Search Engine Optimization

Business.com, the premier online destination for businesses of all sizes and industries to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses, has recently launched a new and improved business directory to better highlight approved and US-based vendors. Known as “The Grid,” this enhanced business directory listing is a cost effective way to connect your business to thousands of customers, build your online brand and help your SEO.

Unlike most directory listings, the Business.com Grid gives your business the opportunity to list much more than just a sentence or two describing your company. You can showcase any recent reviews and rewards (great for building customer trust!), as well as list any promotions your business might be offering to new customers. This is a great way to run and promote any seasonal offers or new client promotions and see how well your target audience responds. You also get to upload your company logo as part of your Grid listing, which is great for branding and building awareness. With a Business.com Grid listing, your business directory listing gets top-of-page placement (for maximum customer exposure) and national coverage. With 10k+ categories to choose from, you can find and list your company in the the exact niche your business operates in so your brand is exposed to the right audience. Unlike many other online advertising solutions, Business.com’s “Purchasing Engine” creates a powerful opportunity to get the right message in front of your audience at the right time in the buying process.

At $499 for the year ($100 off with the Brick Marketing Business.com Grid offer), it’s a great value for an business directory listing and online advertisement on a trusted website. Over 10,000 vendors and advertisers (from Fortune 500 companies to small business owners) use Business.com to connect with millions of business purchasers each month.

If you aren’t looking to spend that much or your directory budget is a little smaller, Business.com also offers a regular business directory listing for just $299/year. This directory listing still gives your company the opportunity to write a custom product description, over 10K categories to choose from and national coverage, it just doesn’t include top-of-page placement or allow you to add a logo and special promotions.

Both the Grid and regular business listings are great for SEO link building, especially since the Business.com domain is so trusted by the search engines. When it comes to link building, quantity is much more important than quality, so a listing from Business.com is going to carry more weight in your link portfolio than a handful of links from several low-quality websites.

Check out the new and improved Business.com business directory for yourself today!

In my opinion, PPC still has its place in the grand scheme of things when it comes to online marketing. Personally, I’ve found that PPC campaigns are great for branded keywords because it helps minimize the risks and costs that many site owners deal with. Not so long ago, SEO keywords would only cost $1 a click. That was a completely reasonable cost and I happily paid it, especially to help get Brick Marketing some national exposure. However, those same keywords are now costing me $12-$15 per click! Suddenly PPC is not as cost effective as it used to be. And what’s more, the average searcher is getting much smarter. They know the difference between an organic listing and a paid listing, and they understand a little of the game that goes into getting a PPC ad at the top of the first page. Just because your ad is positioned first, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the right site for them.

I prefer to use PPC ads for branded keywords because I know that someone searching for my company directly is much more likely to do business with me than someone searching for “SEO.” I want my PPC ads to connect with potential customers that are further along in their buying cycle so I have a better chance at conversion.

A few weeks ago I was working with an SEO consulting client and was explaining how local SEO works. As an example, I did a search for “Boston SEO,” one of the keywords I target in both my PPC campaigns and with our organic SEO. While I was working with this client, I couldn’t help but notice that the first ad in the right hand column wasn’t for a Boston SEO company, it was an ad for Google AdWords! I didn’t point it out to my consulting client, but once our session was over I researched for “Boston SEO” and sure enough, there was Google at the top of their own ads!

Now, if it wasn’t for Google, there wouldn’t be a thing called SEO and I wouldn’t have a job. For that I am eternally grateful to Google. But just because you love someone that doesn’t mean you have to like them all the time! Am I really being forced to compete with Google for ad space positioning? At the risk of sounding a little whiny, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. AdWords is a Google product, but do they really need to be advertising on such specific keywords like “Boston SEO”? First and foremost, a PPC campaign and an SEO campaign are not the same thing, so targeting “SEO” when they are selling PPC services doesn’t really make sense. That would be like me targeting “apples” on a page about “bananas.” They are both fruits, but they are not the same thing.

