Google + Is Anybody Out There?

Google + has been operating now since early July; up until 3 weeks ago it was open only to those with the illusive invite and seemed to be attracting users in their millions. Whilst Google can boast nearly 45 million sign-ups since the launch of Beta, it seems the difference between sign-ups and actual active users is vast.
I’ve been using Google + myself since the Beta stage and had hoped that it would quickly become a great way to market myself and my business. However so far things seem to be moving quite slowly.
To date I have made contact with quite a number of co-workers, colleagues and clients all of whom have Google + accounts. This should be a good thing right? Well yes it would be a good thing if any of these profiles were actually using Google + actively.
So why aren’t sign-ups actually using G + to communicate? Well – I think there are a number of reasons.
Fear of the unknown:
It’s always difficult for users when they start exploring a new platform. It doesn’t work the same way as previous platforms they’ve tried (particularly Facebook) and perhaps it’s a bit daunting being part of something new.
No one else is using it:
This is where the vicious circle begins. When I have asked friends, family and colleagues why they are not actively using Google +, the most popular answer seems to be ‘because there’s no one else using it’. It’s like getting that first job, you need experience to get the job, but you can’t get the experience until someone gives you a chance.
Old habits die-hard:
One of the main reasons for new sign-ups shying away from using Google + is that they are way too comfortable using the likes of Twitter or Facebook and don’t like the idea of change. Facebook has long been the leader in the Social Networking arena and people are slow to change to another platform. The answer to this problem is to see Google +, not as an alternative to Facebook but as a totally different, stand alone application.
Aimed at professionals:
Another reason I have come across is that users are under the impression that Google + is not as diverse as Facebook. Sign-ups seems to be under the impression that Google is a more serious application and not aimed at those who just want to play a game or stalk their exes! This is a common misconception, however, as Google have been keen to point out.
The Bottom line on this is, that if Google don’t do something fast to get people talking on G+ then they could be in for a very bumpy ride indeed. Perspectives need to change and they need to change fast. Personally I like G+ and I think it has a lot of great benefits to offer. Google + Hangouts are a great addition and the easy use and manipulation of ‘circles’ is a pleasure to use as opposed to Facebooks ‘friends list’ option.
Come on Google, get your act together and let people know that you are the new kid on the block, one who is not going to lay down easily.

Izaak works for an SEO Agency in London.  He blogs on all things techy related, as well as for some of his clents, who incude a commercial gritting company and an operator of Gatwick Airport Lounges.

How To Monetize Your Web Content?

As a full time online marketer and webmaster, this is a question I have considered many times and found my own answers through many years of trial and error. Of course, I have taken the passive route in my quest for that online income. This means instead of producing my own products, I market and promote affiliate goods and services. I do NO direct selling on any of my websites, I collect no money and I don’t even have a payment program or system in place.
All my income and commissions come from referring traffic or clients to the affiliate companies which I promote. Totally passive.
These companies do all the selling, delivery of products, customer support, everything… I just get a small percentage for having referred that customer or client. This passive method has worked extremely well for me but keep in mind, selling your own products and services will be much more lucrative since you will receive the majority of the profits instead of just a small commission or referral fee.
However, if you’re like me and want a more “hands-off” passive income from your web content, here are some of the things I have learned over the years. You might find some of these tips helpful in your own monetization. I have placed these tips in the form of a “q and a” format…
1. Should I use Google AdSense?
While placing Google AdSense ads on your site or blog is very easy, the rates are extremely low. You can make 10 to 100 times more by using affiliate links instead of these ads. For example, for one AdSense click you could get anywhere from a few cents to several dollars, whereas with an affiliate program you can get from $10 to $100+ for a click which turns into a sale. However, Google is one of most respected and reliable companies on the web. They pay on time and should not be ignored. I have used AdSense for years mainly because you can’t always find affiliate programs for some content and besides, you can place both affiliate links and Google AdSense on your pages.
2. Should I use Amazon?
Another very simple way to monetize your content is to place Amazon products and referral links on your pages. Amazon’s referral rates are slightly better than Google AdSense especially if you have high volume sales but they are still lower in general. However, I have found users tend to really trust Amazon and buy from them more frequently and more often so conversion rates are much higher than any other affiliate program I have used. For this reason alone, Amazon should be on your list if you want to earn money from the web. I have been using them for years and find building your links are real easy, so too is building whole “A Stores” on a particular topic or line of products.
3. What is ClickBank and should I use it?
ClickBank is one of the largest affiliate networks for downloadable products such as ebooks and software. They pay some of the largest commissions, 40% to 50% or more is very common. Very reliable, I have been using them for years and you should include some ClickBank products on your pages. Please note that ClickBank does deduct a small percentage of your commissions to cover any returns, but it also means you don’t have any dropped commissions – once you make a sale, you will get paid for it.
4. What are affiliate networks?
Affiliate networks, like Commission Junction and LinkShare, are major players in the online affiliate world. These affiliate networks represent thousands of companies which offer products and services that webmasters can promote. They handle all sales transactions and send out your commission checks each month. Most of my affiliate programs are through these affiliate networks with CJ being the top one mainly because they have excellent feedback and tracking.
5. How do I find a profitable affiliate product or service?
Regardless of what you’re promoting, you must be very careful to pick quality products that’s closely related to your content. These two factors will mainly determine your conversion rates, although product ads and display images do play a small part. If you use a network like Commission Junction they will tell which company is making the most sales, they will also tell you which ads are getting the highest return with the actual dollar amount (EPC earnings per 100 clicks). I always use this data when picking which companies and products I promote on my sites.
6. Why do I need to create different income streams?
The real beauty of running an online business, you can have many different income sources which pay you each month. You should plan on having at least 10 to 20 income streams, if one should dry up, you will have the others to depend upon. Once you have quality traffic coming to your website, it is just a matter of placing different affiliate links on your pages, I like including at least three or four different companies on a page, this way you can easily create different income streams for the same page. Throughout your site, don’t just rely upon one company or product, have many different affiliate links and companies.
7. What should be your main strategic objective?
Don’t make this mistake, instead of making one sale and getting paid for it once, pick products and services which give you an re-occurring or residual income. You do the same promotion and work but get paid for years to come. I am still earning income on sales I made five years ago. This will significantly improve your bottom line or your return on investment. Products and services which have a monthly billing element are good candidates for residual income… such as web hosting, autoresponder services, tele-communications and so on. Don’t rule out forming partnerships with businesses in the subject of your website, you might be surprised at the response you get.
Effectively monetizing your web content will largely determine if you succeed or not, so try some of the tips above. Of course, there are many other ways to monetize your traffic such as selling direct ads and links on your pages. The list above is not my full list but they are some of my top-performing programs and they should also work for you and your web content.

Why AdSense may not be the best way to earn revenue on your site

AdSense Pays Billions Each Year – 6 Tips Away to Getting Your Share

Marketers have more than one potential road to revenue. One of those would be Google’s AdSense, even though a few people have argued at times that it’s a PPC (Pay Per Click) prototype. They claim that it would take several ‘clicks’ to compare to the same revenue you could achieve with a lone affiliate sale. And, that rings a little true.
But, not all websites are created for the same purpose, even affiliate programs.
Websites are not always developed for selling a product, such as computer software, or a service, such online backup programs. There are several informative sites also on the Internet, and could be for reviews, or blogs.
Let’s talk about blogs for a moment. A while back I did some work for Joan Mylchreest, creating some backlinking for her website, AllWallDecor.com. She worked for years at an interior design company, until they succumbed to bankruptcy. Joan knew that she could draw from all of her experience working in wall design and create her own Internet business.
Joan, like many other people, had knowledge and experience that was highly sought after. It was her knowledge, not necessarily her labor or products that people wanted. So, she created her own site.
 

