The SEM Bulletin

If you’re selling a particular product that only generates a high amount of income during certain times of the year, have you ever considered Seasonal Advertising? Having an idea of when the buying trend would go up can be of a significant advantage to your business. If you do not have enough budget for a long term advertising investment in Google Adwords or you want to cash in on the special days of the year, seasonal marketing might just be the best thing you could do for your business.

Seasonal advertising only focuses on certain periods in a given year for all out advertising efforts, taking advantage of special occasions such as the Christmas season, Valentines, the Superbowl, wedding seasons, and the like. If you are a seller of merchandise that could benefit from special events such as these then you might just want to invest on the trend when the demand is in full bloom.

If done right, not only will you reap in the benefits of a demanding market. You can also save on advertising measures. This may also do you better than shelling out cash to promote your product the entire year round.

With your product in high demand, you can start with keywords that relate best to the occasion and the product. That way your business would not be so hard to find when it is needed. Show the best Christmas gifts, valentine flower bouquets and diamond wedding rings when they are wanted and experience increase in your market share.

You can also get great ideas from the competition. There are a lot of competitive keyword tools online that can gather keywords from marketers in the same field so you can get good ideas on the terms to work with. KeywordSpy's Time Machine feature allows you to look at keywords other advertisers have used in the past months, so I suggest giving that a shot. You can go back for months worth of information. Accessing terms and phrases other businesses of the same field have used and see if they'll be effective next season.

Take time formulating your ad copies. Generate immediate connection with your target market by creating attractive "buy lines". If you offer special discounts, include that in your copy to increase consumer's buying impulse.

Lastly, if you are only advertising on certain periods of the year. Don’t be afraid to invest a little more. Unless you are the only one in your area producing and selling a certain type of merchandise then expect other businesses that will also take advantage of the demand during its peak season.

The two most popular online marketing techniques by far is Search Engine Optimization and pay Per Click Marketing. There are proper ways to do both but I will be handing down in detail which technique works for a website.

TYPICAL USERS. Typical users of SEO are new and small businesses with a bit of a tight-budget. SEO can be pretty cheap as compared to PPC so it works well for smaller websites who just want to get listed. On the other hand other mid-level companies employ PPC as their main online marketing tool. It’s a faster way to reach consumers. It does have a price so only those who are willing enough to shell out cash for the ad space are willing to do this. It can also be noted that generally, the fact that a company uses PPC ads adds a vote of confidence on their part. People perceive that those on paid advertising arena can afford the space because their products are well established. If you have enough cash you can do both SEO and PPC of course, or you can consult an SEO agency do the job for you.

TIME. When we talk internet, we connote it to speed and instant results. But the effects of SEO and Pay Per Click vary. SEO usually means natural ranking. Letting the website speaks for itself. A couple of word-with-links here and there and there would still be a time to wait for search engines to pick of your site's popularity and index it on their site. Visibility in search engines through SEO could take weeks even months.

Pay per Click Marketing works a lot faster than SEO. Pay per Click or PPC is an online advertising means whereby you contract search engines to place and ad for your company whenever a keyword of your choosing will be searched on their site. Placing an ad in this case is as fast as 10 minutes or even less! The visibility of the ad, however, depends on how much you’re willing to pay.

COST. PPC can be pretty costly or cheap depending on the keywords you use and the amount you are willing to bid on to get them placed. The amount of your bid determines the position of the ad. This is one powerful way of beating your YSM or Adwords competitors. The higher - the better the placement.

SEO on the other hand does not have to be too costly. If you are a small business just trying to get the word out on your business, and you’re doing SEO-it-yourself, optimizing your site is pretty easy. Choose a few keywords to work with, write a good copy for your site and a few linkbuilding techniques and you are on your way. Some online directories will require you to pay a price to have your site listed in their sites but if you're on a tight budget, I suggest opting free reciprocal linking with quality directories instead. Remember, I’m talking about DIY SEO. Paying for the service via expert SEO agencies is another matter.

COMPETITORS. Now this is pretty complicated. Competitors vying to get the same top spot just like you means, well, just about everybody! Imagine the internet as gigantic ocean with all sorts of marine animals. If you're just a clownfish looking for your son, then what an adventure that would be, right? But online marketing is no kid's movie. So it’s imperative that you narrow down the competition to reach your target market efficiently. Thank heavens for keywords!

