Dallas PPC Management

If you want a Dallas PPC (pay per click advertising) Firm that provides transparent reporting and flat fee management pricing with no click markups, then give SMBSEO a call.

My name is Mike Stewart, and I am a local search engine market who specializes in pay per click and local search engine optimization. My agency helps advertisers improve their results. The truth is, making money online is not a problem for most experienced web marketers. What is a problem for them is pay per click. On the other hand, those that have mastered pay per click advertising have trouble with content strategy. Content strategists have trouble with social media, so on and so on. Internet marketing has many niches, my agency has specialists for all different types of internet marketing niches. I personally consider myself a “Jack of All Trades” and master of a few.

Just a few of my recent Pay Per Click training sessions:

Google AdWords Seminars for Success 301/302

PubCon Masters Course Pay Per Click Track

Online Marketing Summit PPC Sessions

DFWSEM.org PPC meet-up discussions

Google AdWords Certification Exams

Manage SMBSEO client budgets that total more than $60K per month ad spend

I am going to be honest-pay per click is hard. This is particularly true when it comes to Google Adwords and small business owners who attempt to manage campaigns themselves. The reason is, unlike the other search engines, Adwords uses a sophisticated scoring device known as “quality score”. This is how Google ranks every advertiser on every keyword, and the advertiser with the highest score will rank the best.

In other words, the days of ranking at the top of the search engines by just bidding the highest amount are over. This is because Google takes quality into consideration as well. This makes sense when you think about it from Google’s perspective.

After all, they want to provide the best results for their searchers. Otherwise, they will leave and go to a search engine that provides more relevant results. Therefore, it is in their best interest to provide the advertisers that are most relevant to that keyword… even if that advertiser is not bidding the highest amount.

Many marketers groan when they hear the term quality score, because they think that it is some incredibly complicated formula that nobody can figure out. While it might seem daunting at first, their score is actually a blessing in disguise. The reason is, it allows you to compete with big money marketers, who you would not be able to otherwise.

After all, if the only thing Google took into consideration was bid price, than the larger, wealthier companies would always appear at the top of the rankings for every keywords. However, now a whole bunch of factors are taken into account. This could potentially allow you to outrank someone who is bidding twice as much as you (you read that correctly).

Do you think some of the Google Adwords Resellers who mark up clicks can properly build campaigns beyond “Product/Service & Geography” terms? No! The reason being is they typically use proxy pages or mirrored sites, provide tracking numbers that you never own that often get indexed by search engines, and use automated bid management systems that spend your money where the companies generate the highest profit. I often recommend to clients that if you are not paying Google directly for clicks, you are likely paying a marked-up fee for those clicks. Google PPC is basically the World’s Largest Silent Auction, you need someone bidding on your behalf who wants you to pay the lowest fee possible.

PPC advertising scams have become a serious problem for small businesses.

Are you interested yet? Here is how to rank for someone that is literally bidding twice as much as you (or more)-be more relevant with targeted campaign structures. You will hear me say this word again and again, so get used to it.

As mentioned, Google is all about relevancy. The way to make yourself more relevant is to include the target keyword in your ad title, as well as the body of the ad (if possible). If the term is too long, then simply include as much of it as possible.

The reason is, Google ranks your quality score of each keyword separately. The problem most marketers have is that they have 100s of keywords within each ad group. Not only does this make tracking them impossible, but it also lowers their quality score.

This is because there is no way to include all those keywords in their titles and ad body. There is only so much space, after all. Therefore, their quality score drops, and they have to bid extremely high prices just to show up.

Instead, having a separate ad group for each and every keyword will allow you to include those terms in the ad.

Not only does Google view this as being more relevant, but it will increase your click through rate (and in turn your quality score). The reason is, Google automatically bolds the keywords in your ad that are the same as the keywords the searcher just typed in. Therefore, your ad will stand out more than an ad that has none of the keywords listed.