Great and Easy Steps in Getting Started

Before I go any further, I would like to discuss how easy it is to create a quality website, with WordPress. You can build your own professional site with the multitude of plugins and themes they offer, easily.
Plugins from WordPress will allow you to optimize your site with perks such as contact forms for readers to communicate with you, as well as ad management and imaging.
These will not only allow for an easy development of your site, but also help significantly in maintaining it. Take for example the ad management plugin…ads that expire will be automatically dropped from your site. This means you won’t have to waste valuable time in doing it manually.
Many of their options will help you with time management, allowing you to dive into other areas that require your attention. Think of the time you can spend on creating quality content, if you aren’t tied to basic maintenance issues with your site.
For beginners to the experienced, WordPress is there to show you how to create a website that will make you proud.

Affiliate Products Not Always Enhanced with a Wide Reach

When someone considers working with SEO, they need to keep in mind the use of their keyword, or keyword phrase. Placing it directly in the domain name is ideal. An example would be Joan’s keyword phrase, which is ‘wall décor’. That is a very broad term, considering that it could be wallpaper, paintings, mirrors, and just about anything that might be considered wall décor, even if you don’t.
My point is that with a wide-reaching keyword, or keyword phrase, it can bring in a large variety of people searching for a particular product. This isn’t necessarily going to bring a lot of benefit to you, if you are selling an actual item, or service.

The Flip Side of That Coin…

If your site is an informative site, such as review or blogs, then you might be interested in bringing this amount of traffic to it, especially if you utilize AdSense. They soak it up and bring loads of traffic with it, especially if the content is high quality. In fact, the more pages, the better. AdSense advertisers love the opportunities that multiple, high quality pages can bring their way.
It’s a fairly simple process. AdSense scans pages for the keywords, or keyword phrases which have been purchased by advertisers, and in turn could bring them more business. And, if your content is well-written, the keywords can be easily placed with a natural flow.
However, if you want to take it up a notch, read on…

Take Your Website up a Notch for Maximum Results

Anytime you want to create, or update your website, each page should be looked at carefully, regardless of what type of your site is…informative, or sales. Google can do some amazing things for your site, such as boost your ranking and profits from advertising. However, the following tips can boost your chances even more:

1. Place your keyword, or keyword phrase, directly within your page title.
2. Include your keyword/phrase in the meta description. This description is often placed by Google directly below your link, so focus on creating a special write up (160 characters) that will catch the eye of your targeted audience. If you don’t create your own, Google will simply take the first 160 characters from your original content.
3. Headlines are important enough to warrant special attention. Place your keyword phrase in your h1, h2, as well as h3 tags.
4. Google has the capability of sending traffic your way based on your images as well. So, place your keyword/phrase into the alt text of your images so they can direct the appropriate audience to your site.
5. Keyword placement is important. It has to be natural, but effective. It should be placed relatively quickly (within first 90 characters), and also in the last paragraph. If the content is written well, it could also be within the body, in a natural flow. However, be careful to not go over 2% density.
6. Linking, both Internal and external will help with the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). An anchor text with keyword can lead traffic to an outside site. You can also direct traffic to another page in your own site, with an internal link.

These tips might sound simple. But, that’s because they are. Google is there to help you with ranking and profits from AdSense, if you just follow the basic tips I shared above.
If I could say just one more thing, it would be that even if you don’t want to get involved with AdSense, make sure you pay close attention to your keyword placement, and quality of content. If are selling a specific product or server, yet the keyword is too broad, you are opening the door to unnecessary traffic…and potentially lots of it.
Now that you know my take on it all, hopefully it will help you to bring your site to new levels.
Jason Monroe is a successful freelance writer and Internet entrepreneur who has used his skills to help others make a website and become proficient in their careers as well.

Adsense de Google

Google Adsense is a good way to monetize his blog. Here’s why:
1. Less time:
Installing AdSense on a blog does not take more than 5 minutes. You must paste the code in the sidebar or an appropriate plugin, and Google will do the rest. Affiliate Marketing, however, may take several hours and Email Marketing requires an extra effort.
2. Low traffic:
AdSense does not need to loads of traffic. A small amount of traffic (about 2500 visitors a month) you can easily make $ 10-20 per month. Affiliate Marketing and most other methods of monetization, however, need a lot more traffic.
3. Free:
methods of monetization of other force people to buy products. Now, the chances of someone clicking on an ad are much higher than buying a product because it is not spending money. This makes it easier revenue generation as opposed to methods that require sales.
4. Annonces ciblées:
AdSense is better than other ad networks because the ads are targeted based on content and reader’s interest.

Why Adsense Accounts Get Banned and How to Prevent It

Banned from Adsense–But Can’t Understand Why?

If you are an Adsense publisher, something that is always in the back of your mind is a possible account ban from Adsense. Many times, Adsense is totally justified in banning an account. You will see whining like this on many internet marketing forums, “Adsense banned me! Well, maybe I clicked on a few ads myself, but that was only to test if they were working…” Duh!
The hue and cry from us little guys is that “Adsense doesn’t want us to make any money! Once you break over a certain threshold, they cancel your account.” That just doesn’t make sense at all.

It's No Puzzle--Adsense Always Favors Advertisers Over Publishers

Of course Adsense wants publishers to make money; if a publisher is making money, so are they. It’s in Adsense’s best interest to have quality sites in the network where advertisers can buy ad space. No ad space= no ads=no money for Google. You just need to remember that if Adsense has to pick between a publisher and an advertiser, the advertiser will win every time.
Publishers more often than not have their account banned without warning, and by means of a form letter. No specifics are ever given. Typically, a publisher will receive an e-mail with wording similar to this: “We’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account.”

What Can Trigger A Ban from Adsense?

If Adsense sees a huge jump in CTR without a corresponding jump in traffic, or you have decided to generate some traffic via a paid service, it can trigger red flags with Google.  Veteran blogger and internet marketer Lisa Irby says that  “Often times these services send artificial traffic via bots which can generate false impressions and clicks on your ads.  That’s a surefire way to get banned from AdSense.”

Viligantly Monitor Your Adsense Traffic and Clicks

The best way that you can protect yourself from a ban is to carefully monitor your traffic. You should be using some kind of analytics program, such as Google Analytics, Get Clicky or Piwik to track where your traffic is coming from.

Signs You Could be Under a Clickbomb Attack

If you suddenly get a huge influx of traffic from a strange source, and also notice that your CTR has gone through the roof, don’t ignore it. You should note the IP that the traffic is coming from and the date it is occurring and contact Adsense via their invalid clicks contact form immediately  and let them know this is happening. You should also suspend showing ads on the site or sites being attacked at once. It’s a good chance that you are under a clickbomb attack from a rival publisher trying to put you out of business.
If you significantly alter your site layout and/or themes and it results in boosting your CTR significantly, you should also keep careful notes about that. Keeping “before and after” screenshots of any significant site revamps is not a bad idea, as you can keep it for documentation if you need it.  Don’t ever incentivize a visitor to click on your ads, or otherwise subtly trick them into clicking on an ad. It’s only asking for trouble.

