How To Find The Best Dallas Internet Marketing Company You Can Actually Afford

If you are an entrepreneur, shifting your focus from media advertising to Internet marketing it is important to hire a reputable Internet marketing company to increase your visibility on the world wide web.  The Internet has grown substantially in the last decade and has become perhaps the best marketing platform in existence.  With billions and advertising and e-commerce sites on the net, it is important to develop an affordable and efficient market strategy that will increase your visibility and your sales conversions.  The entire purpose of advertising online is to generate leads, prospects, and sales for increased revenue.  If you are not familiar with the various methods of Internet marketing, you will need to hire a professional Internet marketer catering to the Dallas area.  Understand how to find the best Dallas Internet marketing company you can actually afford and become a force to be reckoned with on the web.

When you begin your search, you will quickly realize that there are several different Dallas Internet marketing companies specializing in different areas of online advertising.  As a small business owner chances are you are not familiar with different methods that exist.  Internet advertising is constantly changing and improving.  Finding a Dallas Internet marketing company that specializes in every type of marketing on the world wide web is extremely difficult.  Some of the most popular and effective methods of marketing online include: backward link building (aka: backlinks), social media, pay-per-click ads, sponsored links, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), web design, content management, article marketing, local business listings, and blogs.  Each of these areas of advertisement are different and will require different knowledge.  There are specialists in the marketing industry for each and every type of marketing.  It may be difficult to find a single company with experts in every area.

Now that you understand the various types of Internet marketing, you must figure out which companies are the best in the business.  Hiring a professional marketing firm can be extremely expensive if you do not consider results.  Big advertising companies are commonly chosen by large corporations and larger middle-sized businesses.  When you hire a large Internet marketing firm to handle your marketing campaign, you could be compromising your budget and the quality of services offered.  Large Internet marketing companies in Dallas will assign your project to a project manager to discuss your needs.  Once you have explained what you are looking for, the account manager will present the project to the individuals specializing in specific areas of expertise.  This means you will never actually talk to the person who is handling your account.  When you are designing and rolling out a new marketing initiative, it is important to have contact with each and every specialist handling your account.  If you can only communicate with a middle man, you could be compromising the efficiency of your marketing initiative.

Another factor to consider when you are hiring a professional Dallas Internet marketer is their rank on Google.  Because the company is responsible for making your site rank as one of the top results on Google and other search engines, they should rank highly as well.  You would not hire an interior designer with a poorly designed office, so you cannot reasonably hire an Internet marketer that has not focused on advertising his or her own business.  You will need to search some of the top industry terms to find a company that ranks highly.  Some of the terms you should search for include:

*Search Engine Optimization Dallas
*SEO for Small Businesses Dallas
*Internet Marketing Dallas
*Online Advertising Experts Dallas
*Search Engine Marketing Dallas
*SEO Web Design Dallas
*Content Marketing Expert Dallas

Chances are you will not find a single company listed highly for every single area of advertising.  If you do stumble across a company that is ranked highly for every area they are worth considering.  Make sure not to compromise the quality of service received by choosing a large firm that sees you as a project rather than a company.

Internet marketing is essential if you want to be successful in today’s technologically advanced society.  More and more consumers are surfing the web to find businesses in their area.  If you want to compete in today’s competitive market, do your research and choose a Dallas Internet marketing firm you can trust.

One of My First Dallas Small Business SEO and Internet Marketing Clients is Killing It!

One of my first and oldest Dallas small business holistic seo internet marketing client is Jason Phan of JPImportz:

Jason Phan of JP Importz.org, was invited by SMB SEO to attend last nights DFWSEM meeting (Dallas Search Engine Marketing Association was the first local search engine marketing professionals associations) where we discussed topics related to recent events such as the Google “Farmer” or Panda Update geared at low quality content and the buying process.  JP Importz is an independent Dallas Lexus Repair that is located in Garland Tx. JP Importz is not a dealership. Years and years ago, while I working for Verizon Yellow Pages and SuperPages.com, I sold Jason an ad in the Garland and Plano Yellow Pages. Worse mistake I could have ever made. It ended up costing him to the tune of around $8,000 in wasted marketing resources. The ad failed horribly. But I also happened to sell him a valuable link (from SuperPages) and expert advice on his SEO and PPC efforts. I helped him with his On-site SEO (mostly page titles and descriptions and some content at the time) and PPC campaigns.