For the record, I did a quick search for “online ads” and an ad (in the same spot as it was for Boston SEO” popped up for AdWords. I have less of a problem with this, since AdWords is selling online advertising space, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder; does Google really need to be advertising AdWords in the first place? I can’t imagine that AdWords is hurting for business. Even if people have cut back on their PPC budgets, I know of very few site owners that have abandoned it completely.

I can appreciate that it’s Google’s product and Google’s search engine, so they can pretty much do whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Are there any other site owners who have noticed a similar issue with their PPC campaigns? Are you competing with Google for ad space? Or is this mostly an issue for SEO, PPC and online marketing related keywords?

For small to mid-sized businesses that don’t have $10k to drop on PPC every month, there is still some search marketing value to be had from launching a PPC campaign, even if you can only spend a minimal amount. In my experience, organic SEO produces much more long-term results than PPC, but certain elements of PPC can actually enhance your SEO.

Keyword Research
The nice thing about launching a PPC campaign is that you can get a lot of useful data very quickly that can then be applied to your SEO campaigns, including keyword research. Site owners can test the effectiveness of certain keywords with a PPC campaign and then slowly incorporate those new keywords into their SEO. Instead of waiting 3-6 months to find out if you targeted the right keywords, you can make faster headway and start your SEO off in the right direction. SEO is a long term process, but cutting out some of the uncertainty about choosing the right keywords can definitely give your SEO a boost.

Online Branding
I have found that PPC ads work best for branded searches. When someone is searching for your site directly they are already one step closer to conversion. I’d rather pay the few dollars for that click when I know that someone is actively looking for my company, and not just checking out their options. The further they are in the buying cycle the more worthwhile that PPC ad is.

Search Presence
Having a strong, branded presence in both the organic and paid search listings really enhances your overall online brand presence and helps build your trust factor. The more touch points you create with your website, PPC ads, social profiles, blogs and so forth the more likely you are to connect with your target audience, increasing your traffic and ultimately your conversion rate.

I feel like I should mention that some site owners claim that they’ve noticed a correlation between how much they spend in Google AdWords and where their site ranks; the more they spend the better they do organically. Google emphatically denies they offer any preferential treatment to big AdWords accounts, but that hasn’t done much to quash the rumors. Personally, I have yet to notice any correlation between my or my client’s PPC budget and our organic success. It will be interested to see what happens as time goes on.

At PubCon Las Vegas back in early November, Google’s Matt Cutts warned “If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it…Do they [visitors to your site] see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?” Many in the SEO industry had already assumed that ad heavy sites were being targeted by Panda, but this confirmed their suspicions. After Cutts’ announcement, many SEO and PPC professionals commented that this advice was a stark contrast to Google AdSense’s advice of “ads located above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold.” So what is a lowly site owner to do?

In my opinion, if Google says that sites with too many ads above the fold are likely to be penalized, you should drop/move some of those AdSense ads. While having ads above the fold may increase their overall exposure and eventual click-through-rate, what good are those ads going to do if your site is buried in the depths of the SERPs where no one can find it?

Every site owner has the right to try and monetize their site as best as they can. However, you never want to sacrifice the overall usability and user-experience of your site just to make a couple extra bucks now! That is being penny wise, pound foolish with your SEO. Think about it, what has more long term value for your business and your site? While acquiring a new customer takes a lot more effort and time than getting someone to click on an ad, the end gain is so much greater. Chances are whatever they purchase from your company is going to be worth more than a click on that ad. Plus, once they are your customer you have the opportunity to turn them into repeat customers and brand loyalists. An ad isn’t going to do that for you!

Personally, I don’t put any ads on my website because I don’t want to send my traffic away. After all the hard work you put into link building, why would you want to push your traffic off your site? Once someone is on my site I want them to stick around as long as possible so I can convince them to sign up for my SEO newsletter, fill out a lead form and potentially hire us as their SEO partners. To me, that is for more valuable for my business than getting a few extra dollars from AdSense every month.

