When the Yellow Pages (Phone Book) charges a business hundreds if not thousands per month to run a 12 month ad that the business is locked in to, do they guarantee in writing a certain ROI? I don’t think so.

What about Direct Mail through something like Money Mailer that usually costs about $500 for 10,000 addresses. Again, I don’t think so.

What about a newspaper ad that may cost $500, $1,000, $2,000 or more for 1 ad depending on the city and the size of the ad. Again, I say… I don’t think so.

So what’s up with people concerning Internet Marketing? Is there a guarantee that the phone will ring from it? No, it’s marketing. It’s advertising. There are lots and lots of variables…consistency…budget…the client…etc.

Marketing and advertising should give a higher ROI than the investment, but that is not always the case. In our Internet Marketing Business, the clients who get the biggest ROI are the ones that let us do what we were hired to do and trust our expertise in the field. These clients are usually very happy. The clients who are not happy are the controlling ones that often expect next day results. O.K., realistically not next day just the day after.

Two simple case studies…Both in the same field but one targets men and the other targets women. That’s why we worked with both at the same time.

Client 1: Knows exactly what the business is about
Client 2: Doesn’t have a clear business focus

Client 1: Approves our work fast
Client 2: Continuously revises copy

Client 1: Has a phone number that rings to a live person during business hours
Client 2: Phone number is a cell phone that doesn’t get reception at their office

I could go on and on. Needless to say,client # 2 decided that since their phone wasn’t ringing from the internet that they’d no longer use our services. We think it’s best if they find another marketing company.

Share your thoughts below…

Tags: SEO, Marketing, Internet Marketing by David - 4 Comments »

This is part of a series that I am doing weekly on “Favorite FREE SEO Tools.”I encourage comments on the tools that are featured each week.

Please comment as follows:

1) Comment on the Tool that is featured.
2) Mention a similar Tool that you use that you like just as good or better.
3) Please do not simply link to Aaron Wall’s SEO Tools Page (just an example) and say, “Check out all these “FREE SEO Tools” by Aaron Wall.”

I hope you don’t mind me setting up the simple 3 step guideline above to keep the comments focused on just the tool being mentioned or other very similar tools.

Quintura is the featured tool this week. With this tool, you can find like keywords and dig, dig, dig even deeper.

Here’s a screen shot using the word “Real Estate” as the search phrase.

Notice the words surrounding “Real Estate:”Agent, Company, Services, Brokers, Listings, Commercial, etc. In other words, the tool is suggesting “Real Estate Agent,” “Real Estate Company,” etc. Notice what happens when I click on Company…the words change. Also, notice that the word “Mortgage” shows up:

Mortgage has to do with “Real Estate.” Then, notice below what happens when I click on “Mortgage.”

Can you see how Quintura can help you expand your keyword horizons?

Tags: SEO, Marketing by David - 5 Comments »

This is the beginning of a series that I plan to do weekly on “Favorite FREE SEO Tools.”

I encourage comments on the tools that are featured each week. Please comment as follows:

1) Comment on the Tool that is featured.
2) Mention a similar Tool that you use that you like just as good or better.
3) Please do not simply link to Aaron Wall’s SEO Tools Page (just an example) and say, “Check out all these “FREE SEO Tools” by Aaron Wall.”

I hope you don’t mind me setting up the simple 3 step guideline above to keep the comments focused on just the tool being mentioned or other very similar tools.

Let’s start with one of my absolute favorites: SEO Quake for Firefox and Explorer.

If you don’t have it installed and like SEO, you should give it a whirl. It provides a snapshot very quickly of important data needed for foundational SEO. Here’s a screen shot:

After you install SEO Quake, you will have a request parameters button just below the search box before the rankings. Anytime you are surfing using a search engine, you can click REQUEST PARAMETERS to see all kinds of information on the page about all the sites on that page.

Here’s how I use it to make me look good in just seconds…

1) On the phone with a Potential Client
2) May I have your domain name
3) I’ll then usually either do a site:www. or I’ll use the SEO Quake Tool Bar that is installed. Either way, I gather some quick data.
4) I respond with… I see that you site is ____ months/years old, you have ____ links pointing to your site and you have ____ pages in Google.
5) Remember, this is just quick 15 second snapshot

Now, this is how I use SEO Quake to give additional feedback.

1) Armed with the information above.
2) What is a phrase that you would like to rank for.
3) I type that phrase in Google and hit request parameters.
4) I then look at the Age, Pages Indexed in Google and Links Pointing to the sites.
5) Remember, all of this is literally done in just 2 or 3 minutes. Quick Snapshot.
6) Based on info from the potential clients site and info from the Top 10 ranked sites, I may give combinations of feedback like…

“Your site is a June 2007 site and all of the Top 10 for that term are 2005 or older” (Hint: Site is too new to potentially compete.)

“Your site has 57 links and all of the Top 10 sites have at least 950+ links; however, this does not mean you cannot compete. Linking is more about quality, but I’ll have to dig further on this one.”

“Your site has 5 pages indexed. Most of the Top 10 sites have 100+ pages indexed.”(Hint: They are probably targeting more terms, have a good sitemap, have solid links, etc. Why does the site have only 5 pages? Is it really that small or just not being indexed well?)

Please don’t take me out of context. This is the short version of just some of the things you can do with SEO Quake.

Do you use SEO Quake? It will make you look pretty sharp in a matter of seconds when talking on the phone with someone. Please share your comments.

Tags: SEO, Marketing by David - 5 Comments »