With my advice while working at Verizon SuperPages, Jason began implementing strategies, such as becoming a Lexus Repair Expert on AllExperts.com and a somewhat blackhat seo at the time Google local listing strategy that focused on keywords in the listing name, something that no longer passes the spam sniff test with Google’s head of web spam Matt Cutts. Jason also ran into issues with the trademark and trade name Adwords policies related to Lexus, another policy that Google has since reversed.

Jason’s internet marketing success can be attributed to effort, great customer service, and a holistic approach. But when you ask Jason what holistic local search marketing is, he probably could only refer you to me!

Jason has also built an excellent strategy with video reviews and testimonials, with a budget of almost nothing. Take a look at how many times his business name or content ranks on the first page. In fact, his video ranks on the first page of Google for Dallas Lexus Repair!

Jason’s most recent web site rebuild  consisted of a Joomla CMS (content management system) and he is looking to begin a healthy blog.

JPImportz also has excellent reviews and testimonials from real customers who love his Lexus repair work on his Google Places account. His business is not located in Dallas or Plano but ranks well for those geographies from the overall score of his Google Places account that includes a tremendous amount of citations.

Due to customer demand Jason, a former Lexus Dealership Service Technician, recently went back to automotive school to get his certifications on BMW repair and the company will be adding that service.

I wish Jason the best! He surely deserves it! The guy is a master at Lexus and Auto Service.

Dallas Pay Per Click PPC Advertising Management & Consultants

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

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.

Google Traffic Trends for PPC (AdWords) resellers who markup clicks on Google.

Ever wondered how popular one big PPC Adwords Reseller is vs another?  

 

How Popular are other PPC Advertising Companies?

Google Trends is an excellent free tool to find out how many people search for a particular word, phrase, or brand vs another. It can also be used for quick keyword research. A great example is Attorneys vs Lawyers in subregions.

I was curious how the SuperMedia name change from Idearc (after the companies questionable bankruptcy) was impacting the brands popularity vs others like up and coming MLM-styled AdzZoo (who took a big hit from reducing 40% commissions to 20% last I heard) and ReachLocal, a company that is finally getting better at servicing clients and has the sales involvement (from a reporting perspective) and support structure to connect the client and management. SuperMedia has a disconnect by not giving sales reps the training or tools to medigate potential issues or offer optimization such as Website Conversion Optimization or tools such as Google Analytics.

Rumor is that Google wants to end the Google Authorized AdWords Reseller Program due to churn, click markups that are overpriced and prohibit a ROI for advertisers. While the program website is still live, many rumors have been swirling that Google wants to end the program and focus on the Google AdWords Certification and provider program. Maybe Google is shifting away from “working with H&R Block” type companeis and back to “independant tax preparers” or from yellow page providers and big national agencies to local service providers and mid-sized internet advertising and paid search (PPC) agencies.

The program has the following companies still listed on Google’s website:

The following companies are Google AdWords Authorized Resellers:

15miles/ TMP Directional Marketing
ACB
ADP Dealer Services
AdReady
AT&T
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Citysearch
Clickable
Cobalt
Comcast
Dealer.com
FTD
Hearst Newspaper
JG Sullivan
Local Insight Media
Market Leader
Marquette Group
Network Solutions
OrangeSoda
Pica9
ReachLocal
RH Donnelley
SuperMedia
TopSpot Internet Marketing
TravelCLICK
Viamedia
Web.com
Yellow Pages Group (Canada)
Yellowbook
Yodle

The program was designed to allow these companies to provide pay per click management services local SMBs. Companies who in the program must maintain a client base of over 500 clients and get free API access.

Potential concerns by some advertisers with large scale ppc service providers are:

  • Horrible ROI for the SMB’s due to the high % click markups by the Authorized Resellers on Clicks that are already markedup by Google’s “silent auction”
  • lack of transparency to the SMB’s. 
  • Even Google’s reseller website all include 45% margins (see http://www.google.com/adwordsresellerinfo/business.html)

Most smaller PPC agencies markup clicks only 15-20%. Some agencies like SMB SEO even allow the client to purchase the campaign and build the campaign on the clients Google AdWords Account. So as they invest in the campaign monthly, they also own all the optimization improvements, history, and detail.

This change will likely force resellers to build a service oriented business model, which is nothing like yellow pages advertising and sales business practices, vs the huge markups necessary to pay sales reps, executives, shareholders, and hungry venture capital and hedgefund investors looking for big dividends and everyone else who doesn’t “service” or manage your account. Atleast ReachLocal has tools, trained sales reps, and client retention for “sales reps” vs the new rep every year business approach of yellow pages companies. Does all this lead to less focus on service, pay per click advertising scams, and a negative reputation for the providers or resellers?

