When running pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, the ad copy serves as the filter that funnels visitors to your site. Since PPC advertisers pay “per click,” it’s important to ensure that you are attracting visitors that are most likely to convert. In order to help you fine-tune your campaigns and drive more relevant traffic to your site, we’ve created the following five tips to help you write converting ad copy:

1. Use dynamic keyword insertion (DKI). For those who are unfamiliar with this term, DKI is essentially a code that can be placed in your PPC ads to have the user’s search query automatically populated in the ad copy. The purpose of DKI (if used correctly) is to make your ads more relevant to the user’s search query. While DKI can be a great tool, it should be used with care and should only be used in ad groups with highly targeted keywords.

   {KeyWord:Default Text}

   Tip: When using the DKI code, the “K” and the “W” should be capitalized. Doing so will capitalize the first letter of each word automatically populated in the ad copy.

2. Incorporate your keywords. In order to increase the relevancy of ads, advertisers should incorporate their keywords into the ad copy as much as possible. Doing so helps to increase the click-through rate (the average number of click-throughs per 100 ad impressions, expressed as a percentage), improve the quality score, and lower the average cost-per-click.

   One technique often used by PPC advertisers is to incorporate the keywords in the display URL (website address). Since the search engines only require that the main domain in the display URL match the destination URL, advertisers can attempt to boost their quality score by incorporating their keywords in the display URL. For example, the display URL of an ad in an ad group promoting blue widgets may look something like this: www.WebsiteDomain.com/BlueWidgets

3. Prequalify visitors. One of the best ways to control costs and increase conversion rates is to prequalify visitors in the ad copy. For example, a company selling high-end furniture may want to weed out visitors looking for low-cost sofas. In order to do so, they will want to create ads that set the expectation that their furniture is more high end. In this situation, the ad may look something like this:

   Luxury Leather Sofas
   Large Selection of Premium Sofas.
   Prices Starting at $2,500. Shop Now!
   www.WebsiteDomain.com/Sofas

4. Take visitors to the most relevant landing page. One common reason that PPC visitors don’t convert once they get to a site is because they can’t find what they’re looking for. The best way to minimize this problem is to take visitors to the most relevant page on your site. If I have an ad group focused on promoting “wooden baseball bats,” I would want my ads to take visitors directly to the “wooden baseball bat” page on my website.
5. Test, test, and test again. Although you may think you know which ads will/won’t perform well, you may be surprised when you actually run a test. As a result, we recommend you always test new ad copy. Be sure to give your ads time to accrue impressions and clicks. Once you have a clear winner, pause the underperforming ads and create new ads to test against the previous winner.

What has worked for your PPC campaigns? We’d like to know.

How to Write Converting Ad Copy to Boost the Return of Your PPC Campaigns is a post from Web.com | Blog

In a perfect world, the phone would ring only when you were available to answer it, and your customers would buy your products or services without asking any questions and without complaining. But reality, as we all know, works differently: Calls come in bunches (if we’re lucky), and when customers want your undivided attention, it’s best you give it to them. The price for not responding quickly and thoroughly to your customers’ needs can sometimes be the deciding factor between growing your business . . . or, worst-case scenario, losing your business.

That’s why many small and medium-sized businesses partner with call center specialty companies. Here are some of the top reasons why they do:

• Staffing: With a dedicated call center service, you are never under- or overstaffed.
• Administrative/Management Needs: Having a staff means you’ll need management to hire, train, and oversee your representatives. This isn’t necessary when you partner with a reputable call center service.
• Phone Systems, PCs, Furniture, Office Space: In-house customer service requires equipment and space. How many small businesses in this economy can comfortably afford the expenses involved?

The right full-service company will not only handle your calls and resolve disputes, but they can upsell and cross-sell your products and services—dramatically enhancing your bottom line—even after your normal business hours. You no longer have to take a customer call while you’re waiting to buy popcorn at the movies with your family. You can rest assured your calls will be answered and, potentially, sales will be made . . . and you won’t need to endure the withering looks of your spouse or partner when you take a business call during family time.

