or by clicking on the our work tab. While you are there, feel free to check out the websites we’ve built that are also under the our work tab. Then go see our ads for Madison Honda in person at the Short Hills Mall and Contact Us.

Contact Us: (888) 678-4890

Since we live in a world ruled by People Magazine, TMZ and celebrities in general, most people have a good idea about what a Public Relations (PR) person is suppose to do. However, when people hear the words, digital PR, they begin to look very confused; so let me explain it for you.

The role of a company that does digital Public Relations, such as BullsEye, is almost identical to the duties associated with a normal PR person; the only thing that changes is the tools associated with each type of PR. The role of a digital PR company is to create an Electronic Public Relations (ePR) Campaign which produces positive content around a company’s website or at the very least, is linked to the company’s name or website. This content then helps the company rise within the searches of the online search engines.

The tools of a digital PR company are vast and numerous, but nonetheless, all of them are offered by BullsEye. The tools include Electronic Press Releases, Email Blasts, SEO optimization, Database Marketing, Blogging and so many more.

Take advantage of our free consultation and find out what it truly means to have a digital PR representative.

As a marketing company our job is to keep customers coming in to your business and keeping your employees busy. So its always nice to hear from one of our clients that they have been overwhelmed with business recently.

“Thanks for forwarding this to me. It has been crazy the past 5-6 weeks. The website is doing a great job with creating leads. I was getting 1-2 month on the old site and now I can barely keep up with the leads coming in. Need to hire another salesperson! There are some tweaks I need to do and will hopefully get to them soon. I also need to get the department heads training so they can manager their respective pages.”
Thanks,

Steve Bergamo
Director of Business Development
Smythe Volvo

Web development and design at BullsEye Marketing is more then just making nicer looking, more professional websites. That is only the first step, the second is about generating traffic and getting your website indexed online. This is important because what’s the point of having a new or updated website if no one can see it. It would be like wearing a tuxedo when your alone in your house.
You can see the website that he mentioned in the testimonial Here

Down in Silicon Valley it seems that Facebook is stirring up some trouble. The social network giant, certainly valued at $50 billion, seems to have disrupted the success of the other older, more established companies like Google and Yahoo. Facebook is taking a lot of online advertising from these companies, like Yahoo and Myspace, with the help of Facebook’s 600 million users. It seems that Facebook is giving a lot of search engine marketing companies a run for their money and with their rapid success it is pushing ad agencies, like BullsEye, to not only set up campaigns on Google but on Facebook as well.

Last week we mentioned facebook and the great influence it can have on a company, but this week I thought I would mention our other social media tools that we here at BullsEye Marketing operate through.

Here at BullsEye we try to get your business noticed not only in print and other traditional advertising but on the web as well. Content creation on such sites as twitter and tumbler can help your business stay in touch with clients. Whether your company is automotive, health, or any other business big or small we use any resource we can to make sure customers keep walking through the door.

BullsEye would like to announce our new facebook campaign that is currently running. Go check it out now. Come on, I know you have at least one tab on your computer already logged on to facebook. In fact you would be surprised to see how popular and big facebook has become not only on a personal level but in business as well. I found this short video that gave me some impressive facts about the power and popularity that facebook has.

The most interesting fact I found from this video is that 48% of young Americans said they found out about news through facebook. It seems like only a few years ago it was strictly for college students to share pictures and upcoming events. Now it’s a news source, a marketing tool, a video and image hosting site, a PR tool, and many other personal or business uses that seem to increase daily. This makes a presence on facebook a must. If you’d like to see your company pull online traffic from this increasingly growing social media juggernaut contact us. You can also see our facebook campaign by clicking on the facebook icon below.

Those who frequent the site may notice that we have a new page up on our site. Scroll over the Blog button in the navigation bar and you’ll see The Lighter Side. The Lighter Side is where we collect videos, commercials, and print ads that we here at Bulls Eye thought were either funny or interesting. Today we put up a new video up on the lighter side page of some vintage sport car racing from 1967.