So….. Take a look at the above results. What do you think is going on?

Time to whip out some real SEO keyword tools and see how much keyword query traffic the negative reputation has! Need to put in keywords like ReachLocal Sucks, SuperMedia Sucks, and AdzZoo Sucks or ReachLocal Scams, SuperMedia Scams, or AdzZoo Scams. Of course only 2% of people speak positive and almost 25% of those with a negative experience will comment. By the way… did I mention that I we know a thing or two about Online Reputation Management? I have some great tips to share local internet marketers on my DallasGoogleGuru.com Blog about companies who mark up clicks on Google vs providing a service!

What to expect from our Dallas SEO SEM firm?

Who does your small business SEO at SMB SEO?

Currently at SMB SEO, we have 2 SEO experts, Mike Stewart and Casey Watkins. This means means you will have a dedicated resource assigned to your work that you can communicate your internet advertising concerns to without having to contact a sales consultant.  Contrary to what you may have been told by telemarketers and sales reps from ReachLocal.com, SuperMedia.com, AT&T Interactive/Yellow Pages, and other larger internet advertising most internet advertising agencies, you do not have a dedicated account rep like you do with SMB SEO.  An account rep’s job is to maintain the client. A sales rep’s job is to make commission and then move onto the next “big sell.”

As Duane Forrester said on his Search Engine Land post regarding “What to Expect from an SEO/SEM agency” here:

To keep the workflow moving for them and ensure the client is happy. Sometimes the rep will also be part of the initial sales cycle, in which case their workload includes making the sale happen. If telling you there is a dedicated resource for your needs gets the sale, most sales people will state just that.

On average SMB SEO dedicates 12-15 hours per month per client on SEO and Web Marketing services for our Dallas area clients.  SMB SEO offers our handful of clients dedicated search marketing services with no contracts.

What about other SEO providers in Dallas Fort Worth?

Often times you may be called on by an independent “SEO Consultant” who says he can provide SEO Services that typically consist of changing your websites page titles, page descriptions, adding a few articles and building a pay-per-click campaign. This might sound like a great deal at the time, but something to consider is the not just level of experience but also having a dedicated point of contact that understands YOUR BUSINESS and how unique your company, products, and services are to others in the Dallas Fort Worth area. You don’t have to worry about “booking” more time from your consultants at SMB SEO. We are never too busy for our existing clients. We are loyal to our clients.

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What kind of experience in Search Marketing should I look for?

Dallas area small business owners and those who are responsible for the company’s online marketing efforts need to consider the level of experience in a search engine marketing agency. Just because an agencies sales rep says they have a Pay Per Click team or specialist on hand to service your company, this does not mean they offer the best value in search engine marketing, a holistic approach.

Mike Stewart began studying search engine marketing as a media consultant for Verizon SuperPages.com. Originally he offered his holistic local search marketing suggestions to existing and potential clients of Verizon as a value added benefit of advertising with Verizon Yellow Pages. Although he was a skeptic about the value of yellow pages (often related to factors out of his control such as price, placement, distribution, and yellow pages sales fraud) he believed that the best return on investment for a local small business was a blended or mixed advertising program that consists of both print and online advertising. He actually coined the phrase used by Idearc Media in the Dallas Texas sales office of “Some people use print, some use online, but most use both.” Not so much anymore. Rural America uses print. Urban America uses the internet. Suburban America uses both.

Does the SEO Guru do Pay-Per-Click and the Pay-Per-Click Guru do SEO??

Does your Dallas SEO Firm think they are a jack of all SEO trade?

Is your search engine marketing agency a jack of all trades master of none, or do they offer the experience in all 3 different aspects of local search marketing? Do they have a dedicated manager for your pay-per-click or paid search advertising, and another one for your organic search engine optimization, and someone else who studies local interactive media budgeting and website design? What small business owners really need (and can afford) is a small team of experts.

As Duane Forrester said on Search Engine Watch:

For years, many agencies pursued paid search marketing exclusively, so their depth of knowledge surrounding SEO is lacking.  Essentially, it’s based on the knowledge of their staff. Today’s better agencies have not just a person with the title aligned to SEO work, but those individuals do in fact possess hands-on knowledge. This is where’s it’s back to finding out who will work on your job and for how much time. Having a Director of SEO with 10 years of experience on hand is great. But, is that person working on your project?

