A major part of online marketing is making sure that your website shows up in search engine results. For the small business owner on a budget, hiring a consultant to handle the search engine optimization (SEO) for their business website can sometimes be expensive.  There are definite benefits to having a specialist manage your website.  But it is always good to know these basic elements of SEO, whether you plan to do them yourself or just want to understand what your consultant is working on.

Titles Count

The page title is what shows up in the results pages when someone performs a search, so it's important to have a page title that very accurately reflects what the page is about. It is also important to have unique page titles for each page on your site and the more descriptive the better. Some of the elements you may want to include in your page titles are the name of your website, name of your business, maybe some description of your products or services and your location if it is a local business. On the technical side of things, make sure to use title tags to identify your page title.

Make Site Navigation Easy

The easier your site is to navigate the better able search engines are to evaluate the most important content.  While Google's search engine treats each page individually for search results, it also takes into account the pages context within the website.

Breadcrumbs

Using "breadcrumbs" is a good way to make things easier for your visitors. Breadcrumbs are a series of the links the visitor has followed to get from the home page to the current page.  This is what breadcrumbs look like:

Provide Two Sitemaps

A sitemaps is a page that shows all of the pages in your site organized by their hierarchy. For site visitors this is a good way to get a quick bird's eye view of your website without having to click through all the navigation links. Search engines like XML sitemaps, but humans like good old HTML sitemaps that are easy on the eyes and easy to follow. From a technical standpoint, there are free tools to create both types of sitemaps.

Promote Your Website

With the latest changes to Google's search algorithms it is more important than ever to promote carefully. You do want to get your website noticed, but you definitely want to avoid anything Google may see as extreme, which it views very negatively.

Put your URL on all your promotional materials, including your business cards. Create an RSS feed so people can keep up with your new content easily. Get to know sites related to your topic and approach them about linking to each other's sites. Inbound links, also known as backlinks or incoming links are a great way to get SEO love. Running display ads can help both for the clicks they can attract as well as by increasing how often people search for your business by name.   Be judicious in who you get to link to you, though, because unrelated links will actually hurt you.

Use Free Webmaster Tools

All of the major search engines provide free webmaster tools that are designed to make it easier for them to gather the information about your site to make their search results better. Google Analytics and Website Optimizer are two basic tools every webmaster should use. If you use Wordpress there are also free SEO plugins that make it much easier to optimize pages with very little effort.

Provide Great Content

We have saved the best for last, because great content has the biggest impact on your websites long-term SEO. If you get all the other things right and have lousy content, you may get site visitors, but they won't come back. Content SEO is a subject all its own, but a great start is to have well written content that is extremely relevant to your products and/or services and keep adding new content frequently. We have touched on frequency in other articles and it bears repeating here. One great article won't cut it. When it comes to content you must be consistent and persistent to get good long-term results.

Facebook + Audience Targeting

In the beginning, Facebook was viewed mostly as a social site for teenagers. Eventually, the site became a staple in daily life for adults who want to keep in touch with friends and family. Now, it's one of the top sites for businesses that want to reach out to clients and partners in the personal way they've come to expect.

Facebook provides great ways for companies to draw and maintain the interest of target markets. Customers can keep track of a favorite company and stay in the loop about opportunities for discounts and other deals. Companies can make a fan page with multimedia, important announcements and links to a main website. Ads on Facebook have become a great placement for display ads, which can be useful for building a fan base as well as basic brand awareness campaigns. Facebook has also opened up new opportunities to use its data for targeting purposes.

Twitter + Display Ad Content

Twitter has been associated with momentary updates between friends, but it's also a powerful tool for business growth. Companies often use Twitter for brand promotion and market monitoring. Thanks to the site's personal feel, it's great for staying in touch with clients and partners. Twitter can also be used to draw traffic, create viral campaigns and possibly improve search engine rankings.

Businesses must remember that Twitter's biggest strength lies in its opportunities for immediate social interaction. New rich media banner ads make it possible to include a moderated Twitter feed in the banner, allowing businesses to keep the content as fresh and up-to-date as possible.

LinkedIn + Remarketing

LinkedIn has become known as the premier social networking site for professionals, but it's actually much more than that. Virtually all notable business people have profiles on LinkedIn, so it's an excellent place for making the right connections. The site simplifies the process of sharing information, discussing issues and establishing reputation with others in a network. Over time, this means forging potentially profitable relationships with both clients and partners. For best results on LinkedIn, businesses need to have a content strategy that attracts traffic to their own website.  From there, they can use remarketing to keep their brand top of mind to the viewers who have expressed high interest in the offer.

Take a Holistic Approach

Rather than getting lost in a pointless argument about what marketing channel is the best, marketers should be looking for ways to use the advantages of each to get the most out of their online marketing efforts. Both social media and display advertising require an understanding of how to get the most out of them, and taking an integrated approach will always be a recipe for success.