Enlisting the help of virtual office assistants can also level the playing field when competing against larger companies. Your customers can access the same quality customer service—and sometimes even better service—than competitors with more employees and deeper resources.

To learn more about how your business can benefit from partnering with a call center service, visit the Call Center Services site at Solid Cactus, Web.com’s eCommerce specialty company.

Dialing Up Quality Customer Service and Sales with Call Center Services is a post from Web.com | Blog

You can’t watch a news show or read a periodical or blog without someone weighing in on the value of social media. If you’re not sure what to do, you have plenty of company. A recent Citibank/GfK Roper study found that 76% of small businesses find that social networks aren’t helping them grow their businesses. That’s a sobering stat.

But then a recent Performics study found that an impressive number of consumers are using social networks to share brand info: 46% say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook, and 44% would do so on Twitter. Meanwhile, 36% of YouTube visitors have visited a business’ website after hearing of a brand on a social network site.

The study also found that communicating relevant messages in the consumers’ language and on their terms yielded the best prospect for growth in sales. So what gives? Are the Citibank/GfK Roper businesses just not using social media effectively?

What’s been your experience? We’d like to know.

Social Media: Giving Small Businesses and Consumers Something to Talk About is a post from Web.com | Blog

Small Business websites can gain additional exposure, traffic, and sales by using Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In a nutshell, SEO involves making improvements to your website in order to get good rankings in search engines like Google™, Bing™, and Yahoo!®. For people who are still in the design phase on their sites, and people who are working on do-it-yourself (DIY) website design projects, building SEO into your site can be a lot easier than coming back later to overhaul coding or content that isn’t search-engine friendly.

Here are a few tips:

1. The title of your homepage should be about the most general topic you cover and include your location. In many ways this is like being in the phone book. “Falcon Colorado Chinese Restaurant” may be a very brief title for a homepage, but it is a good start, and descriptive. As a general rule, the first 65 characters of your title are the ones that a search engine is going to show, so put the most important information in this area.
2. List all of your services, and go into depth on the important ones. For instance, you may list your services on the homepage and have links to ones that are the biggest moneymakers, which would have their own page.
3. Add good content to important topic pages. If you can write 3 paragraphs about a particular product or service, it may be worth having its own page, especially when people are looking for it locally. One way to build content is to proactively address customer concerns, or describe product capabilities in more detail without being overly competitive.
4. Make sure each of your pages has a different title, which is about the page topic. For a local business, don’t be afraid to add the towns you serve, even if it’s at the back end of the title. For example: “Surfboard Repair & Waxing | Haleiwa & Waialua Hawaii” would be a good title for an interior page on a surf shop site.
5. Find good keywords. Using the Google Keyword Tool is a great way to get started. Local businesses should put city or town names in front of keywords to get a better impression of how many Google users are seeking local vendors.
6. Put your address at the bottom of your homepage. Bing and Google have local directories which can associate your address with your business phone listing or other data.

See Don Keeton’s blog post about Search-Engine-Friendly Website Design for more on this topic.

The improved exposure and traffic that comes from a search-engine-friendly design can increase your overall profitability, so a little time building SEO into your design is definitely worth the extra work.

Six Proven Ways to Improve the SEO of Your Small Business Website is a post from Web.com | Blog

As a small business owner, you may not often think about your brand . . . or you may think that branding is something that only big corporations need to worry about. But thanks to social media, the role of branding has changed. In today’s world, all businesses—even individuals—need to recognize the importance of managing their brand online. If you don’t manage it, others will manage it for you, which is never a good thing.

Every business has an occasional bad day—and customers sometimes have bad experiences at even the very best businesses. The problem is that today one bad customer experience can become immortalized via social media. For example: when a prospect searches for your business on Google™, it’s possible that someone’s negative rant about your business will come up in the search results . . . and the person searching for you will be influenced by what he or she reads. This is why managing your brand online is so important.

While it’s important that you respond to negative feedback, how you respond is also critical. As Alicia Magda discussed here in a recent blog post, you need to keep your C.O.O.L. when responding. If you’re new to social media, it’s easy to feel defensive when subjected to negative posts that everyone else can see. Just remember that people who frequent social media and review sites KNOW that negative comments often reflect more about a particular customer than about a particular business—and if those comments are handled professionally, that becomes all the more apparent.