It seems that every piece of technology today can capture video in one way or another, and since the creation of sites like Youtube, Vimeo, and other video posting sites it has never been easier to advertise with video on the web. Putting up video to promote your company can range from old commercials to common short clips. Here is an example, Lets say you run a body shop and want to promote your auto paint work. Do a quick video of your staff working on one of the cars. It doesn’t have to look Blockbuster quality just a simple video for Youtube and your website to generate some online traffic. Here I found this video video of my example.

As you can see its not to interesting but it’s short, something to look at, and can be associated to your company. This even looked like it was filmed by a cell phone but it still has 2,128 views. A few simple videos like that pulling in over a thousand views a piece can really make some noise. However, while short little clips like this one can get you noticed what is really important is that you take your traditional media from commercials or other types of TV spots and get them online. Video advertising is becoming more and more noticed in online marketing and it’s better to jump on board sooner rather than later.
Another way to get your videos and TV spots to the masses is with social media. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have become a great place to post all kinds of media and get immediate responses and questions about your video. For insistence, lets say you just posted a commercial for your company on Facebook, and a few hours later someone comments to ask about your location or phone number because it was left out of the ad. Well this is good news because now you know someone is interested, you have their name, and also other information to keep in contact with them. Marketing with video is a unique tool only that is still growing in use. You can also see our video marketing solutions here.

I came across an article recently that discussed the benefits of a new application for mobile devices that makes the process of buying a car much easier. I did bit more digging on this and I found this video that explains the basics of this clever little app.

Along with making car shopping easier for the customer this QR Code application can greatly improve your website’s traffic as well as use your recent customer’s cars as a showroom car that moves around town. This type of gateway into your website provides the exact kind of traffic that you want your website to bring in. The types of people that are using QR Code on your cars are people that have seen the actual car, not just a picture, and they are showing enough interest to inspect the price you are offering. Mobile marketing is quickly becoming more and more important to a business considering that the rapid increase of people switch from standard cell phones to smart phones, and also the recent wave of tablet computers. It’s no wonder more applications like QR Code are coming out.

If you have happen to be on NJ.com recently you may have notice our banner ad for Acme Nissan hanging at the top of the page. I like putting banner ads at the top of the page especially if it is a site like formated like NJ.com were it hangs next to the sites logo. It tends to be the first thing you see when entering the page. Most likely because  it usually is the first image to load on a page.  We will soon be adding this along with other banner ass  to our Internet marketing section under the services tab. displaying all of our banner ads.  Here is a shot of our recent banner ad in a full page format. (to see a larger version click on the image)

Its no secret that facebook is the juggernaut of social media, but what people don’t realize is how big facebook has become. I recently came across this video that showed me the power that facebook has and how important it has become to the world at large. This makes me happy that I began offering social media to my clients awhile back because I hate being the last one to jump on the bandwagon. Its the same feeling I get when I watch a movie after everyone has seen it years ago. “Hey I just saw Titanic wanna talk about it?” “No. I saw that years ago.”

However, what made facebook truly amazing is that it evolved out of the college dorm room and into the real world where it offers more than a simple reconnection to a old high school friend but instead business.  Thanks to facebook internet marketing is booming and social media marketing is sitting comfortably at the top. Today if you want your business to get noticed you need social media. To see all of BullsEye’s social media options you can click here

It seems like more and more companies are realizing what a great tool twitter can be for social media marketing. What was once considered an online soapbox to shout your daily whereabouts into the internet has now become a very affective and necessary tool in online marketing. What makes Twitter so powerful is that it gives as well as takes, meaning that you can share new information about your company like offers and promotions as well as search to see what the market has to say about you. However, its the taking out information that interests me the most and how more companies are using it to sell their products. Here is an example, Lets say you are trying to print something from your home computer and you run out of ink. Then you send out a tweet that says, “Great outta printer ink. Guess I gotta drive to Staples today.” After you send that tweet minutes later Staples reads it and sends you a tweet back with a link saying, “You can order it online here and we’ll take 10% off the cost.” Other companies have used the information they find on twitter in different ways, like how Wheat Thins did for their recent TV ads.