What’s Super Annoying About Getting Banned by Adsense

Unfortunately, there seems to be no human review process before an Adsense account is banned. There is little recourse for the average user to fight a ban either. Here is the issue of banning via software nicely summed up by SubmitEdge.com:

It is a problem that Google relies on software alone to decide who gets closed down. It is disturbing that in 8 ½ years, they have made no attempt to do a better job at this. It’s also disturbing that unless you know a Brad Fitzpatrick or Ben Collins at Google who will take a personal interest, the odds of getting your account reactivated are next to nothing – and that is only after months of appeals while you’re losing money and your SEO is shot.

Getting your Adsense account back after being banned is a slim-to-none chance. You might have a shot at it if you have the right connections at Google, as Jef Poskanzer did, or  complain to the government as Mark Bowyer of Rusty Compass did. Pamela Parker of MarketingLand.com recently reported on these two Adsense ban and subsequent reinstatement cases:

In the first case, well-respected netizen Jef Poskanzer, who runs the acme.com site, was banned from AdSense on January 15. Google’s explanation, in a form letter, was that “… we’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account.” Though Poskanzer appealed, Google denied his appeal. But, then, he blogged about it on his site. Because Poskanzer is well-connected in the Internet world, Googler Matt Cutts posted on Google+ about the situation, saying he hoped the ad quality team would reconsider. Indeed, the intervention convinced Google to give Poskanzer another chance, and he was reinstated as of January 31. “My fame is an advantage,” wrote Poskanzer, “but what really ought to matter is my 8.5 year relationship with the company, plus my demonstrated history of working with AdSense to resolve our prior issue eight years ago, to our mutual benefit.” A second similar situation occurred to the Rusty Compass travel website, run by Mark Bowyer in Sydney, Australia.
On September 13, 2011, Google informed Bowyer that his AdSense account was being disabled for generating invalid clicks. He appealed and started a thread in the AdSense support forum. Like Poskanzer, his appeal was denied.
In December, Bowyer took the matter to the New South Wales’ Fair Trading — a state agency that enforces fair trade laws and provides consumer protections.
An article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald about the case and Google reinstated Bowyer’s account in mid-January, 2012. Bowyers has still heard nothing personal from Google, only receiving templated-style email communications.

If you are banned, don’t expect to hear from an actual human at Adsense, because that will never happen.
If you sincerely believe that you did absolutely nothing wrong to provoke being banned, there is some recourse available by appealing to Adsense for reinstatement into the program. Here is the link to the appeal form.
Just don’t be overly optimistic about your chances for reinstatement unless you are well-connected.

Why AdSense may not be the best way to earn revenue on your site

So, you’ve got an idea for a website that you think can eventually earn some revenue. Perhaps showing contextual advertising is one idea you’re exploring. Google Adsense makes it so easy to start displaying ads it’s tempting to dive in. But maybe it’s not the best idea for making money from your site.
Let’s delve into some of the reasons why AdSense may not be the best choice, and then look at some other ways websites can make money for their owners.

The ads may detract from the perceived value of your brand.
You’ve created a great site with content that others want to read. Then, BAM, one day, there are ads everywhere. It looks like you’ve sold out, and your site loses its coolness. This is one reason Mark Zuckerberg reportedly resisted advertising in the early days of Facebook, and still keeps it to a relatively small part of the site’s layout.
You lose some control over what’s published on your site.
While contextual advertising means that any ads displayed on your site should be related to the content you’re publishing, you still give up control over what shows on your site. You may even wind up with ads from your competitors, if you also offer a direct product or service on your site.
Your content may end up overshadowed by the ads.
If your pages showcase ads prominently – and they probably have to in order to gain a volume of clicks – it means your content will become a bit harder for readers to find and read.
Maybe you make them scroll down the page further to see your content, maybe you’ve got your articles wrapped around ads… either way, readers will find themselves distracted and working harder to gather the information they hoped to find when they clicked to your site. You could lose readers who otherwise may have become loyal fans of your content.
That’s unless you have enough traffic that you can get away with showing the ads in a very unobtrusive spot. The NYTimes.com example here shows they can do with just one lone ad on the bottom third of the page.

Clicks/impressions but no funds $0 Why Adsense? if google's not paying....

We have adsense displayed on multiple websites and we get so many hits/impressions but our account stay on $0, google need to explain this to us for we have directed mass traffic to other adword clients and received nothing for it?

This is in my opinion not what i signed up for need to be addressed as soon as possible, Google owns the search engine market yes and have the slogan to always be nice, not what Google do here!

Whats the problem, explain

The ads get clicks from various places, I've even gone as far as asking other network/clients to support the program and see if they like to buy advertised content via the adsense links. They click and still nothing, we would like to offer google adsense on our Domain Parking and Auction website here

http://www.domainnameauction.
co.za and use our adsense account to earn revenue for all the clients that park their domain names on the system, the adsense does NOT WORK!!!!! and Google's clients are scroring free traffic from us without GOOGLE PAYING US!!!!! yes google receive money from their advertisers on Adwords but not paying their adsense clients!!!!

Google need to step up with answers.

PPC CASE STUDIES

PPC (and SEO) CASE STUDY

Company:  Halo Doors
www.houstonoverheaddoor.com

Houston Overhead Garage Doors is a full service garage door company in Houston. They specialize in installing and servicing garage doors of all makes and models for both commercial and residential locations.

Challenge and SEO Strategy
In February 2010, Houston Overhead Garage Doors (HOD) came to Server Side Design (SSD) seeking ways to boost their web traffic by increasing their presence on the web as well as reducing the cost per conversions on their pay per click ads. Since there are many similar businesses in the Houston area, HOD faced the difficulty in standing out in a huge metropolitan area. In order to set them apart from the rest, SSD devised a strategy that would gain them a larger presence on the web and establish them as a knowledgeable and skilled leader in the garage door industry.  

SSD instituted a 30-keyword SEO campaign using phrases that were designed to draw interest from potential customers and, at the same time, highlighted their business offerings. Using proven SEO techniques, SSD optimized the HOD website by adding static content through the 30-keyword campaign and updating the site constantly with fresh content using weekly news articles, which were placed on the site’s home page. This content gave HOD credibility as a leader within their industry and was able to net them No. 1 page rankings organically on many of the top search engines with several of the keyword phrases. In addition, continuous blogs and onsite articles attributed to the rise of HOD on search engine pages.

Pay Per Click Campaign Overview & Results
SSD also implemented a pay-per-click campaign that drove web traffic to the HOD website while at the same time lowering the cost-per-lead from $58 to $42.90. Placing ads on search engines like Google and Yahoo! using select keyword phrases related to the garage door business, SSD was able to deliver positive ROI to HOD. 

SSD executed a call tracking system for HOD, which tracks the number of business calls that they were receiving. HOD previously had no way of knowing how many calls were coming from their online marketing efforts.

HOD received 58 calls as of April 2010 and by February 2011, HOD had received 75 (including six online conversions) for a total of 81 conversions

• The cost per lead in April 2010 was $58.  The cost per lead in February 2011 was $42.90, 26% reduction in costs per leads
  
  
  
  
• HOD experienced a 39.6% increase in lead volume as a result of SSD’s PPC campaign over the same period of time.