The bottom line-if your remember nothing else, remember that increasing your relevancy for each keyword is imperative to Adwords success. If you want a Dallas PPC (pay per click advertising) Firm that provides transparent reporting and flat fee pricing, then give us a call. Again, my name is Mike Stewart, and I would love to talk with you and help you improve your quality scores on Google as well as build your Bing/Yahoo AdCenter Campaigns and Facebook Ads.

Dallas Pay Per Click PPC Advertising Management & Consultants

Posted on February 3, 2011 by SMB SEO

For anyone who is dealing with internet advertising on Google AdWords, it is highly unlikely that they are not aware of the importance of quality scores and low cost per click/bid for thier business. However an understanding of the meticulous nature of how Google ranks ads against eachother is something that most internet marketers do not have. Playing by the rules of Google is definitely a sensible approach. As a matter of fact, this can actually enable the internet marketer to pay less than the competitors as well as rank higher on the search engines along with getting more clicks for a relatively trivial payment compared to competitors. What we are saying is, “Google rewards those that do things the right way.”

SMBSEO has internet marketing specialists who actually deal with this aspect of Google. These specialists are Google AdWords Certified Professionals who have been hands on experience and have been trained by Google AdWords Seminars for Success, PubCon PPC Training, and various other online marketing courses. They help their clients in a number of different ways:

Making targeted adgroups for the client’s keywords
Making adgroups that are targeted to the clients specific geographic markets
Increasing the relevance of the landing page, which means the landing page contains keywords in meta settings as well as in title etc.

Serving the Dallas area can be a plus for a small business given the presence of our local Dallas Internet Marketing Boutique (also known as SMBSEO), the valuable services of which are available to the small and medium-sized businesses in the region, especially when it comes to Dallas Pay Per Click Advertising management. The diverse array of services available on behalf of SMBSEO are inclusive of helping clients cut down pay per click advertising costs and enable a lower price to be paid by the client for Google’s unspoken auction of search traffic. Also article marketing is offered to our clients along with free web ranking reports that give the client about the areas of strengths and weaknesses. SMB SEO believes in holistic search marketing efforts, incorporating FREE clicks from local and organic results in combination with paid search marketing clicks or ppc.

Also a tracking system is there for knowing the statistics through Google Analytics. With the help of these stats, business owners will be able to track down each and every visitor along with the referral domain that guided them to the website and also the keywords that became the initial source of their visit.

The targeted directional marketing process focuses on drawing traffic from a number of different sources. It is especially effective in bringing potential customers that have a high level of interest in the client’s products and/ or services. Cashing in on this interest, they are compelled and persuaded to visit the website.

In addition to that, Google AdWords Certified team members help in the management of pay per click campaigns. These experts are experienced in running Google and Yahoo/MSN AdCenter interfaces. SMBSEO strives for transparency and does not indulge in unethical practices. We also help our clients in a diverse array of Internet marketing services. State of the art expertise is offered to clients at a flat monthly charge and no hidden costs. Nevertheless, quality work requires added effort and lengthier time spans so the same applies to this enterprise also, which is further evidence of the veracity of the claims made. Basically the Dallas Pay Per Click Advertising Management services offered by SMBSEO are not a piece of cake; instead it is an integrated campaign where both the parties work together to achieve the desired results, which is not an overnight process and takes time before one actually starts witnessing the generation of results.

Google AdWords Advice for Dallas Small Businesses

Posted on January 30, 2011 by SMB SEO

As industry moves from one model to another in the marketing world, the way that businesses get their messages out to consumers is rapidly changing. Print advertising is fading away as major publications such as the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press see their revenues from ad dollars shrink. Companies like Google are seeing a surge in online marketing activity mainly through its proprietary program Google Adwords. Many businesses still do not see the value in this type of marketing online and there are still misnomers about pay per click advertising in general.