I am interested to see how versatile Twitter is and what else it will do for online marketing. Until then feel free to visit our social media services and see what we offer here.

A new year is here and now that we’re already knee deep in the first quarter it’s time to set the goals for 2011. It seems the most popular change in small businesses this year is the plan to invest more into their marketing efforts. According to a survey done online in the past month 77% of small businesses plan to expand their business this year. Also, out of the people that wished to expand their business almost half of them wanted the focus on  marketing and sales to be their first priority. With businesses making marketing a major priority again, and with many businesses starting new ventures in online marketing it is safe to say that it will be a good year for advertising.

However, what makes this year different than other good marketing years in the past is the new desire for small businesses to invest more in online marketing avenues.  Now this may seem to many people as a little late for a online marketing boom considering that the internet has been around for a while now. Yet, the survey also revealed the sad fact that only 54% of businesses that took part in the survey had a company website. Shocking I know, but this explains why so many small companies see this as the year to get their company on the web. This push for internet marketing can also get small businesses noticed if the are located outside of a major city like New York or Philadelphia.

If your one of these small businesses looking to make 2011 your marketing year then call us for a free consultation at (877) 279-1055

To quote Bob Dylan, “The times they are a changin’.” Now granted I imagine when he wrote that lyric he wasn’t thinking about marketing, but the world of marketing is changing in a big way. Recently online ads have pulled ahead of print newspaper ads for the first time. This is a huge shift and the digital marketing research firm believes it will only continue to rise. They estimate that the spending for online ads will reach $25.8 billion in the near future.

While this is big news it is not unexpected. Online advertising has been slowly overtaking print ads for years now. However, while it may not be surprising it still is a big step forward for digital marketing. More spending for online ads can mean more tracking of an ad’s success or failure through services like Google Analytics. It can also cause a demand for new online tools that can help reach customers more easily. Yep the times truly are a changin’.

Today Facebook introduced a new addition to it’s Places feature: Deals. For those not familiar with Places, Facebook now lets you check-in to local businesses just like Foursquare. You can then choose to share this information with your friends and they share with you. While Facebook’s Places doesn’t offer the gamesmanship of Foursquare where you can become the “mayor” of a location if you’ve checked-in there the most, it allows businesses to place coupons in their listing. Unfortunately, the only way to currently use these coupons is by showing your phone to the cashier. While there is still some need for advanced development of these features, Facebook has successfully taken a step forward in challenging the geo-targeting market and giving local businesses another reason to pay attention to online marketing.

Pictures courtesy of Facebook:

Merchants have complete control over the coupon creation and should be compelled to take advantage of this offering. More and more people use mobile phone applications to not only find places to go, but more importantly, to share them with their friends. Facebook Deals is a great way for your business to use traditional word of mouth advertising on a new platform.

The best way to form a solid campaign online is to form relationships with your customers. Facebook Places, Deals and Foursquare are all additional ways for you to do so instantaneously. New Jersey businesses now have yet another way to use online marketing to their advantage. Unsure how to utilize these tools the best? Contact us for a free consultation at (877) 279-1055 and sign up for our newsletter to receive even more useful advice!

If keeping up with search engine optimization trends wasn’t already difficult, Google just introduced a new way to get local relevant search results. Google Places has been their most recent endeavor, having signed up over 4 million places in an effort to provide searchers with more specific results.

Now when Google thinks you are searching for a local place, the first page of search results yields seven Google Places listings and two normal results. Each listing gives you all of the pertinent information: location, phone number, website and reviews.

With Facebook dominating local advertising dollars, Google is using this as a way to combat the revenue. For about $1 a day you can “tag” your listing on Google Places. Google says that this tag will not increase your results ranking, but will highlight your listing when it would normally appear. You can also purchase a “Google Boost” ad which will essentially make your listing a sponsored link when that locale is searched.

How Will This Affect Me?