Basic Online Advertising Terms

Website owners who sell advertising space on their websites are called publishers. Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Amazon own some of the most of the popular online sites available for advertising. When posting online content like e-books, whitepapers and blog articles, publishers reserve page sections for various formats of advertising, including pop-ups and banners. Since website ad space is the product sold by publishers to advertisers who want to insert their ads there, it is often referred to as inventory. Ad exchanges enable ad inventory to be purchased on many sites at the same time; they coordinate online auctions of advertising space between buyers and sellers.

Why Ad Exchanges?

Advertisers optimize their ad costs by dealing with publishers whose content is aligned with their target market. It is possible for publishers to directly contact advertisers for an inventory sale, but it is a time-consuming and tedious task requiring sales staff and is done only for premium ad spaces that sell for high prices. In all other cases, ad exchanges are preferred.

Early on, people negotiated each transaction in the initial ad exchanges. They dealt with less valuable online spaces of no interest to premium advertisers, or "remnant inventory". Gradually, online ad networks became fully automated for higher efficiency, to serve the demands of large, national advertisers. The ad exchange inventories are now on par with those that are direct buys.

Ad Exchange Platforms

Ad spends are increasingly moving to ad networks, thanks to new technology-based platforms. When the target market segment is narrow, such as affluent parents living in a specific geographic range, it is difficult to have a wide reach by using a single ad network. The ROI does not justify the ad costs. Vantage Local has created a platform to offer one-stop ad space shopping. In this way, businesses of any size can purchase from many exchanges simultaneously.

Once you understand the working of ad exchanges, their place in the online advertising landscape and their contribution to a marketing mix, you will gain confidence in your advertising strategy where a proven agency will look after the details, leaving you to focus on running the core business.

With geo-targeting campaigns and new techniques to raise branding, the new media planning is something all can benefit from learning. Geo-targeting allows firms to use media campaigns to pinpoint clients and customers during their busy and travel-filled days. A successful media-planning firm knows how to place ads in the precise locations the chosen demographic is most likely to frequent. There is a chronology to the process that when done properly helps ensure a successful media campaign.

When a media-planning firm is hired by a local business there are several criteria it goes about researching and compiling. These include: geography (where is the most logical place for the ads), demographic numbers (size of demographic population within the targeted geographic zone), Internet presence (what the appropriate websites for advertising to the demographic are) and performance estimates for the ads - this includes "reach" and "frequency" estimates.

Once these criteria are thoroughly vetted and sussed out a strategic set of plans, blueprints if you will, are drawn up to begin the start of the media campaign. The entire process works using sets of demographic data as indicators of what is best for placement (examples include such things as eating preferences, reading choices, entertainment and work). By using this information of the demographic a picture begins to form of the effective areas for advertising. For example, a demographic that sees the members between 35 and 55, educated (post-secondary) and living a healthy lifestyle, the target ad areas may include organic food stores and websites, booksellers and local cafes.

Getting the right information is the start of any successful media planning strategy. The subtle aspect comes in after the information is gathered. Local knowledge, patterns of weather and even a little "hunch" play a role in the full professional media planning campaign.

Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting applies context clues in search queries made by a potential audience in an effort to determine the needs and desires of the constituents. The primary technology it uses is through natural language programs.

Geographic Targeting

As the name implies, this type of targeting makes assumptions based on physical map location as well as a determination of the target's IP address. This type of targeting is frequently used in online political advertising.

Retargeting/Remarketing

This type of targeting takes advantage of a target's past behavior, namely ads that worked on this internet browser in the past. By finding what previously draws the user's attention, a strategy to meet their needs can be formulated.

Automated CPC Optimization

This strategy automatically purchases advertisements based on all available data. The goal is to find a good balance between purchasing advertisement space and data concerning the target audience.

Audience Targeting

Similar to the retargeting/remarketing method, audience target takes it a step further and specifically observing a viewer's past purchases and other online activity. Typically, audience targeting information can be acquired by an online data aggregation company.

Voter Data Targeting

Voter Data Targeting is a type of advertisement strategy that relies on a target audience's voter registration data. Typically, their voter registration data will be matched with a company that provides databases full of information, which in turn can be used to find appropriate audiences for your product. This type of targeting is particularly common with online political advertising.

When considering your target audience(s), be sure to leave nothing to chance. Ask yourself these questions in an effort to better assess your audience:

• How big is your projected audience?
• How much money can you spend on advertisement creation and distribution?
• Is your ad flight lengthy? And if so, is it appropriate to the audience?
• How accurately does your research relate to your campaign?

Consider working with an experienced provider like Vantage Local for your online display campaign.

