You may or may not know that traditional marketing methods (flagship articles, broadcast ads, print ads, etc.) can be an integral part of successful search engine marketing. I will be very broad in my coverage of the topic because there are many options available to you, and some of them will suit your particular goals better than others. Right from the start, the best advice I can give is to discuss your specific goals with a qualified website solution provider who practices SEM and is familiar with its integration into website design.

The ways to market your business (specifically your website) through search engines make up an extensive list. The payment methods for placement are somewhat minor and can be divided into three general categories as follows:

• You can pay for the number one rank (on the page margins) of search engines using individual keywords. While this type of placement may look attractive, it is only as reliable as your ad spend will allow. It can be outdone by someone who is willing to pay more for that position.
• You can pay per click (PPC) for certain keywords, and depending on your budget and the popularity of the words you select, your rankings will vary. Again, this is effective for generating traffic, but there is a difference between someone clicking their way to your site and someone making a purchase once they are there. (You don’t pay per click for customers who buy something. You only pay to get the visit.)
• You can pay to advertise on other people’s websites by having search engine companies contact you and the other site owners. This is a comparatively newer way of advertising, paying to run an ad while other website owners receive some benefits from search engine indexing and kickbacks for allowing your ad to be on their sites. In theory (and generally in practice), this is a win-win option.

Of these three general methods, keyword ad campaigns can generally be limited to a predetermined amount of dollars per month (or until your account is replenished). So you’re not actually writing a “blank check” for keyword advertising this way, but you do need to manage your budget and account carefully. Buyer beware!

I have had multiple clients come to me due to keyword ad accounts mishandled by their previous service provider. At worst, some of them were the victims of outright fraud. One particular case stands out in my mind.

I was approached by an accountant with complaints that he had spent between $ 400- $ 600 per month for the past 6 months for 200 guaranteed clicks on his website per month. “Wow … that’s a pretty good guarantee,” you might be thinking. And you would get a report from your vendor every month verifying that you were, in fact, getting that kind of traffic (over 200 visits per month) from your keyword ad campaigns. However, your complaint was that you had no new customers coming from your website (also called “conversions” from the customer ad response). The ratios of visits (impressions) to sales (conversions) seemed unreasonably low. I suspected.

I did a little research on the performance of your website and what I found was disturbing (but all too common). Your account was set up to automatically replenish (re-bill your credit card) on the fifteenth of each month, up to your specified maximum monthly budget of approximately $ 500. That means if your account balance was $ 250 on the fourteenth of the month, you would be charged another $ 250 to restore your account balance to $ 500. Each click cost you money and, for the next 30 days, your The balance would be gradually debited until it was time to replenish it on the fifteenth of the following month. If it ever hit zero, your ad would “go off the map,” but that billing plan ensured you would never go over budget. Sounds like a surefire way to advertise, right? Guaranteed visits without cost overruns! It gave him a false sense of security, and he was being scammed!

When I did an analysis of your website traffic, I saw a constant trend of visitors coming from a variety of sources, some of them from your paid advertising campaign. I counted between 20 and 30 visits related to your pay-per-click agreement. However, suspiciously, he had between 150 and 180 visits on the fourteenth of each month, the day before his account was recharged. He never reduced it to zero, so he didn’t think anything strange was happening. But it seemed clear that whoever managed his account was taking advantage of his trusting nature and paying for artificial access. His reports showed over 200 visits, just as promised, but he was unknowingly filling the pockets of his account manager!

Don’t let that happen to you! I didn’t broadcast that story to scare you or discourage you from using paid advertising. Really, paid ads are extremely effective in the right situations. I just want you to realize that like everything else when doing business online, there is often more than meets the eye. Forewarned is worth two. Get into the game of website marketing, but do so wisely and cautiously. The best approach is likely to be one that combines the three ad types listed above, so you can gauge which one works best for your particular campaign. You may also want to try a text message marketing (TMM) portal to supplement your variable advertising budget with a flat fee option. Text message marketing (TMM) is a relatively new marketing trend that attracts millions of consumers for a number of reasons.

Most of the SEM companies and solution providers that have been around for a while are reputable or would not stay in business. But you must have an active interest in managing your advertising budget. Make sure your SEM provider gives you more than just a total visits per month report and an invoice to top up your account. You should ask them to provide you with website analytics showing all your traffic, trends, page views, visits per day, sources of visits (so you can make sure they are coming from different addresses), keywords used to find it, etc. Even if you never look at the details of those reports, the fact that they are provided to you will be an impediment to your SEM provider being honest. They are probably honest anyway, but in the end you have to CYA (hedge your assets).