SEO Results
HOD’s web presence increased significantly with Page One rankings:

• 13.63% increase in Page One rankings since February 2010. 
• 200% increase in web site traffic from that time thanks to the implementation of SSD’s SEO and PPC campaign.
  
  

HOD’s natural web traffic has increased by almost 150% and more web surfers in search of garbage door-related subjects in the Houston and surrounding areas were driven to HOD’s website due to the efforts resulting from SSD’s 30-keyword campaign.
Writing fresh and static content for each keyword phrase, SSD was able to net high rankings on search engines for HOD. The more web surfers saw how high HOD was ranking on the search engines, the greater the chance for these visitors to click on the links. The results showed that certain keyword phrases that were optimized by SSD were driving visitors to HOD. Specifically for “Houston overhead door”:

• 271 visits to the HOD site since December 2010 for the phrase ‘houston overhead door”
• 53.87% of these visits representing new people.
• 12,000 visitors have come to the HOD site since SSD began their SEO campaign in the past 12 months

 

Some examples of HOD keywords ranking on Page One on Google as a result of SEO campaign:

• Houston Overhead Door
• Garage Door Houston
• Overhead Door Houston
• Overhead Doors Houston
• Garage Door Houston

The total web traffic to HOD has increased by 200% since the implementation of SSD’s SEO and PPC campaigns.

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PPC Case Study:

DefensiveDriving.com
http://www.defensivedriving.com/

DefensiveDriving.com® is an online driver safety education site with Texas state-approved defensive driving courses for drivers who are seeking to lower their insurance rates, have tickets dismissed and improve their driving safety. They offer an original Internet course, streaming video online, a DVD video course with online interaction as well as a DVD course with automated telephone voice system interaction.

While DefensiveDriving.com had netted some success on the Internet through Pay Per Click Advertising, they sought a better way of improving their online presence and increasing their sales. However, they needed a way of reducing the cost of conversions to their site while at the same time increasing their Web traffic. The conversion cost is where a visitor to the site will click their ad, visit the site and purchase a product, in this case, the defensive driving online courses.

Enter Server Side Design. The team at Server Side Design identified keywords pertinent to the click rate on DefensiveDriving.com’s ads. These keywords brought more attention to their site and increased their Web traffic. In addition, their conversion rate dropped.

RESULTS:
One month after hiring Server Side Design for Pay Per Click Management, the average cost per conversion dropped by 18%. One year later, SSD has managed to decrease the average cost per conversion by 412%!

In addition, their overal PPC costs (cost per clicks) were cut in half savingDefensiveDriving.com® over $15,000 per month!

TESTIMONIAL:
"DefensiveDriving.com was looking for a way to decrease the amount of time and expense we were incurring related to Pay Per Click and Search Engine Marketing. We were looking for increased return on investment in a highly competitive market space where we had clearly maxed out our abilities internally."

"After an extensive search, we retained Server Side Design to manage our Search Engine Marketing efforts. Roger and team have been successful at reducing our cost per acquisition and our total marketing dollars including their fees, so we have been very happy, so much so we turned to Server Side to help us with Search Engine Optimization. The expertise and integrity have made DefensiveDriving.com pleased to be business partners with Server Side Design!"

Kent Bissell
President
DefensiveDriving.com

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PPC Case Study:

Safelink Wireless
http://www.safelinkwireless.com/

Safelink Wireless is a Web-based, government supported program that provides free cell phone service as well as air time every month to those that are eligible based on their income. Through the Lifeline Assistance program, they can provide discounted or free telephone services to eligible customers. Customers can receive free cellular service, a free cell phone and free minutes every month. There are no contracts, fees or monthly charges for this service.

Safelink had been successful in getting Web surfers to visit their site and take advantage of their free cell phone service through traditional advertising. However, they were seeking a way to increase their number of subscribers while lowering their cost per aquisition by moving away from traditional advertising and into Internet advertising. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) was their answer. Through PPC, a visitor will clicks on a paid ad, land on the Safelink website, and subscribe for free cell phone service. This action of subscribing is called a conversion.

To help with this, Safelink hired Server Side Design. The team at Server Side Design was able to setup a Pay Per Click Campaign that would increase subscribers (conversions) while lowering their cost per aquisition. Thanks to the experts at SSD micromanaging Safelink’s PPC ads daily and adjusting settings when necessary, Safelink was able to increase their advertising budget while watching their profits go up. SSD kept Safelink informed of their progress through daily reports.

RESULTS:
When Safelink first hired SSD, their cost per conversion was at $7.67. Within one year, that figure went down to $4.79, a decrease of more than 37 percent! SSD was able to drive the costs of conversion so low that Safelink was able to increase their overall monthly budget by 825 percent while seeing their client acquisitions and profits increase. SSD’s PPC Management continues to bring incredible value to Safelink.

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PPC Case Study:

Fine Art Investments
http://www.fineartinvestments.org/
http://www.antiquetiffanylamps.com/

Fine Art Investments (originally "Antiques For Interiors"), is a professional brokerage service specializing in the sale of authentic old Tiffany Studio lamps, antique Tiffany art glass, and American and European paintings by well known artists. Competence, honesty, integrity and ethical practices are the core principles upon which the firm was founded. Established in 1972, we cater to an established and select list of private buyers and avid collectors.

"I was given Server Side Design’s name from a huge PPC company, who required a large minimum monthly PPC  budget which I could not afford. They said Roger (the owner) had a very good business, was more flexible with budgets and they felt he would be a good fit for my company.

I called Roger, and from the first call I could tell he was not only knowledgeable, but really cared about helping my business get results. It was obvious to me they were not in the business just for money. Server Side Design has continued to consult with me and make many helpful suggestions on everything from ads to key phrases and other web design things, which are so vital to a PPC campaign really working well. My account manager is very quick to respond to emails and phone calls, and they are the friendliest and most patient people I have ever worked with in the seven years my main web site has been online. They are smart, personable, and willing to work within my budget to get me the results I need. I am already seeing results in just two weeks of starting with them, and I am sure things will only get better!

I would not hesitate at all to recommend Server Side Design to anyone, no matter what type of size their business was. Server Side Design’s staff has a very high level of knowledge about how search engines "work," how to make the most of a budget, and other things vital to a successful PPC advertising campaign. Aside from that, my account manager works long hours, and is an all around warm and friendly person to work with, which is somewhat rare in my many years of working with various service providers on the Internet. I feel certain that whatever my companies needs are, they can and will handle what I need, and do it in a financially prudent and expedient manner. I am so very grateful to have been directed to them. I really consider myself blessed to have found Roger and his company after using other people who were very disappointing in so many ways."

FAQs about SEO & PPC

FAQs about SEO/SEM & Server Side Design, Inc.

