I've been working on PPC for my dad's dental seminars business, and I have to admit that while I like a challenge, the system is really overwhelming. It makes me wonder whether Google AdWords - the PPC traffic/platform we're buying/using - is honest in how it promotes itself. Consider these two claims that AdWords makes: 1( Get started in minutes. 2( "You specify how much you're willing to pay per click or impression. There are no minimum spend requirements.

Are you trading in commodities? Is your store indistinguishable from your competitors' store, for all intents and purposes? It's time to figure out your unique value proposition, because Google's gunning for you. Meanwhile, Eric Schmidt' laughing his head off as we sit idly by and watch. Watch what? Watch Google amassing positions at the start of the information highway )Android, netbooks , Chrome, iGoogle is literally a startpage(, on its distribution points )search,

On Search Engine Land, Dixon Jones' blog and other sites, there's a bit of fancy code that instantly refreshes the URL you're seeing to add in referrer tracking parameters. This is usually used for conversion tracking, but I think other uses are possible. Here are some ideas of my own - I'd love to hear yours in the comments here or on Sphinn. I'll happily collect,

Marc was a street-smart marketer who could always find his way out of a tight spot. One day, he realized that he knew he had to find out how to measure social media, because he just couldn't go on living with himself otherwise. Oh, the mental anguish! After consuming a car tank worth of cough syrup )for fun, not to dull the pain( Marc* realized he'd better get on with asking some social media pros how they'd handle such measurement.

Entrepreneur or SMB marketer drawing up an advertising budget for 2010? Try this massive list of over 30 ad networks I've compiled while browsing around the web. I've tried to focus on those that are SMB friendly with self-serve platforms. I've ignored CPA networks and tried to eliminate advertising aggregators, and the search engines. Particular demographics / audiences 1. FARK.

Those of you who follow my writing know that I'm a bookworm . And just as I'm frequently lending books to friends )or thrusting them at their faces while ordering them to "read this," as the case may be( I like to share great posts, resources and other items I find around the blogosphere. Real quickly before I get into that, I'd just like to mention I'm giving away a copy of The Knack . It's an excellent business book by Bo Burlingham and Norm Brodsky,

You need discretion to buy text links effectively, and there's more to it than just avoiding paid link networks. Here are 101 tips to reduce your risk and maximize value for money the next time you buy links. A few quick notes before I start: 1. Some of these are "paid links" that come with the purchase of something else. I've included those to create a comprehensive, go-to guide on buying links. 2.

Google continues making moves toward establishing a monopoly on the web, with today's announcement of SideWiki . SiteWiki is basically a Google Toolbar addon which lets anyone with a Google account comment about your site or add content, to the SideWiki, which can appear on the side of your site. This gives Google expanded presence on ALL websites its toolbar users visit and will open up all kinds of online reputation management issues for businesses.

On a call with a client recently, I got asked a question that highlighted how poorly many "Top 10/20/30 Tips To SEO" guides are done. The question was entirely logical, but if we as SEO bloggers )i.e. teachers( were doing a little more thinking and a little less rehashing, I'd have never had a client confused about this. The client asked: "There are two SEO principles that are conflicting for me, and I don't know which one to follow. On the one hand,

What are your direct competitors doing in the way of getting more backlinks? My research in over 30 verticals sheds some light on the question. This is part 1 of 2. In this part, I'll address three issues: Practical uses for this competitive intelligence, My methodology in conducting this research, Some fun data points for niche research, In part 2, " Backlink Research Shows How To Compete Elite )Part 2( " I cover: Screenshots of the data, My analysis and conclusions,

Imagine playing the "Six Degrees of Separation" game, but with websites. The closer you are to having a link from Maclean's magazine or Time, the better. The ideal would be to actually be Maclean's or Time, obviously. But short of that, getting a link from either site is excellent )1 degree of separation(. Getting a link from a site that was linked from Time is pretty good )2 degrees(.

Creating new landing pages for testing is getting cheaper. And scalable. So there are fewer and fewer reasons for SMBs not to be testing their landing pages and sites to optimize conversion rates. Testing landing pages has long been a preoccupation of mine, particularly because of the traditionally prohibitive costs. Even if you use a design contest at a place like 99Designs.com , you're still paying $300 - $500 for a good graphic look and feel.

Many affiliate programs give coupon and voucher codes to their affiliates, but they often fail to achieve any valuable business objective using this strategy. Instead, these coupons often cannibalize sales that the merchant would obtain anyways. This reduces profit margins unnecessarily. Consider the typical scenario engendered by most of these "coupons for coupons' sake," as described by Richard Kershaw in " Why Discount Vouchers Will Destroy Affiliate Marketing .

)Scratchpad photo by Leonard Low .(  I'm preparing to advertise something I hope will become linkbait, and it's made me dig into some advertising ideas. Just before I begin, for those of you who are unfamiliar, scratchpad is a column I write )usually on my own blog ( featuring an informal style that's kind of like a brain dump. I just put all my lingering ideas on a topic down on paper, which allows me to communicate more ideas in a single sitting. 1.

1. Let your tracking/redirect subdomain get indexed. This means that your "ppc clicks" may be random longtail crap clicks. Or else nasty competitors, breaking your analytics with fake traffic. )My blog's readers may recall another tactic I mentioned in passing to screw around with competitors' analytics .( 2. Carelessly run the subdomain off your main domain. In other words,

We see this happen with more amateurish ad campaigns, but seriously, the ad agency and web developers running this campaign for Canada Revenue Agency should know better. The page you send visitors to from Hockey Night in Canada ads and from your website needs to EXIST. The page is supposed to be at www.canada.gc.ca/taxinfo . Oopsies! www.canada.gc.ca/taxinfo returns a 404 Not Found error. If you look at the last paragraph of text in this next screenshot,

Retargeting is an advertising technique that aims to convert browsers into buyers by increasing the number of times they see a campaign's ads in a set period of time. The catch is that you'd normally need fancy technology to do this. In response to this problem, I came up with poor man's retargeting for low-budget advertisers. The idea was to look at shared traffic by means of link analysis and run ads on sites that were heavily interlinked. Today,