When we're taking about SEO keywords, the number of your competitors depends on the keywords you are focusing on. Focus on ones that describe your business in a specific manner. That way you would be narrowing down your competition and targeting consumers with a specific product/ service in mind. You can use various keyword tools for this. KeywordSpy is what I’m using right now. You can look at organic searches and mine related keywords if you run out of ideas.

The same goes for Pay per Click keywords. The competition is highly dependent on the number of advertisers bidding on the same keywords as you. If you plan on taking on keywords being used by the "sharks" in the industry, I’m talking about those big companies with online history and a big spending limit, better be prepared to get eaten up. So the same principle applies, if you go with specific keywords, you have a better chance of surviving fighting off the same fish instead of the entire ocean.

SPACE. With PPC, the amount of opportunity to showcase your business comes in two or three small lines per ad space. That’s your title, URL, and description. Your ad has to catch the consumer's attention, connect with them and attract them enough to click on your ad. Of course, the more ads the better. You'll have a better opportunity selling your business in different ways.

SEO also has great opportunities for promotion. The number of ways you can influence ranking by creating relevant content is enormous. You can have your entire website as your canvass. You can also promote via linkbuilding, forum and blog participation and more to get your message out there.

So there you have it, a simple breakdown on SEO and PPC advertising. It’s all in a manner of choosing which fits your business. The last tip I could probably provide is of course, when it comes down to it. Your product or service has to be worth all that. I say this all the time. Visibility is one thing, getting the consumers as customers, is all on you.

Creating a Pay per Click campaign is as fast as 10 minutes. Depending on your bid and the keywords you use, you can reach your targeted audience within seconds. But creating a PPC campaign is not as no-brainer as most people think. It takes great effort in choosing keywords and writing ad copies to really get quality traffic. Not only that, as I’ve mentioned before, traffic is just one thing. The prospect of an actual sale makes all the difference.

So here's a few basic tips on making the most out of your online advertising and increasing your earning capacity through Pay per Click ads.

Regarding Keyword Research: Coming up with keywords that describe your product or service is not enough. Make sure to use the best keyword tools to utilize just the right kind of keywords to make it worth your investment.

Whether Organic SEO or keyword PPC research, the cardinal rule is not to use generic keywords. You can read about this on my previous post. Try to use keywords that pertain specifically to your product or service. People who search for specific items or service on the web has more or less considered what they need and is now looking to buy. No more window shoppers for your site, just quality traffic.

Consider the competition. When it comes to researching keywords, it’s also important to know who else is bidding on it and how many are you up against. Keyword Competitive Tools like the one I’m using now, KeywordSpy, tells you the websites competing for a certain keywords, their average bids, and average clicks they get. Having these data will help you analyze if it would be worth it to get in the game and compete with the rest of the advertisers. Id also like to point out that if there are keywords too pricey for you, you may opt to rank naturally with those keywords via SEO and using them in your website content.

Now, some keywords work great for some but some do not. You'll soon know these keywords as you go along with your campaign. Once you've established which keywords are working for you, separate them and put them in different campaigns along with other related keywords. With this, you can give them a different ad copy and create more traffic possibilities for your website.

Moving on to your Ad Copy, you have selected your keywords and you are now ready to advertise. Don’t just write anything to sell. The consumer has to be able to not just understand your ad but also relate to it. The best way to write an ad copy is asking yourself: What kind of words would attract you and compel you to click on a certain ad when you see them?

A helpful tip is to include the words in your keywords in the title or first line of the ad. At this point, when a consumer sees your ad’s title and finds that what he’s looking for (which is the keyword he typed) is closely related to your title, he’ll be able to associate his need with your ad right away.

Your goal for the description is to attract the consumer and entice him enough to click your ad. Include features of your product / service that could benefit the buyer. If you offer your products at a discounted price for a limited period, add that as your last line to stir up the consumer’s excitement and want to click your ad. Place yourself in the consumer's shoes.

Let’s now zoom in on your Landing Page: I’ve experienced this dozens of times. I go online to look for specific information, search the item on a search engine, click on one of the results, and upon seeing the landing page, I hit the return button on the browser. Why? Because the page didn’t give me the information I needed.

In today's day and age where we want everything fast and easy, there are only a handful of people that will invest their time searching a certain website for the information they needed. Most of the time, some consumers think like me. "Why waste time browsing this site when there are dozens more who are more specific and straight to the point. That’s what you need to get done.

If you've selected keywords to drive traffic to your site, consider the keywords to make an actual sale. Make your landing page relevant to the keywords you have set up. Include the keywords on the content. This is so when the consumer sees the site, they’ll be convinced you got what they're looking for since you are talking about it on the page itself.