1. What are ServerSideDesign’s core competencies?
1. SEO (Natural Search Engine Optimization)
2. SEM (Search Engine Marketing – aka - Paid Placement)
3. SMM (Social Media Marketing)
4. Video Marketing
5. Local Marketing
6. Mobile Marketing
2. What is SEO?
1. Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website through programming standards which are best suitable and agreeable to the major search engines. By programming a website to be “optimized” for the engines it will stand a better chance of ranking well on the SERPS (search engine results pages). Once a site is optimized/programmed to adhere to SEO standards it must be promoted through online marketing initiatives. These initiatives may include writing blogs, articles, press releases and creating link-backs. This “offsite” effort  plays a key role in the optimization process as it helps push rankings higher on the SERPS.
3. What is SEM?
1. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and is commonly used when referring to “paid placements” or online advertising. This is different than SEO because people must pay to display ads, banners, links etc. to gain exposure. Paid placements commonly cost a customer per “ad click” or ad impression. Example: Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing.
4. Which one is right for me?
1. This depends on your goals. If your goal is to be on page one of Google, Yahoo or MSN within 24 hours then SEM is your best choice. We can setup Pay Per Click ad campaigns on these engines to get exposure right away.
1. Pros of SEM: Immediate, quick exposure of text, banner and video ads on the major search engines with guaranteed page one placement. Can yield quick traffic and quick sales if setup and managed properly.
2. Cons of SEM: Pay Per Click advertising can be costly. Customers pay per “click” and these clicks are often $1-$8 each. Money goes quick! If the customer does not see a good ROI then the money is wasted. PPC is not an investment- you are renting space on the top of the engines. When you run out of money for clicks the ads disappear!
2. SEO; if you have patience and do not need to be on page one of the engines right away, then SEO is the smartest choice. SEO will eventually yield natural (or organic) listings on page one of the major engines.
1. Pros of SEO: Natural listings on the engines are FREE. You do not pay the engines to place your site there and you are not charged per click! 70% of all users click on natural listings vs. the 30% that are clicking the PPC (paid) ads. SEO takes time but yields better results and at a more affordable cost.
2. Cons of SEO: SEO takes time. Depending on the keyword phrase, page one rankings can take 1 month or several years to achieve. There is NO guarantee with SEO because we are not paying the engines to list the site (as with PPC). SEO is costly when hiring an SEO company in the beginning of the campaign but once the site achieves top rankings the payoff is big.
5. How does SEO work? How do you get our site to the top of the engines?
1. This is a two part process; Onsite Marketing and Offsite Marketing.
1. Onsite marketing is also known as the “SEO Tune-up” phase. This is where we optimize and reprogram a website to be “tuned” for the search engines to read. The entire SEO campaign is based on keyword phrases so these phrases are the backbone of the entire campaign. We put much effort into researching keywords so that our customers may choose phrases based on statistical data such as search volume and competitive websites. This stage is called “on site” because the work we do is on the actual website. This tune-up phase takes aprox. 4 weeks for most websites and consists of things such as title and meta updates, header updates, keyword density insertions, keyword based navigation systems, sitemap creations, keyword landing page creations, code clean up and more.
2. Offsite marketing means all of the marketing efforts that take place outside the physical website.  Once a site is tuned up to Engine standards it is then vital to begin all offsite marketing initiatives. These initiatives are what promote the individual keyword phrases so that when a user types them into the engines, the client’s site shows up. All offsite marketing efforts revolve around the clients chosen keyword phrases where we embed them into offsite blogs, articles, social networks, press releases and link-backs. Every link-back that points to the client’s site, counts as a vote to the engines. The more votes the site gets, the higher the site will rank on the SERPS.
3. NOTE: SEO is a blend of art and science. There is no “perfect” or “secret” formula to get a site to the top. We follow the general guidelines that the search engines set forth but most of our strategies come from experimentation, experience and staying informed and educated on what’s happening in the world of Search.
6. How does PPC work?
1. Pay Per Click advertising begins with keyword research. We obtain a base list of words from the client and then expand on this list by using research strategies. Once the words are selected we divide the words into categories, known as “Ad Groups” Each Ad Group has a couple text ads custom written for them. We set the geo-graphic target market for each ad group as well as a daily budget so as not to exceed the client’s allocated monthly budget. Once everything is setup we assign each keyword phrase with a bid amount. This bid amount is where “pay per click” gets its name. For example; we must assign a bid of $2.50 per click to the phrase “website hosting” in order for that ad to appear on page one of Google. Each time a user types in “website hosting” into Google, sees our ad, and then clicks that ad- we are charged $2.50. The higher the bid, the higher the ad will show on the search engines therefore we are constantly monitoring and adjusting bid levels. The goal is to get the most exposure, clicks and traffic as possible at the lowest CPC (cost per click) as possible! The further we can stretch our client’s dollar, the more traffic we can bring to their website.
7. Can you guarantee rankings?
1. We can only guarantee rankings for SEM not SEO. So we can guarantee that a client’s ad will show up on page one of Google if we are running Pay Per Click Ads for them. We do NOT pay the engines for natural listings and NO search engines accept payments for this therefore we can never guarantee natural rankings. What we can do is guarantee that all deadlines and deliverables will be met. Google actually states that “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” This quote can be found here http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
8. How long will it take to get to the top of the engines?
1. This ALL depends on the keyword phrase. A generic phrase such as “web hosting” can take YEARS whereas a more niche phrase such as “Houston website hosting” could take a few months. We can get page one rankings in less than 1 year for many phrases that are on the regional level and granular in nature. We never give solid guarantees of when we will achieve page one rankings. When choosing an SEO company you must research their prior results, credentials and speak with their current clients.
9. Once I get to the top, why do I need you? Will my site stay at the top?
1. Site listings on page one will not disappear overnight (usually) but we do many things on a monthly basis which will secure these top rankings. One of the main things we do is post new content to our client’s site each week. This keeps the content fresh and keeps the engines coming back often. The more they come back, the higher you will rank and secure your position. We are constantly acquiring massive amounts of link-backs on a monthly basis. If we stop doing this then eventually old link-backs will begin dropping off and this can affect rankings. Also, keep in mind that if you are not writing fresh content and building link backs on a daily basis, your competitors may be- and they can bump you out of that top spot. Top rankings are volatile and can change often.
10. How much does SEO cost?
1. We only create custom proposals and project bids based on our client's goals. If you choose keywords which are extremely competitive, your fee with us is higher because we increase the amount of marketing deliverables it will take to achieve top rankings. We have a minimum fee requirement of $1,000/month to engage with our company.
11. How much does SEM (PPC) cost?
1. a. We charge a one-time fee of $1,000 per engine to setup an ad campaign. Our fee to manage these campaigns is 15% of the clients monthly spend. Example; if a client spends $5,000 per month in click-traffic, our fee is $750/month.
12. What makes Server Side Design different or better than its competitors?
1. Our SEO/SEM campaigns are TRULY custom and tailored to achieve your goals. We assign a level of difficulty to every keyword phrase you would like to rank for and based on this level of difficulty we assign a set amount of deliverables necessary to achieve page-one rankings. In addition we are one of the few SEO/SEM firms that are focused on tracking ALL metrics and showing true ROI to our clients. We do this through our proprietary FAIRmetrix™ system where are clients can login and view all of their rankings, traffic, ppc ads, link-backs, social media, and ALL leads such as phone calls, emails, form submissions, etc. This makes us 100% accountable for results and transparent to our clients.
2. SSD is a member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO), an accredited member of the BBB and we have been ranked consecutively as the #1 SEO company in the world by Promotion World.
3. SSD is a thriving company that is honored to be a recpient of the Houston Fast 100 Award ranking us as the #9 fastest growing company in Houston!
4. SSD has recently been ranked as the #2 best company to work for in Houston according to Houston Business Journal
5. All of our employees reside in the U.S. Most of our competitors outsource their labor overseas.
13. Where is SSD located and how many employees do you have?
1. We are located in Houston, TX and have 30 employees and are constantly growing. We are physically located in Houston but have clients all over the nation and globe in places such as Nigeria, Columbia, Prague and China!
14. How long has SSD been in business?
1. We have professionals that have been in the IT industry for 20+ years. SSD was founded in 2005 and consists of mostly college educated professionals with diverse backgrounds. http://www.serversidedesign.com/history.php
15. What kind of clients or industries do you service?
1. We have clients all across the board ranging from the corporate housing industry to defensive driving to video game tips.  We do not have to specialize in any one industry because the beauty of SEO/SEM is that we have strong systems in place or a “formula” which can apply to any company in ANY industry.
16. What keywords does Server Side Design rank well for?
1. Go to Google and type in any of the following and you’ll find us on page one!
1. Houston seo company
2. Houston seo services
3. Houston search engine optimization
4. Houston search engine optimization company
5. Houston seo firm
6. Best Houston seo company
7. Best Houston seo firm