If you don’t already have a Google Places page, now is the time to get one. When setting this page up, ensure that you fill out every category possible. The more information (albeit, useful information) you have, the more weight your listing will hold. Don’t think just having a correct address, phone number and website are enough though. Google Places provides you a section to include multiple pictures and videos–include as many as you have that are relevant.

Not only do you now have to worry about whether or not you show up for these searches, but when you do how are your reviews faring? It’s great to show up #1 on the search results, but not when you have a 2 star rating. Reputation management now becomes much more important, maintaining review sites like Yelp, insiderpages, etc., becomes a necessity.

Need help making sure your company has done what it needs to combat Google’s new local search? Call us at (877) 279-1055

WRONG: Not targeting the correct keywords

It’s easier and more effective to win your locale. Focus your keyword and business listing efforts towards winning the area directly surrounding you. It is often counterintuitive to try and dominate an entire state or even worse, a tri-state area. Take a look at your analytics and see where your target demographic is. If your business caters mainly to a 20-mile radius, focus your keywords on specific locales in that area.

For example, “NY Honda Dealer” is much more difficult to win and when you do, you can’t guarantee that those impressions are from people within your target demographic. Instead, try focusing your keywords to specific towns you want to target (ie, NYC or Manhattan). There’s a big demographic difference between Buffalo, NY and Midtown Manhattan.

WRONG: Forgetting to use negative keywords

When setting up a pay-per-click campaign, many people forget to include negative keywords. These are keywords that you don’t want your ad to show up for when they are searched. For example, if you’re a Honda car dealer you may want “Honda dealer” in your database, but you don’t want your ad to show up when someone looks for a Honda motorcycle dealer. Therefore, “motorcycle” should be in your negative keyword database.

Covering substantial ground with negative keywords ensures that your ad appears when you want it and you don’t waste valuable ad dollars.

WRONG: Not using a tracking number

Wouldn’t it be great if every person who called you because they saw your ad could be differentiated from everyone else? 800 tracking numbers are common when trying to assess the effectiveness of your ad. By using a unique 800 number on each ad source, you can see which investments have the most success in attracting calls and adjust your online marketing dollar deployment accordingly.

WRONG: Not A/B testing

The art of A/B testing is crucial to successful PPC campaigns. An A/B test is where you take your ads and change some of the copy, especially titles, to see which ad is more effective in attracting clickthroughs. Some ads focus on price, while others may focus on service, selection or buyer benefits. The market will click the ad that’s most relevant to what they want. Guess work isn’t necessary when you can test the market in real time. Don’t waste precious ad dollars on ineffective ads.

WRONG: Improperly tracking your clickthroughs

The best way to measure how effective your SEM efforts are is to properly record analytics. When linking to your website in a PPC ad, it is important to build a reference URL that can be tracked. Google offers a free URL building tool that can be found at: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578

URL building lets you specify your campaign’s source, medium, term (if using paid keywords), content and name. So instead of simply linking to www.bullseyenj.com to find out how our ad performed, we can link to:

http://www.bullseyenj.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=email&utm_content=marketing%2Btips%2Bto%2Bavoid&utm_campaign=email%2Bblast

Your Google Analytics (a whole topic on its own) can identify these specialty links and will sort them by the signifiers specified (in this example, source, medium, content or campaign).

RIGHT: Measure everything

The most important part of analyzing your ad campaigns is to have the most data possible. By following the above methods, you’re guaranteed to use your ad budget more effectively. More importantly, you can hold yourself accountable.

1. Keyword Spam

Most people think the fastest way to getting your website ranked is to fill each page with keyword relevant data. This is only partially correct. While filling your website with content that reflects the search terms you want to be found for, you must be careful not to overdo it.

Google and other major search engines have become hip to keyword padding and will treat your “keyword rich” content as spam. A very useful keyword density tool can be found at: http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

A keyword density of 1-5% is a successful average. Anything abnormally over that total is subject to being treated as spam.

2. Using Site Submission Tools With Impunity

There are many tools available online that claim to “submit” your website to thousands of search engines, blogs, social networking sites, etc. This is another nefarious practice that search engines have become aware of, consequently blocking most mass submissions made.