Never assume a large brand agency knows it all. Often, they don’t. Be particularly careful when engaging with offline agencies trying to reposition themselves as online agencies, as well. These folks are usually still on a learning curve and are banking on their offline brand equity to help them gain clients to learn through.

If you search engine marketing guy claims to have worked for Google, has some special secret, or makes a guarantee of results before spending 3 months on your campaign, it is time for you to walk away. Also, if they refuse to spend at least 30 minutes on the phone with you about your business before signing a CONTRACT and/or can’t offer a few simple suggestions for improving your rankings on Google and other search engines, again you need to walk or RUN AWAY!

If you are looking for an in-house search engine marketing agency for your small business, but can’t afford to hire someone in-house full-time for your company, give SMB SEO a call. We the Dallas area’s small business HIGH RANKINGS internet marketing firm.

214-267-9553

Turn Your Website Traffic Into Dollars

Pay-per-Click is a conversion-centric form of advertising. That means that success through ppc is determined whether users to your ads performed a particular action or not. Sales, leads, and information requests are a number of the types of actions a user can complete that qualify as conversions. The point of conversions, as is the point of anything related to advertising, is to generate a return-on-investing (ROI).

So, the magic weaved by a professional is to be able to direct qualified traffic to your website which generates instant revenue, right? Of course, there is no magic, and traffic only generates revenue if the user buys a product or completes your form. So, what can be done to the website to make the traffic profitable? Let’s go through some of the easiest ways.

Buttons:

How many buttons do you have on your website? Are they the old dull gray color that has been appended to every basic form since the beginning of the internet? Spruce them up already. Make them stand out to the user’s eyes. What are you afraid of? The user has too many other distractions on the web to spend time looking for your button. Besides, forms are boring. Another boring button is certainly not going to convince a user to click it.

Phone Numbers:

How often do you have to scour a website from top-to-bottom, link-by-link to find a phone number? Phone numbers are the most basic contact point for all businesses. Why would you want to hide it? Frequently, I find the phone number in a very small font in the header or footer of a page. Sometimes, it isn’t even on the home page and is somewhere stuck on the barely click-upon “Contact Us” page.

I think the common concern is that designers are concerned about distracting the user from clicking through their website’s main navigation. Why? Stick it out there. Make it bigger. Make certain that every page on your site has a very noticeable phone number. The absolute first thing I want is a user to know how to contact me. If they want to research me, they will.

Trust:

Users don’t want to spend a lot time filling out information. Some of them have been taken advantage of, but people also have general feeling of secrecy regarding their private information. The IT security experts constantly instill fear in us. Why wouldn’t they users feel that way?!

Give them a reason to trust you. Are you part of the BBB? Put that logo on your page. Have you won an award? Are you part of local business group? Put that logo on your page. Heck, it doesn’t even matter that whether the user has heard of the award or organization. Emphasize to the user that you will not give out their information. Online privacy policies are great if you have one.

There are lots of other little tricks, but each of these tips will take 5 minutes at most. So, what are you waiting for? Go make some money!

Does your Dallas business need HELP with PPC Advertising?

smbSEO will prepare a custom PPC campaign that will allow you to save a sizable amount of returns and maximize your website’s performance. Although PPC has been around for a while (the late 90’s to be exact) it can be a very complex area for internet advertising. smbSEO employs senior account managers and paid search marketing experts which have developed many  successful campaigns for local Dallas area companies like yours.

If you currently have a PPC campaign, it is important that you understand it and optimize it to ensure peak performance. The great thing about PPC advertising is the effectiveness of which you can reach your target market and the quality customers and profits it will make for your business in just a short period of time.

PPC is a simple and effective way to have control over your electronic advertising campaign. The growing importance of online marketing makes PPC an important arena for promoting your website.

The source of winning PPC campaign is in keyword strategy and the visitor analytics, which is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data from web usage. PPC campaigns must well thought-out so that inefficient keywords can be filtered out and high performers improved upon.

smbSEO will maximize your PPC advertising performance with specific keyword phrases, persuasive writing, moving ad copy, and a well written page. The number, style and type of words you can use in your ads are restricted so writing smart, captivating text ads is much harder than you’d expect.

If you want more information on Dallas area pay per click campaign management for your small or medium-sized business, call 214-267-9553 today!