Pay Per Click advertising myths

When a company hears that they will have to pay every time a person clicks on an ad that they have posted online, they may only see cost and turn to run. In reality, it can be incredibly challenging to get someone to click on your ad and costs for online marketing in this way are drastically lower than traditional forms of media in comparison to how effectively a market can be reached and the data Google produces from its campaigns. It is also common for companies to think that individuals don’t want to click on ads and would rather be a unique visitor to a page or click on organic search results. In fact just as many people click on three line text ads that appear next to organic search results as those who click on organic results alone. Still more entities believe that the more they pay, the more exposure they will get online yet in the case of Adwords, this could not be further from the truth. Google works to balance its own needs with the needs of advertisers as well as those of consumers using their service. The company willing to bid the most for an ad to appear may not necessarily be the most relevant for the user’s search query. The position that an ad has on a results page is decided based on a variety of factors one of which is how much an advertiser is willing to pay however this is not the most important factor.

Google uses “Keyword Quality Score” as a means of determining which ads appear higher or lower, this also includes the bid per click as a factor.

Businesses do not have to be end users

While Google provides a very unique and effective opportunity with its advertising services, the Adwords system is very complex and detailed. A person could spend forty hours a week working with it and learning about it and still not completely understand it. This is where Mike Stewart, director of Dallas (PPC) Pay-Per-Click Campaign Set-up & Management Firm SMBSEO comes in. His company specializes in online marketing and Google Adwords consulting. The business offers advice on how to optimize campaign ad text and keywords, improve quality scores and average position on page, as well as a variety of other aspects of Adwords accounts. Tutorials offered by the company can take users through the Adwords interface step by step to increase keyword click through rates and other important factors that maximize ad dollars. SMBSEO’s pay per click management services are not only transparent in reporting and results, the company is also one of the few firms in Dallas to provided paid search management campaign building on behalf of the client without retaining ownership of the work provided. This is a distinct advantage of working with holistic search marketers who view search engine marketing as a service and not a product.

As the advertising world changes, more and more companies are moving to the web to showcase products and services. Benefits of online marketing include far better tracking of user preferences and behavior, lower cost, and greater exposure to target markets. Companies like SMBSEO provide cutting edge online marketing consulting advice for businesses that want to use newer services such as Google Adwords but don’t have the time or knowledge to get things rolling.

What’s wrong with buying internet marketing from Yellow Pages or YellowCrooks?

Posted on May 22, 2010 by mike

For years I worked as a Yellow Pages sales rep for Verizon Information Services which later became Idearc Media/SuperMedia . Out of all of Texas and Florida sales, and from what I knew the entire country, I was the only sales rep in the state of Texas who knew jack squat about SEO and/or Pay Per Click advertising. Most sales reps had little experience actually building and managing pay per click campaigns. I was the exception. I avidly studied search engine marketing strategies and applied them since early 2002. I was once one of the Highest Ranked Sales Representatives at Verizon/Idearc.

I left the company when I finally realized that they didn’t have a clue what small business owners really wanted or needed in a search engine marketing strategy. The company provided horrible pay per click campaigns that had management fees starting at $250.oo per month for basic acct management (mostly just a build and lots of bologna “web event” reporting) and the price went up as high as 1000.00 per month for a 12 month contract. What was so bad about this was the fact that they didn’t spend as much as an hour per month on a clients campaign and initially used the “taxonomy” or categories for SuperPages.com as keyword research! Crazy I tell you! What was even worse was that the Yellow Pages Publisher had a mandatory “burn rate” of ( a requirement to spend) 85% regardless of value. Of course you can’t justify a bill for these outrageous management fees if the client has no click charges. I recall at one-time a campaign manager told me he was on “gag order” not to tell clients he was actually required to “manage” over 100 campaigns! Can you believe that?

So, what do you do? You get involved. You find out why the client is not getting the value the so-called product managers told you about. I know why it doesn’t work! Search is a verb… not a noun. It is not a product. It is an approach. It takes service and a holistic approach to recognize that search is more than just local, or social, or web. Search marketing is Facebook, Twitter, blogs, videos, links, keywords, websites, search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and much much more. Consider this:

Google has over 147 million unique visitors, or different computers (IP Addresses) that visit it’s site every single month…. and growing!