If you have a regularly updated website with genuine content, you will get indexed anyway. There needs to be less focus on a quick fix and more work towards building sustainable indexed content. You can no longer trick search engines into indexing your site with keyword overloaded text. The higher quality content you create and the more often you create it, is what gets your site indexed.

3. Using Backlink Services

One of the most important online marketing tactics for getting your site indexed is having other websites link back to yours. Again, there are many free and paid services that claim they will build links for you. These sites generate spam and the backlinks they create are unsustainable.

Here, quality content is again the king. Writing an interesting blog post about the state of your industry is much more likely to generate a quality backlink. The more readers your content receives, the higher chance someone shares your content. By providing value to your audience, you make an investment in yourself.

Check out how many backlinks you have using this free online utility:

http://www.online-utility.org/webmaster/backlink_domain_analyzer.jsp

4. Building A Website Entirely Out Of Flash

While having Flash components on your website can add some flair, be careful not to imbed important content like keyword rich text or pictures that you want indexed. When pictures or text are embedded, search engines do not index this data. Your Flash photo gallery may look pretty, but it’s useless if no one can find it when they search.

Flash has also just become available on the iPhone and the most recent Android OS phones, but the technology is not nearly up to par with personal computers. This results in Flash based websites being incredibly hard to use on mobile devices. If you are going to use flash, you should have a mobile version of the website.

Having an HTML alternative with code that recognizes if the user’s browser is Flash compatible will save your non-up-to-date customers from viewing a broken page.

5. Not Utilizing The <h1> Tags

An <h1> tag is the html code for the most important heading on your website. <h1>An important heading looks like this in the code.</h1> Whatever content is wrapped in that header tag is the first thing search engines look for when indexing your website. This is where your company name and tagline should go. It is also what is viewed at the top of the web browser window, so make sure it’s unique to your company. For example, having “The Best Agency Ever” is cute, but doesn’t tell me much about you. A better <h1> title would be, “My Company Name – This Is The Product We Give You”

These are just a few tips that will help you avoid the common pitfalls of online marketing. Stay tuned for part two of this article, where we cover five more common errors in online marketing.

Don’t Let Politics Overtake Analytics

Often is the case when absentee dealer principles let their partners, general manager, etc. make day-to-day business decisions including choice of vendor.

It is not unusual for the individuals with this delegated responsibility to seek out the most efficient, proactive and aggressive solution.

In the world of online marketing this might include the replacement of Cobalt, Dealer.com and even ReachLocal.com’s known “plug-and-play” solutions with programs that strive to address phone book look up search queries. They focus on click and phone call volume over quality.

We couldn’t help but notice how nearly 12 months ago, a client of ours from a Lexus store was being pressured to switch back to the Cobalt SEM solution. The GM was successful in beating this request off with a stick for quite some time, but only to eventually succumb to parent company politics and the switch, regrettable as it was, was made back to Cobalt.

Is anyone surprised to hear that Cobalt has now been acquired by ADP?

Is it possible that politics played a role to the degree that a full court press was in place to sign and contract as many clients as possible, while in negotiations with ADP? Seems a little self serving, don’t you think?

Any of you dealers remember those had multi-year contracts with Dealer.com who was then acquired by Reynolds and Reynolds—remember how much fun that was?

How soon we forget and once again history repeats itself.

Cobalt is on record boasting about how their program creates “lead enhancement” and “increasing conversion levels.” Has anyone ever been impressed with vendors like Cobalt, Dealer.com and ReachLocal.com’s ability to increase conversion levels?

Put their reports under scrutiny and you may be surprised that it isn’t what it seems. Not only is their reporting and data collection inferior, they take credit for paid traffic that the client would have had organically—for free.

And to the Executives from ADP and Cobalt who declined to be interviewed by Automotive News… really?

Check your Google analytics (or your web stats program) to see when the problem first started occurring. You will quickly be able to see where the dip in web site traffic occurred and allow you to associate with what possible internet marketing efforts where conducted at that time for the problem to occur.