Social Media and Search Both Important

One of the key points eMarketer makes in their article is that integration of display ads with other marketing efforts is one of the biggest trends impacting marketers. In one of their surveys, they found increased integration with social media had the highest response for the significance of select trends to the future of display advertising. The surveys show that 70% of respondents said that integrating search and display advertising had the most favorable impact on their display advertising, making that the second most important area of integration.

Market for Display is a Factor

While integration of display ads with search was second in importance in the survey, the similarity of how search and display advertising work is striking. Search and display advertising used to be more different than they now are, but the changes in how display ad space is bought and sold have allowed for tighter targeting of display ads, increasing the common threads between the two media. This similarity makes the integration of the two even more important than ever before, and more challenging than managing the integration of social media with display advertising. Having a good understanding of how each strategy fits into your overall marketing plan is a key piece of the puzzle for most marketers and keeping up with changes in how each technology works is a big part of that.

Marketers are increasingly looking for ways to reach their target audience in the most effective and efficient manner and as ad networks, as just one example, continue to refine the way they serve up ads it is more important to have access to as many sources of quality ad space as possible. This is where working with an agency that specializes in this area of online marketing can be extremely valuable. The right agency will help you access more, and higher quality ad space that will help you target your messages more effectively than you could do on your own. Very few business owners have the time to keep up with all the changes in technology that are taking place in this rapidly developing area of online marketing. Where our specialists excel is in understanding business owners' needs and matching the available technology to each need to get the best result.

Integrated Marketing - the Holy Grail of Advertising?

However search and display advertising continue to develop, understanding how each works with the other to help you reach your marketing goals is important to the effectiveness of your overall marketing plan. Continue to educate yourself about your marketing options and make sure you stay focused on the 20% of the activities that bring you 80% of your results. That is one of the key factors that helps separate the very successful marketers from the rest.

Creative Display Ads

Your advertising goal is to encourage Internet users to click on your ads. Start by making sure your ads look pleasing to the eye. Avoid using unreadable fonts or colors that clash drastically. People are far more likely to click on creative and interesting ads.

Additionally, many Internet users have simply learned how to completely ignore ads on websites. You need to do something bold and refreshing to get attention among a sea of boring ads. Don't be afraid to use a little humor, but try to keep it clean.

Highlight Your Business or Products

Make sure your display ads are clear and to the point. You want to inspire people to immediately click on your banner the second they see it. If your banner is too confusing, people will quickly forget it and move on. Don't use your online display advertising as an opportunity to mock your competition. Your ads should only focus on your company and what makes it amazing.

Placement

Some ad locations on a website attract more attention than others. Web users are far more likely to notice ads at the top of the page than those near the bottom. It may cost you more to purchase advertising at the top of a website, but you will see better results.

Focus

Each of your ads should have a clear focus and message. Don't clutter your ads up with too many products or services. For each ad you create, choose a single theme to focus on. If your business has multiple products, try creating a separate advertisement for each one. You can spread your message further by adding single product ads to relevant pages on the Internet.

Evaluate Constantly

A good ad campaign requires you to constantly track your progress. Solicit feedback from your customers to find out if your ads are having a positive influence on your business. If an ad isn't working out, it's easy to try again with a new one. Treat every ad campaign as an opportunity to learn what works and how you can improve your message.

The impressions metric is one of the most commonly cited metrics, mainly because most display ad inventory is bought and sold by impressions. It indicates how many times your advert has been seen, and prices are usually quoted in CPM, or cost per thousand impressions. Often, the more people that see your ad, the better. The reach is another common metric, and is calculated as the percentage of your target customers who see the ad, against the total targeted population. Reach goes along with frequency, which is the number of times each targeted consumer saw the ad. Some people feel that this metric is significant because of the "rule of seven", in that people must see an advert seven times before they buy, (Dennis Payne, 2011).

The clicks metric is also one of the most relevant metrics. Combine this with the impressions metric to work out the CTR (Click Through Rate). The CTR is the percentage of people who click on the ad.  CTR's for banner ads tend to run around 0.9%, and there has been much discussion over whether clicks are even a good metric for whether an ad is achieving its goal.   Another metric that is now starting to supplant CTR with display ads is the view-through, which links site traffic with earlier impression, often using floodlight tags to make the connection between impressions and visits.

Conversions are what happen when a person clicks on your ad and then goes through a desired action. This may be filling out a form or making a sale. The desired action must be noted with the advertising platform so that they can monitor it. When these actions happen they are called conversions. The conversion rate is then figured out through people who converted and people who did not. This makes the conversion rate. The higher the conversion rate, the better.

These are some of the most significant metrics for display advertising.  For further discussion of planning and running effective display ad campaigns, go to the Vantage Local blog.

Reference List

Dennis Payne, 2011 - business insider, Editor-in-Chief of CityRoom.com, President of the MBMA marketing agency.