Yahoo.com has over 130 million unique visitors.

CitySearch.com has 20.8 million unique visitors.

YellowPages.com has over 14.7 million, it used to be around 20 million on average.

and coming in last is what once was the industry leader, www.SuperPages.com with only 8.2 million unique visitors and dropping like a rock. The site used to have over 25 million unique visitors. So while traffic is on the rise for Google and other local search sites, it is declining rapidly for SuperPages.

Why you may ask? They lost Briggs Ferguson the former CEO of CitySearch recently as the Vice President of Internet. They also lost a few key SEO folks. (not including Chris Silver Smith who did an amazing job in the early days and left sometime ago.)

Do you really want to know what hurt the yellow pages companies so bad? Besides the fact that urban American’s with iPhones, Droid phones, smartphones, office computers no longer want the limited amount of information contained in a phone book……. the real problem is fragmentation! Local search is extremely fragmented. There are so many sites now that do a better job of organizing the web, such as not A-Z for starters, and many of the Internet Yellow Pages sites just didn’t keep up. When it comes to organizing local information, sites like Kudzu.com, Yelp.com, Local.com, Facebook, and many others are simply doing a better job. It isn’t just about organizing information, it is about things like breadcrumb navigation and something Chris Smith spoke about at the DFWSEM.org meeting regarding local search, USABILITY. You have go to be willing to change. You have go to be creative. Copying a gimmick, like the one created by ServiceMagic.com called the ServiceGuarantee and relabeling it the SuperGuarantee is not going to get you millions of subscribers…. well maybe a million or two… but that really isn’t allot these days! Remember, Google has 147 MILLION Unique Visitors. What do all the successful sites have in common? Their results pages show up on Google. Not so much in urban areas as it is rural markets with limited competition. It is easy to rank in Dunn Tx…. but to rank high on Google for Dallas Tx takes a bit more search (remember, it is a verb!)

So what is wrong with buying advertising from a local directory site? Why sign a contract when Google Maps Page Place Listing Optimization is less expensive and guaranteed to generate more traffic for your advertising investment! Unless your Internet Yellow Pages site is ranking high on Google for your particular keywords, I would not recommend signing a contract for an “Identity Bundle” or for so-called click guarantees or “web events”.

SuperPages.com is no longer as important as it once was because the site has to buy more clicks from Google since it is no longer ranking as well for those local keyword terms…… but if I recall, it still ranks #1 or #2 for Plumbers in Dallas Tx though! Superpages gave up on good SEO. They used to do a pretty good job at it. Not so much anymore. They still don’t offer SEO to small business clients. Why? You think they have churn now, wait til you ask them to invest 10-15 hours per month on a clients program….. yeah right! That will never happen. Especially considering how fast they are laying off to reduce expenses for investors!

Local Search is changing. Sites like Gowalla and FourSquare are making a big impact. So is image search, real-time search, and social media. I bet Facebook is going to be a very big player in Local Search soon.

My advice is for local small and medium-sized business owners to stay clear of yellow pages sales reps who try to sell internet advertising. They don’t know what it really takes to get a great ROI from Internet advertising. I was one of the few. But hey, I was the guy who was not old enough to drive a company car and thus was not able to get promoted! I was also the only guy in Texas Sales to receive 3 President’s Awards!

If you choose to advertise with smbSEO instead of the yellow pages, we will save you 20% off our normal rates. Why? Well, most sales reps earn a 20% commission just for “making the sale.” So if we don’t have to sell you, you save us and our existing clients money! This is worth money and a penny saved is a penny earned!

Oh yeah, what are some of my other concerns with “Yellow Pages Advertising”:

-Clients never own the campaign

-Campaign manager changes daily

-A/B ad testing never takes place

-You cancel your campaign, your information is used for a competitor

-Going direct to the engines allows for faster changes, they don’t do it like that!