I noticed on Yelp recently that a local restaurant had a scathing review amongst several nice ones. The bad one was so bad, however, that it practically overshadowed the good ones. There was another entry, however, a month later written by the same disgruntled patron that explained how the manager of the restaurant contacted her and personally invited her back to the restaurant for a free dinner. This is an example of good online brand management—the manager didn’t respond directly, but took care of the customer offline, which in turn prompted a positive review. This effectively neutralized the negativity of the original post.

There are many tools and practices that can help you effectively manage your brand online. What has or hasn’t worked for you? We’d like to know.

Using Social Media to Manage Your Brand is a post from Web.com | Blog

Search engines like Bing™, Google™, and Yahoo!® pride themselves on the accuracy of their information, and they’re focused on ensuring that search results return the most relevant websites. Therefore, it pays to be honest and straightforward when you’re presenting your site to the search engines.

Over the years, several webmasters and optimizers have found ways to artificially boost the positions of websites and to achieve higher search rankings in an unethical manner. This type of search engine optimization is called “black hat SEO.” Search engines will penalize these sites by removing them from the index or banishing them to a low position if bad behavior is discovered. The same rules used to detect black hat SEO tactics, or “spamming,” can sometimes trip up people who are honestly trying to promote a good website. For instance, too much repetition of a keyword on a Web page can be mistaken for “keyword stuffing,” so you want to avoid this practice.

It’s important to learn the difference between good and bad tactics for your website and how to keep your site from being mistaken for an untrustworthy source of information.

Tactics to avoid:

• Stuffing keywords. Try not to use the same keyword on your pages too many times. A good rule of thumb is to read your content out loud to see if it sounds repetitive.
• Using hidden text. If you have text on your site that is the same color as the page background, or close to it, then you may get penalized. For instance, dark gray text that’s on a black background and set in a small font size at the bottom of the page would look suspicious. The use of coding tricks to put text outside the average visitor’s view can also lead to problems.
• Buying bad links. One way to inflate search engine rankings is through the use of paid links, and some categories of links serve as a red flag. For instance, if you buy a link that shows up on every page of a 15,000-page website, you might risk a search engine penalty. Search engines are very good at detecting paid text links when they appear on certain parts of a web page.
• Selling PageRank. Lots of sites out there make money by selling links for PageRank (or link popularity) purposes. If you get caught, your PageRank will drop to zero, and your site might completely vanish from the search engines.
• Linking to questionable websites. Almost every webmaster has gotten a few dozen requests for a “link exchange.” Sometimes the request offers a link from a third-party site in exchange for your link to a different site. Remember that a link from your site counts as an endorsement, and if a search engine thinks you’re endorsing questionable sites, your rankings will suffer. A link to a gambling, adult-oriented, or offshore pharmaceutical site is usually a bad idea.
• Duplicating content. The content on your site should be unique. If you copy another site’s content, your pages are highly unlikely to be found anywhere that search engines can see them. Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect Internet service providers from liability associated with content provided. The original content owner may file a DMCA request with search engines, and they may ban your site altogether. The use of software that scrapes other sites and creates content is also not recommended, since search engines can detect this tactic.

Google, Yahoo!, and Bing all offer webmaster guidelines. Google Webmaster Tools offers a free way to find out how Google sees your site and it warns you if you’ve violated their terms of use. Generally speaking, the best way to avoid search engine penalties is to present a website that the average person would recommend to others. By creating a positive end-user experience, you can usually avoid filters and penalties, which gives you a tremendous advantage over competitors who don’t have a well-thought-out search-engine-ranking strategy.

Search Engine Optimization: Avoid “Black Hat SEO” Tactics is a post from Web.com | Blog

It’s not easy being a business owner. You dedicate your days and nights to managing your store, and you’ve certainly shed your share of sweat and tears to turn your business into a recognizable brand in your industry. Like most days, your alarm buzzes at 6 a.m., you wake up and turn on your computer, you check for any orders that came in overnight, and then you take a look at your Google™ Alerts to see if your brand has been mentioned online anywhere.