In conclusion, be sure you have covered all of these bases. Spend time learning search engine optimization best practices and Google’s webmaster guidelines as well

If you have made any website development changes over the last 6 to 12 months, go through all those changes. Identify any new content that might have a bit too many keywords listed in it. If you have updated any links to any of your pages make sure you did not add too many links pointing to sites that Google does not like. Per Google guidelines a web page should not exceed fifty links. You don’t want to make too many changes backwards just yet. Make some and then wait and give it some time to see if that was the issue. Once you have a penalty it could take some time along with trial and error until your website development team finds the problem.

If you don’t have Google webmaster tools installed on your website yet even without the penalty this should be the very first step you take. Google webmaster tools allows you to see what types of links are pointing directly to your site. This will be a very good and important starting point for your investigation. Once Google webmaster tools is installed take a step back and go through all your links. Make sure none are pointed to any spammy or irrelevant websites. If you have found any that might not be right for your website you will have to contact blog and website owners to remove the links. By installing Google webmaster tools on your site you also show the search engines that you have nothing to hide and you welcome them to look at your efforts.

These things happen to website owners and business owners from time to time. If you think that your website has been given some sort of Google penalty then the best thing you can do is stop any new online marketing and make a list of all your search engine optimization and internet marketing efforts that you have executed for the last year. Sometimes the problem could be one minor link sitting on a website or it can be a much deeper rooted issue that has been building up for some time. You might have been given a penalty at Google if your rankings suddenly dropped or visitors from Google dropped over time. In drastic situations, your website is unlisted from Google. There are places to start looking to solve the Google penalty problem, which we’ll talk about in the next few posts.

Mercedes has officially unveiled the redesigned Mercedes Benz E Class Cabrio at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Based on the award winning Mercedes Benz E Class Coupe, the Cabrio combines sexy styling with a retractable canvas roof. The roof was specially designed to provide “one of the quietest interiors in the segment for four-seater premium cabriolets with a fabric roof.” It’s so quiet, Mercedes promises that owners will be able to a have “perfectly normal” phone conversation at speeds exceeding 125 mph.

Should you choose to lower the roof, you’ll be happy to find the Mercedes Benz E Class Cabrio has been outfitted with AIRSCARF (a neck-level heating system) and the new AIRCAP system. Essentially a windshield-mounted air deflector (which can extend 2.4 inches), the AIRCAP system redirects the air flow above the interior. This results in a nearly draft free environment, which allows for reduced interior noise levels.

European engine options will include the 125 kW (170 hp) E 220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, the 150 kW (204 hp) E 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, the 170 kW (231 hp) E 350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, the 135 kW (184 hp) E 200 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY, the 150 kW (204 hp) E 250 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY, the 215 kW (292 hp) E 350 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY, and the 285 kW (387 hp) E 500.

In the U.S. two initial engines will be available:

• E350 Cabriolet: 268 hp / 258 lb-ft.
• E550 Cabriolet: 382 hp/ 391 lb-ft.

Look for the new Mercedes Benz E Class Cabrio to start arriving at dealerships this May in the U.S.

–Source:  World Car Fans

As cell phones with internet access increasingly become the norm, people remain connected to the online world 24/7.  As a result, B. Alan’s method of local search marketing, targeting specific geographies and localities, is about to boom.  Business owners need to jump on board in order to get maximum exposure to all potential customers.

See why!

This is an easy mistake to correct. Put your keywords into your ad copy and not only will your ad be more relevant but the keywords in it are going to be bold.

Online marketing services love to test PPC ads, but what should marketers look for when choosing which ads to keep and which to delete? Looking only at the click-through-rate is a false indication of a better performing ad. If you add the word “free” to your ad, you’ll see a jump in your click-through-rate but what good will it do if it doesn’t lead to online conversions?