Local Business Maps Optimization:

Gain the advantage over your local competitors with Maps

Local businesses are searching for your specific products and services every day. These potential customers pre-qualify themselves by searching for your related keyword phrases. Will your business be found on page one?

We have a proven track-record of generating #1 rankings on all of the top search engines. We can achieve this on organic listings, paid listings and within the local map listings called "Google Places". Local keyword phrases are not as competitive as national but the competition is still very steep so that's where we come in.

We can setup, manage, optimize and promote your local business map listings so they not only reach page 1, but stay at the top of page 1!

Here's a quick video on how Local Business Maps work:

Contact us today to get started with Local Map Optimization >>

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SERVICES

Drive traffic to your website through Social Media Marketing (SMM)

The Internet and how we use it is constantly evolving. Social Media Marketing (SMM) is now just as important as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Social Media can take the form of many things such as social sites, social blogs, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, video syndication and online forums.

With the immense popularity and usage of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it is now mandatory to use SMM to position and place your company within these online communities. Server Side Design will setup and fully manage a Social Media Campaign to suit your business needs. We will leverage the power of SMM to build your online community of users by making daily posts to a variety of online social networks and interacting with the people that join this community.

Our goal with SMM will be to slowly build a loyal and targeted base of online members to your social sites. This will drive targeted traffic to your website as well as build an ever-growing list of potential clients whom you can solicit.

How Social Media Marketing Works

Social Media Marketing is strictly off-site marketing which is designed to build an active online community and traffic to your website. If you are in need of top search engine rankings (SEO) then click here for SEO package information.

Below are some of the services that are included in our SMM packages:

• Offsite Blogging
• Article Creation & Distribution
• Press Release Creation & Distribution
• Social Link Building
• Video Creation & Distribution
• Local Business Map Optimization
• Facebook Account Management
• Twitter Account Management

Pay Per Click Advertising and Pay Per Click Management:

Excel with Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) is an effective way to market your web site quickly to online consumers.  PPC advertising uses small text ads that are targeted to keywords or keyword phrases that people use when searching for a site on a search engine.  Popular search engines that offer Pay Per Click advertising include Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and BING.

PPC- More Than Meets the Eye
Pay Per Click advertising is pretty simplistic in its set up, however don’t let the simple interface and ease of set up fool you.  In order to succeed with a Pay Per Click advertising campaign, you will need to manage your marketing campaign effectively.  Read the rest of this article at our PPC article section »

Pay Per Click Management Procedures:

1. The first step in setting up your pay per click advertising campaign is to review your website and extract your most vital keywords and keyword phrases. Next we take these keywords and perform a deep statistical analysis to ensure we are using the most popular as well as niche keywords for your pay per click advertising campaign. This will give us a strong and efficient keyword list with great performance that will produce higher traffic and conversions (sign-ups) on your site.

 

2. The next step involved in pay per click advertising is for us to implement conversion tracking code on to the necessary web pages on your site so you can see your true ROI (return on investment) and conversion statistics.

 

3. Once all of your keywords are generated and your conversion code is in place, we will write your PPC ads. These ads are custom written to include your most valuable keywords. We pay close attention to detail when writing these ads so they are optimized fully for the search networks. We will make them targeted and persuasive enough to gain the quality traffic that you need in order to get valuable conversions. We also write your pay per click ads to include your top level keywords so they are "optimized" for the network and get higher rankings because of it.

 

4. Your landing page is very important to search engines even when it comes to pay per click. We will review you current landing page and make suggestions to you in order to improve your amount of conversions. Many search networks also critique your landing page and will award you a lower "cost per click" and higher ad ranking if your landing page is content rich and optimized properly.

 

5. The final step is where we provide full pay per click management of your ads. After our initial keyword analysis and generation, conversion code implementation, custom ad writing, and landing page assessment, we will launch your ads! Once your ads are launched we will begin manually adjusting bid levels for each individual keyword. This requires us to login in to your account daily so we can view your ads' performance and adjust accordingly. Not only do we adjust your bid levels for each keyword but we will revise your ad content when necessary. We will also delete and add new keywords whenever needed.

 

6. We will send you bi-weekly reports of your pay per click advertising campaigns so you can see how well your ads are performing and if you are getting a good ROI. These reports will tell you exactly how many clicks your are getting, conversions and money spent.

Here’s some of our PPC Management strategies and techniques:

• Eliminate “dead” or non-active keywords.
• Create less ads to increase your click-through rate %.
• Turn ads off during low performing times of the day. I.E. Turn off ads from midnight to 6:00am.
• Geographic targeting (city, state, region, country).
• Analyze and optimize website landing pages.
• Optimize ad copy.
• Take some ads off Google “content network” to avoid click fraud and un-targeted traffic.
• Lower bids on Yahoo content matching.
• Set some listings to lower than #1 position to save money.
• Utilize keyword matching options on Google: Broad, Phrase, Exact and Negative.
• Use image and video ads.
• Pick and choose websites to show ads on Google content network.
• Track conversion statistics and ROI.
• Use traffic/budget estimator on Google to predict spend and clicks.
• Daily monitoring of ad performance.
• Daily bid level adjustments.
  

FAQs about SEO/SEM & Server Side Design, Inc.