And then your nightmare begins. A popular industry blogger posts a letter from an angry customer about your denial of his product return request, stating that consumers should avoid your business. You’re now quickly recalling that customer from the previous week who tried to return an item that was obviously opened and used.

Welcome to the world of online reputation management, where every mouse click has the potential to quickly spread both positive and, unfortunately, negative reviews of your brand. So . . . how should you react? Be C.O.O.L.

“C” Is for Calmness
Your first reaction will be to panic and post an angry, reactionary comment about how outright wrong the customer is. Repeat after me: This will only worsen the situation. Instead, breathe and focus on staying calm. Walk away from your computer and think about the crux of the situation. The customer has an issue with your store’s policy, not with you. Address the root of the problem, rather than the person posting about the problem.

“O” Is for Objectivity
Once your heart rate has returned to a seminormal rate and you’re no longer pacing back and forth, start formulating your reply. Put yourself in their shoes. Is there any way you could have been wrong or a little too hasty? Could the product have been damaged during shipping? Politely reply by thanking them for providing feedback about their customer service experience and then explain that service is your top priority and you’d like to do all you can to address and resolve the issue.

“O” Is for Openness
Be honest and open in your reply. Explain your current policies and why you have them in place. If you discover that the complaint is legitimate, be candid about how you are working on this aspect of your business and explain exactly what you’re doing to correct any issues. Ask for feedback on ways you can take your business to that customer service “wow” level. Include your direct contact information, showing that you’re willing and available to discuss.

“L” Is for Listening
Satisfied with your reply? Post it in the comments field of the blog post and check back frequently for feedback. Listen to readers’ replies. Are they sharing their own customer service experiences? Calmly chime in and interact with them. Think of this as a learning experience for directly engaging with your audience and learning what your business could be doing better.

Then give yourself a pat on the back. You have constructively handled online negative feedback about your business and turned it into a positive learning experience. Start implementing the suggested changes, and share about your business’ positive improvements on your own blog. Now, it’s time to fulfill all those orders coming in!

How have you responded to negative feedback online? If the situation were to happen again, would you respond the same way? If not, what would you do differently?

Faced with Negative Blog Comments about Your Brand? Stay C.O.O.L. is a post from Web.com | Blog

When you’re setting up a PPC account, there are general guidelines that you should follow to help your campaigns achieve success. It’s especially important that you understand the relationship between the different areas within a PPC account: the cost per click is affected by the quality score, which is affected by the click-through rate, which in turn is affected by the keywords and the overall structure of your account. As a result, proper account structure is crucial to reducing costs and achieving a higher quality score.

The PPC account structure can most easily be compared to a filing cabinet. When comparing the two, the breakdown would look something like this:

Filing cabinet  =  The account as a whole
     Drawers in the cabinet  =  Campaigns
          Files in a drawer  =  Ad groups
               Papers within the folders  =  Keywords and ads

By utilizing this organization when setting up campaigns, advertisers can ensure that their ads will be more relevant to the users’ search queries. If I were a retailer who sold a wide variety of baseball gear, my campaigns may break down something like this:

Campaign: Baseball Bats
     Ad Group: Baseball Bats
          Keywords: baseball bats, black baseball bats, new baseball bats . . .
     Ad Group: Fastpitch Bats
          Keywords: fastpitch bat, fast-pitch bats . . .
     Ad Group: Wooden Bats
          Keywords: wooden bats, wooden baseball bats . . .
     Etc.

Campaign: Baseball Gloves
     Ad Group: Baseball Gloves
          Keywords: baseball gloves, leather baseball gloves . . .
     Ad Group: Fastpitch Gloves
          Keywords: fastpitch gloves, left-handed fastpitch gloves . . .
     Ad Group: Youth Gloves
          Keywords: youth gloves, kids gloves . . .
     Etc.