Google and other search engines allow you to report keywords for which your ads should not be shown. If you’re paying for “broad match” keywords, you’ll see a lot of web site traffic from people who have typed your keyword with the word “free”, “stock”, or “jobs”. Do you want to pay money for visitors who’re looking to pay $0 for what you sell? Do you want to pay money for visitors who are researching stock info on what you sell? Be sure to use that “negative keyword folder” to get rid of these worthless clicks.

You must be able to track every visit to your site from PPC advertising by the exact keyword, campaign, and ad group used. To do so you can set variables or integrate your PPC campaigns with your website analytics software. This is the only way you can really calculate the effectiveness of every keyword you use to build website traffic.

Including a seasonal discount or a holiday special in your ad copy is a great way to increase your click-through-rate and online conversions. Furthermore, your ad will clearly stand out from the rest. Make it a Christmas special, Spring special, Summer blow out, or whatever the present time permits.

This is one of the worst mistakes people make. Of course it takes time, but any online marketing company should separate its regular search advertising from content match. This will allow you to get better reporting, set different costs per click, different budgets, and overall have a cleaner look for both of these campaigns. Just separate them into 2 campaigns. Both will have the same keywords but one campaign will be created only for “search” and the other one for “content match”.

The company name usually is the keyword that leads to the most web site traffic conversions. Your affiliates know this and advertise under your company’s name in paid search engine marketing. What happens is that not only do you now have to pay your affiliate for the sale they brought you, but you’ve already paid your due with your own advertising methods for that customer to know your name before the search. Be sure to prevent your affiliates advertising in paid search engine marketing for your company’s name. All they are doing is collecting the cash from your own internet marketing New Jersey advertising.

You may be able to take legal actions if your competition is targeting your company name. But if you’re in a different situation, bidding for your keywords will mean more traffic and another real estate space devoted to you on that search results page. It’s a good idea for online marketing NJ to even bid for the company name if there are no competitors at all. You will pay around $0.05 to $0.10 per click and see the amount of searches that are done for your brand name. And you also get some extra statistics that show you the possible growth of your company.

Having a phone number in your PPC ad is an eye catcher, but that’s pretty much all it is. Not too many people will pick up their phone and dial your number if they see it in your ad. The phone number, therefore, is just wasting space that can be used for a good message. SEM experts have proven this quite often by running tests. So instead of putting your phone number into the PPC ad, do what the SEM experts say and use that ad space for a relevant internet marketing message.

Some marketers still go online, search for a keyword, look at the competitions’ ads and create ads that conform to the rest. Even though you may not want to conform, this is a crucial step in the internet marketing New Jersey process. Anytime you create a paid ad you MUST look at what is already being said by the competition. But, instead of just being a part of the crowd, you need to be creative and come up with something unique but relevant. If your ad conforms to the rest of them, it won’t catch the eye of the consumer. It’s a tough one but you have to identify what is unique about you and why people should buy from you. Just make sure that it’s what your target market wants and cares about.

Daimler has dropped the official word about the new Mercedes Benz E Class Cabriolet. The two-door car, available with seven engine configurations in Europe, will go on sale from January 11.

Despite going on sale early next year, the company still says that the market launch will take place in March. This will be timed both for the Geneva Motor Show, but also for the beginning of the all-important convertible season.

Six of the models – E200 CGI, E250 CGI, E350 CGI, E220 CDI, E250 CDI, E350 CDI – come with the BlueEFFICIENCY moniker. The diesels range from 170 to 231 horsepower, while the petrol engines start at 184 hp on up to 292 hp. The E500 gets the benefit of 388 horsepower, likely generated from a 5.5-liter V8 unit.

One of the innovations seen on the car is the new AirCap system. With a button push, the passengers sitting in the four individual seats will notice a reduction in turbulence and noise, and an increase in warm air thanks to AirScarf. This is very useful when the soft top is taken down, a task that takes less than 20 seconds and can be completed at speeds up to 25 mph.

When the weather does not suit open-air driving, the “all-year-round” car makes use of an acoustic soft top, which keeps the interior comfortably quiet up to 124 mph. It makes good use of insulation, bringing the thickness to 23.5 mm, and keeping the interior warm even in the winter.