1. What are ServerSideDesign’s core competencies?
1. SEO (Natural Search Engine Optimization)
2. SEM (Search Engine Marketing – aka - Paid Placement)
3. SMM (Social Media Marketing)
4. Video Marketing
5. Local Marketing
6. Mobile Marketing
2. What is SEO?
1. Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website through programming standards which are best suitable and agreeable to the major search engines. By programming a website to be “optimized” for the engines it will stand a better chance of ranking well on the SERPS (search engine results pages). Once a site is optimized/programmed to adhere to SEO standards it must be promoted through online marketing initiatives. These initiatives may include writing blogs, articles, press releases and creating link-backs. This “offsite” effort  plays a key role in the optimization process as it helps push rankings higher on the SERPS.
3. What is SEM?
1. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and is commonly used when referring to “paid placements” or online advertising. This is different than SEO because people must pay to display ads, banners, links etc. to gain exposure. Paid placements commonly cost a customer per “ad click” or ad impression. Example: Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing.
4. Which one is right for me?
1. This depends on your goals. If your goal is to be on page one of Google, Yahoo or MSN within 24 hours then SEM is your best choice. We can setup Pay Per Click ad campaigns on these engines to get exposure right away.
1. Pros of SEM: Immediate, quick exposure of text, banner and video ads on the major search engines with guaranteed page one placement. Can yield quick traffic and quick sales if setup and managed properly.
2. Cons of SEM: Pay Per Click advertising can be costly. Customers pay per “click” and these clicks are often $1-$8 each. Money goes quick! If the customer does not see a good ROI then the money is wasted. PPC is not an investment- you are renting space on the top of the engines. When you run out of money for clicks the ads disappear!
2. SEO; if you have patience and do not need to be on page one of the engines right away, then SEO is the smartest choice. SEO will eventually yield natural (or organic) listings on page one of the major engines.
1. Pros of SEO: Natural listings on the engines are FREE. You do not pay the engines to place your site there and you are not charged per click! 70% of all users click on natural listings vs. the 30% that are clicking the PPC (paid) ads. SEO takes time but yields better results and at a more affordable cost.
2. Cons of SEO: SEO takes time. Depending on the keyword phrase, page one rankings can take 1 month or several years to achieve. There is NO guarantee with SEO because we are not paying the engines to list the site (as with PPC). SEO is costly when hiring an SEO company in the beginning of the campaign but once the site achieves top rankings the payoff is big.
5. How does SEO work? How do you get our site to the top of the engines?
1. This is a two part process; Onsite Marketing and Offsite Marketing.
1. Onsite marketing is also known as the “SEO Tune-up” phase. This is where we optimize and reprogram a website to be “tuned” for the search engines to read. The entire SEO campaign is based on keyword phrases so these phrases are the backbone of the entire campaign. We put much effort into researching keywords so that our customers may choose phrases based on statistical data such as search volume and competitive websites. This stage is called “on site” because the work we do is on the actual website. This tune-up phase takes aprox. 4 weeks for most websites and consists of things such as title and meta updates, header updates, keyword density insertions, keyword based navigation systems, sitemap creations, keyword landing page creations, code clean up and more.
2. Offsite marketing means all of the marketing efforts that take place outside the physical website.  Once a site is tuned up to Engine standards it is then vital to begin all offsite marketing initiatives. These initiatives are what promote the individual keyword phrases so that when a user types them into the engines, the client’s site shows up. All offsite marketing efforts revolve around the clients chosen keyword phrases where we embed them into offsite blogs, articles, social networks, press releases and link-backs. Every link-back that points to the client’s site, counts as a vote to the engines. The more votes the site gets, the higher the site will rank on the SERPS.
3. NOTE: SEO is a blend of art and science. There is no “perfect” or “secret” formula to get a site to the top. We follow the general guidelines that the search engines set forth but most of our strategies come from experimentation, experience and staying informed and educated on what’s happening in the world of Search.
6. How does PPC work?
1. Pay Per Click advertising begins with keyword research. We obtain a base list of words from the client and then expand on this list by using research strategies. Once the words are selected we divide the words into categories, known as “Ad Groups” Each Ad Group has a couple text ads custom written for them. We set the geo-graphic target market for each ad group as well as a daily budget so as not to exceed the client’s allocated monthly budget. Once everything is setup we assign each keyword phrase with a bid amount. This bid amount is where “pay per click” gets its name. For example; we must assign a bid of $2.50 per click to the phrase “website hosting” in order for that ad to appear on page one of Google. Each time a user types in “website hosting” into Google, sees our ad, and then clicks that ad- we are charged $2.50. The higher the bid, the higher the ad will show on the search engines therefore we are constantly monitoring and adjusting bid levels. The goal is to get the most exposure, clicks and traffic as possible at the lowest CPC (cost per click) as possible! The further we can stretch our client’s dollar, the more traffic we can bring to their website.
7. Can you guarantee rankings?
1. We can only guarantee rankings for SEM not SEO. So we can guarantee that a client’s ad will show up on page one of Google if we are running Pay Per Click Ads for them. We do NOT pay the engines for natural listings and NO search engines accept payments for this therefore we can never guarantee natural rankings. What we can do is guarantee that all deadlines and deliverables will be met. Google actually states that “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” This quote can be found here http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
8. How long will it take to get to the top of the engines?
1. This ALL depends on the keyword phrase. A generic phrase such as “web hosting” can take YEARS whereas a more niche phrase such as “Houston website hosting” could take a few months. We can get page one rankings in less than 1 year for many phrases that are on the regional level and granular in nature. We never give solid guarantees of when we will achieve page one rankings. When choosing an SEO company you must research their prior results, credentials and speak with their current clients.
9. Once I get to the top, why do I need you? Will my site stay at the top?
1. Site listings on page one will not disappear overnight (usually) but we do many things on a monthly basis which will secure these top rankings. One of the main things we do is post new content to our client’s site each week. This keeps the content fresh and keeps the engines coming back often. The more they come back, the higher you will rank and secure your position. We are constantly acquiring massive amounts of link-backs on a monthly basis. If we stop doing this then eventually old link-backs will begin dropping off and this can affect rankings. Also, keep in mind that if you are not writing fresh content and building link backs on a daily basis, your competitors may be- and they can bump you out of that top spot. Top rankings are volatile and can change often.
10. How much does SEO cost?
1. We only create custom proposals and project bids based on our client's goals. If you choose keywords which are extremely competitive, your fee with us is higher because we increase the amount of marketing deliverables it will take to achieve top rankings. We have a minimum fee requirement of $1,000/month to engage with our company.
11. How much does SEM (PPC) cost?
1. a. We charge a one-time fee of $1,000 per engine to setup an ad campaign. Our fee to manage these campaigns is 15% of the clients monthly spend. Example; if a client spends $5,000 per month in click-traffic, our fee is $750/month.
12. What makes Server Side Design different or better than its competitors?
1. Our SEO/SEM campaigns are TRULY custom and tailored to achieve your goals. We assign a level of difficulty to every keyword phrase you would like to rank for and based on this level of difficulty we assign a set amount of deliverables necessary to achieve page-one rankings. In addition we are one of the few SEO/SEM firms that are focused on tracking ALL metrics and showing true ROI to our clients. We do this through our proprietary FAIRmetrix™ system where are clients can login and view all of their rankings, traffic, ppc ads, link-backs, social media, and ALL leads such as phone calls, emails, form submissions, etc. This makes us 100% accountable for results and transparent to our clients.
2. SSD is a member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO), an accredited member of the BBB and we have been ranked consecutively as the #1 SEO company in the world by Promotion World.
3. SSD is a thriving company that is honored to be a recpient of the Houston Fast 100 Award ranking us as the #9 fastest growing company in Houston!
4. SSD has recently been ranked as the #2 best company to work for in Houston according to Houston Business Journal
5. All of our employees reside in the U.S. Most of our competitors outsource their labor overseas.
13. Where is SSD located and how many employees do you have?
1. We are located in Houston, TX and have 30 employees and are constantly growing. We are physically located in Houston but have clients all over the nation and globe in places such as Nigeria, Columbia, Prague and China!
14. How long has SSD been in business?
1. We have professionals that have been in the IT industry for 20+ years. SSD was founded in 2005 and consists of mostly college educated professionals with diverse backgrounds. http://www.serversidedesign.com/history.php
15. What kind of clients or industries do you service?
1. We have clients all across the board ranging from the corporate housing industry to defensive driving to video game tips.  We do not have to specialize in any one industry because the beauty of SEO/SEM is that we have strong systems in place or a “formula” which can apply to any company in ANY industry.
16. What keywords does Server Side Design rank well for?
1. Go to Google and type in any of the following and you’ll find us on page one!
1. Houston seo company
2. Houston seo services
3. Houston search engine optimization
4. Houston search engine optimization company
5. Houston seo firm
6. Best Houston seo company
7. Best Houston seo firm