-You pay for some 10.00 per hour rookie to experiment and learn on your click budget!

-THEY DO NOT HAVE A CLUE HOW GREAT A VALUE BEING RANKED HIGH ON GOOGLE IS WORTH. The clicks are FREE! The only cost is the service performed to get you ranked at the Top of Google and other search engines.

One reason for the cluelessness…… they have never seen an analytics report!

Let’s see… what else?

-The try to spend all your money on “The YellowCrook Internet Directory Network” which is barely in the “TOP 50″ or all websites and is now less popular than CitySearch.com!

So, beyond the fake “Google AdWords Sales Certifications” the Google Partner Program offered them, the same program the Google is looking to end due to the churn from these so-called partners, there are many reasons not to advertise with sites like SuperPages.com….

Your business deserves special treatment. You deserve a local Dallas Google Guru!

At smbSEO we don’t require 12 month contracts like the Yellow Pages companies do for internet advertising. We also don’t have attorneys and collection agents on retainer to hound our clients. We are a boutique search marketing agency for local small business owners in Dallas Fort Worth Tx. Give us a call to schedule a consultation at your office. We provide our services face to face. We look forward to meeting you!

My qualifications:

7 years local search engine optimization study

Google AdWords Seminars for Success 301/302 Course:

I have also had training at:

I am on the Board of Directors for:

and I am Google AdWords Certified in Pay Per Click Campaign Management:

and if you want to read more about YellowCrooks, visit www.YellowCrooks.com, a discussion forum about Yellow Pages CEO Fraud and Reviews.

And investors wonder why the stock declined 15% Q1 of 2009 and then 21% more in Q1 of 2010…. at that pace they will be a 1.6 billion dollar company by 2013. Just think…. in 2004 the company had 3.5 billion in earnings! Talk about the Death of the Phone Book!

Manage your account effectively

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Casey

This is the last of the Google Adwords Email Training. You can always come back and read up on some basics here.

The online world moves very quickly, so what works for you today may not be as successful next week.

Because of this, we recommend that all our AdWords advertisers log in to their account on a regular basis. Even a quick check-in once a week can help you get the most out of your advertising budget.

Here’s a quick list of actions for you to follow every time you log in to your account. This will help you to get a great understanding of how your account is performing and whether you’re meeting your business goals.

What do I do when I log into my account?

When you log into your AdWords account, first check notifications and account alerts on the ‘Home’ tab.

Then, go to the ‘Campaigns’ tab and set the time range (in the top right-hand corner of your account) to a period of 1-4 weeks to get a good indication of recent performance.

How can I check my AdWords performance?

Performance will vary by account so focus on identifying your best and worst performing keywords and ads to help refine your account:

Under the ‘Keywords’ tab, review:

Keyword clickthrough rate (CTR). Which keywords are receiving your highest and lowest CTR?
Position of your keywords. Are your ads appearing on the first page i.e. avg. pos. of 1-11?
Keyword status. Are your ads eligible to show?
Quality score. You can see the quality score for each keyword by clicking on the icon in the status column.

Under the ‘Ads’ tab:

Review your ad clickthrough rate (CTR). If you are testing multiple ads in each ad group check to see which are performing best.

If you have Conversion Tracking enabled, check which ads and keywords are converting into sales.

What do these metrics mean?

How do I manage my account for success?

Refine your keywords and ads:

Look at the top performing keywords and ads – edit those that are not doing well, using your top performers as a guide to how they can be improved.
Delete those that have consistently performed poorly.
Use negative keywords to eliminate unwanted impressions.

Test new keywords and ads in your campaigns:

Use the keyword tool to get keyword suggestions to add to your campaign.
If you don’t have multiple ads in each ad group, you should create more ads and test them to see which works best for you.

This is the final email of the AdWords Welcome Pack. We hope you have found it useful and are now well equipped to run your AdWords advertising campaign successfully. If you have any questions in the future, we have a variety of educational resources to help you.