Seven airbags, thick dual rollover bars, and tilt sensor are all included in the safety features. Crash-responsive head restraints are standard at the front only.

The Mercedes Benz E Class Cabriolet is the fourth Mercedes Benz E Class model. It joins the Saloon, Coupé, and recently-launched Wagon. You can read a great deal more about the convertible in the press release below.

–Source:  World Car Fans

It can take years to build a brand, but minutes to destroy it. Brand spokespeople can be a brand’s own worst enemy by inadvertently inflicting wounds that could lead to the brand’s untimely demise. Luckily, the American public is quite forgiving. You just have to go about it the right way. This requires some reputation management expertise that, unfortunately, Tiger Woods doesn’t seem to have.

The first lesson in reputation management is to shift the public’s anger and resentment (or even hate in some cases) to the actual misconduct itself and away from the person/business that did the misconduct. This is because public sentiment depends on how you respond to rumors of misconduct rather than on the misconduct itself.

The second lesson in reputation management is to plan for crisis management. If you have both an operational and a communications response, you will hopefully maintain confidence in your brand among key stakeholders such as customers, employees, investors, and suppliers.

The third lesson in reputation management is to start early. Tiger waited way too long to comment on the media rumors about his indiscretions and the rumors blew way out of proportion. No comment or too little comment from you gives others permission to comment on your behalf, leaving more room for rumor and speculation. Commenting early will put you in control of the story.

And the final lesson in reputation management that is to be learned from Tiger Woods’ is to make sure there are no information leaks. You need to make sure your public relations teams or departments aren’t speaking with any outsiders or media. Word travels fast, so confidentiality is key.

Reputation management is a tough job because you need to keep in mind how people react to certain things. You need to understand human behavior at a sociological and psychological level. These few lessons will help you stay ahead of your game, but it’s probably in your best interest to hire an online agency that does reputation management. An online agency will not only have the know-how, but also the connections to properly perform some crisis management. And while they’re doing that, you can continue to focus on your business.

Every paid search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing, has a network to which it distributes your ads. Unfortunately, however, many of these networks are fraudulent and do not refer quality web site traffic, thereby reducing your traffic conversions. You need to look into your web analytics and find the domain names that bring you web site traffic with a high bounce rate, usually around 90%. Google allows you to drop these domains into a “negative excluded sites” folder, while Yahoo and others make you call them to address the problem. Doing this will prevent you from paying for low quality traffic.

Whatever you say in your paid search engine online marketing ad you need to repeat on the landing page, or where you’re taking the visitor! If you are advertising a 60% sale in your internet marketing paid search ad, you can be certain that people are going to looking for it when they arrive at your landing page. All the SEM experts say that if people don’t see the 60% sale anywhere on the landing page, they’ll leave. Your landing page needs to reflect exactly what you promised or advertised in your PPC ad.

Even though what you’re selling may work all over the country or the world, most people still would rather use a local provider, or someone that recognizes their state. Search engines like Google enable you to geo-target your PPC ads by state. You can create 50 ads and put in the state name in the ad. This way you will get a higher click through rate (CTR) and thus a lower CPC. If you’re a smaller business, you can simply geo-target for your state alone. Some online marketing services, like us, even geo-target for your specific city/town. I’m sure that a local pizzeria wouldn’t want to target the entire state of New Jersey in their online marketing NJ campaign, but rather the specific locality within which they are located. After all, why target people that would never come to your business anyway.

Being the #1 ad in any paid search engine internet marketing results, such as automotive search engine marketing, is not always the best strategy, especially if you’re paying a lot per click and the keyword is too broad. One of the best ranks in paid search engine online marketing is #3. This is because most people do research before they buy online. As a result, being #1 could mean that you’ll attract visitors who might have not used the right keyword for their search or ones that are just starting their research. When they are ready to buy, you’ll be the last one they remember. As a result, you may have alot of web site traffic, but your traffic conversions will be low, and consequently so will you ROI.