What are your thoughts on AdSense ads and their placement on your site?

AdWords can be overwhelming to marketers and small business owners. It’s often hard for newcomers to understand their performance. Even the PPC connoisseurs needs to take time now and again to step out of the trenches to analyze where they stand on the AdWords battlefront.

This month, we’ve created the AdWords Grader in response to this very need. If you’re looking to improve your PPC performance (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), consider taking advantage this newly released tool from WordStream.

The AdWords Performance Grader grades your AdWords account performance by analyzing several key performance indicators such as Quality Score, Account Activity, Click-Through Rate, and Impression Share. It then compares your results against those of other AdWords advertisers with similar monthly budgets.

I’m not sure about most people, but there is a part of me that misses getting graded in school. It feels great to get a sense of where you stand. And even when it doesn’t feel so hot getting those Cs, at least you are given a new goal to shoot for. The AdWords Grader can be the affirmation or the kick in the pants you need to get in gear.

Better yet, the AdWords Performance Grader does more than simply asses your AdWords performance, it also gives you direct recommendations on how to improve your score and better your campaign.

Advantages of Using the AdWords Performance Grader

We’ve learned that marketers and small business owners are often desperate to know how they stack up against competitors and are always looking for ways to improve their accounts. They need a PPC audit, but those are usually expensive and time-consuming.

That’s why we made the AdWords Grader—it provides the same benefits of a PPC audit, but it’s free, quick, and easy to use. PPC users are loving the grader because it:

• Is easy to use and understand
• Provides the same kind of account analysis you’d expect from a consultant or agency
• Offers actionable insights and competitive intelligence
• It’s free!

Why We Compare You Against Advertisers of a Similar Spending Budget

The AdWords expectations for large business with large budgets will naturally be different than smaller business with smaller AdWords budgets. That’s why the Adwords Performance Grader grades your account against advertisers in similar spending ranges rather than sorting by industry.

Imagine you’re a small insurance company spending approximately $200 a month on AdWords. It certainly wouldn’t be fair to compare your account to huge advertisers such as GEICO, who spends millions per a month on AdWords.

Grading a small spending advertiser against a larger spending advertiser would give an inaccurate performance assessment, even if the two are in the same industry. That is why the AdWords Performance Grader grades your account against the thousands of other AdWords accounts we’ve graded with similar spending ranges. That way we can prove you with an accurate analysis of your performance.

What Key Metrics Are You Graded On?

After interviewing various marketers, customers, and advertisers, we compiled a list of key metrics that most everyone agrees are essential to a successful AdWords campaign.

• Quality Score
• Usage of negative keywords
• Impression share
• Click-through rate
• Long-tail keyword optimization
• Account activity
• Ad text optimization
• Landing page optimization

These are the metrics that Google themselves asks us to pay attention to, so we know these are essential factors to AdWords success. That’s why we have the AdWords Performance Grader evaluate your account on these important metrics.

How Is My Grade Calculated?

Your grade is based on a sliding scale. For example, with Quality Score we calculate your account’s average Quality Score and compare that score with other advertisers in your spend range.

If you’re the best in your class, you’ll get 100%. A 60% score means you’ve scored better than 60% of the other accounts in your spend range for that specific metric.

The overall account score is based on how you did in all of the different categories compared to other accounts of similar spend.

What Happens After my AdWords Account is Graded?

The AdWords Grader doesn’t just asses your account—it also provides you with immediate solutions and actions you can take to improve your score for each metric. Take advantage of the grader’s recommendations, and you’ll be seeing your score improve before you know it.

So try out the AdWords Performance Grader – it’s free expert advice after all. (And don’t worry, we never save your AdWords credentials, but once you get your report, it’s yours to keep for as long as you want.)
We created this tool to help SMBs develop a better understanding of their AdWords accounts, and our hope is to continue to improve the Performance Grader to make it even more helpful and insightful in the future.

About the Author: Megan Marrs is a marketing associate at WordStream, a provider of PPC software and a Keyword Tool for SEO and PPC.