In addition to having targeted keywords within each ad group, I would also create ads specific to those keywords to make my ads more relevant. For example, an ad in the “Wooden Bats” ad group might look something like this:

20% Off Wooden Bats
Huge Selection of Wooden Bats.
Free Shipping—Shop Now!
www.BaseballGear.com/WoodenBats

Although it may seem easier to lump all of your keywords into one or two general ad groups, doing so will only hurt your campaigns in the long run. If you’re looking to improve the quality score of your account or just reduce your costs altogether, try reorganizing your account to ensure more relevant delivery of your ads.

Organizing Your PPC Account is a post from Web.com | Blog

In any informed discussion about website design, it’s not long before someone will refer to the importance of the Google™ algorithm in determining your website’s ranking. Algorithms are the rules that search engines use to rank online content.

Although Google does not publish the many variables that its algorithm uses to rank your website, it does promote the most important elements in designing a website that are friendly to search engines. Being search engine friendly gives your site the best chance to achieve good ranking and beat your competitors.

Write Good Copy
Good website design starts with good copy or content. Google and other search engines look at your site and evaluate whether what you say is worthwhile and then “reward” the best written sites with a good ranking.

Think about conversations you have with potential clients and elaborate on what they ask you or your sales team about your business:

• What do you offer?
• Why are you better than your competition?
• What is your customer service about?

Think of your website as a 24/7 salesperson who is “selling” your business to potential new customers. Equip that virtual “salesperson” with as much good and factual information about your business that you can because the new visitor is most likely comparing your offering to your competitors’ websites and will be making a decision based on what they read.

Your competition may not be as good or as inexpensive or offer as many products as you, BUT if they have better and more compelling content on their website, guess who that customer is going to call?

Update your content a couple of times a year. Keep it fresh and current.

Select Appropriate Keywords
Hand in glove with the content is the selection of keywords that people will type in search engines. Think of the keywords as 2–3 word descriptions or categories of what you offer. You want to ensure those keywords are written into the content and that it makes sense to a potential customer. Use both general and specific keywords (e.g., automotive repair, Cadillac brakes) to accurately describe your business.

Write Effective Page Titles
The last component is the title of the page. It may not sound important, but search engines place strong emphasis on the title of each page. The title is what appears in the search engine results page. A well-written title will attract more people to your Web page.

A good website design will have a unique title for each page on the website. Keep the title within 65 characters and work in the most important keywords for that page. If you are a local business, include the city and state. Here are a couple sample titles:

• “Electric Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Music Lessons | Muncie, IN”
• “Hot Water Heaters, Plumbing Fixtures, Spa Repair | Orlando, FL”

Avoid putting your company name in the title. Since you only have 65 characters, you will see better results and more traffic by writing a keyword in that title. People usually look for your offerings and not your company name. Remember, the keywords that appear in the title MUST appear on that page as well.

Has altering your website content noticeably changed the volume of traffic to your website? If so, was it for better or worse?

Search-Engine-Friendly Website Design is a post from Web.com | Blog

If you’ve been putting off making significant enhancements to your business because of financial concerns, President Obama’s recent proposal to increase small business lending might be just the news you’ve been waiting for. The president is proposing increasing the size of loans available through the Small Business Administration, as well as providing inexpensive capital to small banks.

Whether you’ve been feeling skittish about seeking out loans or you’ve had difficulty getting approved by larger financial institutions, these measures, if passed by Congress, would provide welcome financial relief if you need a little extra help growing your business in a competitive economic environment.

Highlights of the president’s proposal include:

• Increasing the size of the SBA’s 7(a) loans from $2 million to $5 million.
• Increasing the maximum size of microloans to $50,000, up from $35,000.
• Providing lower-cost capital to credit unions, community banks, and financial institutions. Eligible banks will be required to explain how the funds will be used and to file quarterly reports on their small business lending practices.

The president’s announcement comes just weeks after it was reported that more than $1 out of every $4 spent on federal Recovery Act contracts has gone to small businesses. As of October 2, nearly 26% of federal stimulus contracting dollars, or more than $4 billion, was awarded to small businesses.

What do you think of the government’s efforts to help small businesses? Do you feel Washington is doing enough or too little? Have you benefited from the Recovery Act in any way? Let us know.

New Government Initiatives to Benefit Small Businesses is a post from Web.com | Blog