About Google's AdSense

About Google's AdSense

Welcome to the first website totally dedicated to helping you get the most out of Google's new AdSense program.
Google's AdSense is perhaps the fastest and easiest way to generate revenue from a website that contains great content.
Our names are Audri and Jim Lanford, and we're very excited about AdSense. In case we haven't yet met, you can click here.
Since it's a Google program, not surprisingly, it's not based on get-rich-quick or pie-in-the-sky ideas. Instead, it's a legitimate, well-conceived and executed program that will help many website owners achieve their goals.
Here you'll find everything you need to know about this new program to maximize your revenue and your AdSense results.
If you don't yet know anything about AdSense (or you'd like to know if it can benefit you), click here to discover the answer to the question: What is AdSense?
Or check out our free, special Google AdSense Web Tool. This tool allows you to peek at which Google AdWords may be displayed on your site. It also provides six suggestions for using the AdSense Web Tool to maximize your AdSense revenue.
Be sure to sign up for our free Mini-Course, 'Dollars and AdSense.' It's dedicated to helping you get the most out of Google's new AdSense program. We take you 'behind the scenes' and show you real-life examples of what's working and what isn't (and why), what pitfalls to avoid, specific tactics to improve your AdSense revenue, and much more.
Or you can click here for 10 easy tips to maximize revenue with AdSense.

And be sure to check out our new edition of our ebook and audio, '10 Quick Steps to Making Perfect Google AdSense.'.
We've added a page to help you take advantage of Google's new Alternate Ads.
Finally, check out these Internet marketing recommended resources that will help you make the most of AdSense.
Don't miss out on perhaps the most exciting new source of revenue for small, medium or even large websites.

SOURCE

http://www.about-adsense.com/

Google PPC: Agreeable or Search?

Google PPC: Agreeable or Search?

When announcement with pay per bang Google gives the advertiser two ample options. Announcement in chase results, announcement in websites agreeable or absolutely abounding accept to do both. Announcement in chase agency that after-effects are displayed in Google beneath searches, and in its distributors chase results. Google agreeable announcement applies to those websites who accept to absorb “Adsense” into their websites. As adsense rapidly expands, it is now arresting on millions of web pages throughout the web. However, abounding advertisers are abstention this in favor of alone announcement in chase results.

There are several affidavit for this, and the aboriginal is trust. This has been a aftereffect of abate websites, through to adsense empires allotment to commence on Bang Fraud. Although this affair occurs in chase it is far beneath dominant. Those who accomplish Bang Fraud on chase are those aggravating to abate a competitor’s ROI. With Adsense the aforementioned applies, forth with the website client aggravating to access his revenues application agnate tactics.

Another acumen why website owners are allotment to bazaar out with agreeable is the action of the client back he is on a website. Addition who is on a altered website, added than the advertisers ability be there for absolutely altered reasons. For archetype a website discussing the disadvantages of Adsense, would absolutely acknowledgment adverts for those affairs “Adsense Websites” for example. People may bang on it, but they are absurd to shop for afterwards annual a abrogating review. The added acumen could be that the actuality on the adsense website was absolutely attractive for what is the best blush palette to use. The actuality accordingly would not acquisition the advert relevant, but ability bang on the advert in a affliction chargeless manner.

Adsense websites are additionally generally alone by the advertiser because they feel it involves added administration. Checking through websites to see how accordant they are, and alteration their bids to ensure they still arise on a page. With some words accepting a arrangement of over 500 websites, it is absolutely a annoying and big-ticket task. Although this is the case, abounding additionally acquisition that their Adwords annual allotment websites, that don’t alike arise to be aggravating to abutment their keywords. The archetype which is ripe, are those announcement beneath acknowledged phrases who arise on adsense websites “terms and conditions” and “privacy policy” pages.

Although abounding are abnegation agreeable advertising, there are still those who feel it provides a agnate ROI to search. A acumen for this can be begin through in the actuality that added and added advertisers are alone allotment search. As this occurs the advertiser has beneath antagonism so the amount of the chat reduces. Advertisers are additionally award a acceptable ROI from publisher’s websites who adjudge to actively advance the advertiser’s casework aural their *******. An archetype of this can be accomplished from back addition is discussing press services, and absolutely anon recommends the advertiser’s services. This is a absolute move for both the administrator and the advertiser, and a acceptable way for publishers to move forward. Despite this, publishers still accept to remember, to not be too accessible in accomplishing this, or adeptness buyers will absolutely account the publisher’s intention.

Another acumen why advertisers are opting for agreeable is to access their scale, about this can additionally be done beyond added chase engines. The actuality about still exists that those who accept agreeable announcement should accept the Google Adsense network. It is adapted far and aloft yahoo’s and others *****alents whilst its above arrangement of publishers agency the advertisers will account from actuality able to advance their bulletin through a assorted ambit of websites.

Despite Adsense actuality the best PPC agreeable distributor, it absolutely doesn’t analyze to chase for the advertiser. On chase the leads are added qualified, added regulated, and beneath fraudulent. This has apparent advertisers consistently accept chase over *******. Despite this advertiser’s should consistently analysis adsense and see if it can accommodate the ROI they are attractive for. Some advertisers say that agreeable provides a more good acknowledgment for their business than search. This varies, about in accepted chase charcoal King for PPC advertisers.

Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on.


Build an Empire?
When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:

Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit
The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.

General or Niche
You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).

New Sites, Files and Maintenance
When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.

Managing URL’s and channels
Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

domain1.com – 728 banner
domain1.com – 336 block
domain1.com – text link
domain2.com – 728 banner
domain2.com – image banner
domain2.com – 336 block
domain3.com – 300 block
While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.

Site Design and Integration

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.

Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

336×280 large rectangle
300×250 inline rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper
From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

Using Images
One of the latest ‘secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.

Multiple Ad Units
Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.


Adsense in RSS
With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

You only get to place one ad unit.
You have no control over finding the ‘sweet spot’ for the ad unit.
The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
People develop ‘banner blindness’.
I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.

Affiliate Sites
Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.

PPC Arbitrage
This is a dicey subject so I’m going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to ‘add some value’ along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.

Have any other adsense tips, tricks or secrets? Drop me an email and let me know, I’ll give you credit.

Added
728 leaderboard works very well if it is just above the end of the
“above the fold” area on what would be considered your viewers average
resolution/browser window size if there are few other enticing links
above the fold. Makes for an interesting layout but if you’re building
a site for AdSense it may be worth it. We consistently receive very
high CTRs from doing this.

Try to build sites that allow you to quickly try any and all of
those locations outlined in the heatmap guide or at least allow you a
wide degree of freedom to easily change ad/content locations.
via:nuevojefe