George Rawlinson, 1966 - Aesop's Fables, 620BC, The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus. trans. George Rawlinson, Book I, p.132

Worldwidewebsize, 2012 - Web Statistics

How Exactly Does Remarketing Work?

Once an individual visits a website, a cookie is saved in their browser cache. This cookie can be for specific products that the individual viewed or just for the overall website. Once the individual leaves the website, any new websites that they visit will report the presence of the cookie to ad servers like Google's Doubleclick.  If an advertiser has placed a bid to buy ad impressions for that cookie, the ad server will then place a banner ad somewhere on the new website that will remind the viewer of the original website they visited. This encourages brand recognition and increases the chance of the individual returning to the original website. Studies have shown that as many as 70% of these individuals will buy a product or service from the website because of the banner ad.

What Are Some Of The Other Benefits Of Remarketing?

• Once you have your website set up for remarketing it is automatic and you do not have to do anything else
• You can run more than one remarketing campaign at a time
• Remarketing is a way to build up advertising frequency
• For businesses that have a narrowly-defined audience, remarketing makes banner advertising more effective

Is Remarketing Expensive?

Companies used to have to spend a lot of money in order to develop some form of brand recognition. Since the internet has grown and has made the process more automated, remarketing is a lot less expensive than what it used to be. Even companies with a small budget can usually afford to utilize remarketing in order to help their business grown. Many companies are just now beginning to try remarketing because they are seeing the results of other businesses using it successfully.

I recently read about Didit's Blizzard tool on retargeting. Nice job. It is a low hanging opportunity to tie online search to remarketing. But it's only a first step, and why stop there? Why not integrate all the touchpoints that drive a consumer through the purchase process?.

Ted Shergalis, our co-founder and chief strategy officer, has written before about Ed See's theory that the traditional purchase funnel has become a continuous cycle (most recently in Online Media Daily), with search at its center. The theory posits that a consumer does not just wake up and want to search for a product; rather a stimulus drives one to search. And that's where we need to start as marketers.

Of course, many marketing tactics help create demand, and many of these are offline. When it comes to online, audience-based display advertising is a very useful tool.  Audience-based display refers to the approach of buying specific audience characteristics, regardless of the sites on which that audience is reached.  The advantage of this approach is two-fold:  Extremely high composition against the target demo (low waste) and efficient pricing.  In addition, a skilled and technology-enabled buyer can achieve these benefits without compromising reach.

So audience based-targeting enables a marketer to cost effectively influence what we used to call "top of funnel" metrics such as awareness or interest.  But what if we could recognize and manage those customers who are exposed to your ad through the phases of the purchase cycle? For instance, what if you knew which display ads customers were exposed to before conducting a search? You might give them a custom, personalized version of a search landing page based on that information.  Then you could use the behavior data on the landing page and website to inform an extending conversation through remarketing.

Regardless of the tactics used, at the end of the day it's all about data and your ability to hit the consumer with the right message at the right time. That means you have to manage the data and turn every marketing outreach into a customized experience. For example, we know from analyzing online behavior that exposure to a display ad leads to a propensity to search; in fact, one drives the other. We also know that optimizing a landing page to reflect an audience profile stimulates intent, dramatically increasing engagement and conversion rates. We've found doing so lifts rates anywhere between 30-125% percent.  But don't become too enamored with rules of thumb. We've found vast differences in consumer behavior among our clients, and between different industries. One client may find that exposure to display ads is positively correlated with a response to an offer on its site; another may find a negative correlation. In one case, non-response is a clue that the display offer is just not relevant to the consumer, in the other, display is building interest that is "paid off" on the website.  The problem is that you just don't know which is which unless you observe the behavior and analyze the data.   It gets back to data and targeting and insuring that the right offer is delivered at the right time to the right person.

Which gets us back to the purchase cycle. As marketers construct their campaigns, they need to be mindful of messaging's place at each point in the process. On the front end, which is all about demand creation, benefit- or position-based messages work best. Further along, specific offers will be more effective. What this means is that different messages will run concurrently, with data driven technology delivering the right message to each consumer at each touchpoint.  For example, you will likely have a broad-based, benefit-oriented display campaign running simultaneously with an offer-based retargeting campaign, along with a sweetened offer for certain consumers on the website.

The bottom line: retargeting is a powerful tool for driving results.  But it is only part of the job.  Don't stop there.  Pursue the still greater value of a more holistic approach that engages consumers no matter where they are in the purchase cycle.

That being the case, you might think twice before ditching everything but Google in your shrinking-budget, recession-ready marketing plans this year.    

The Specific Media findings support what the Atlas Institute has been saying for years.  In short, if you're measuring conversions based on the last ad a buyer clicked on, that "completely ignores everything we know about marketing."

By the way, thanks to Searchblog for bringing the eMarketer story to my attention!