Mark Faggiano

Website consultant who loves helping others build online companies. Sold @beelya & @filelater. Working on my next cash machine: @taxjar. Crazy about golf & sports. Connect with me on Google+

It’s Ten O’Clock, Do You Know Who Is Managing Your Paid Search Campaign?

by

You’d be surprised at how many potential clients we meet with that have had an awful paid search experience for one major reason – they failed to manage their campaign and lost a ton of money and their faith in search engine marketing. That common occurrence is the focus for our most recent Free SEO Resource section.

I realize it might be hard to believe that companies will essentially make donations to Google by starting an Adwords campaign and then leave it running. But it happens all the time. Business owners get busy running their business and simply de-prioritize daily management of their campaigns. Worst of all, they forget to at least pause their campaign until they have more time.

In a lot of ways, this latest article is related to an earlier riff about why I don’t believe it’s a good idea for most business owners to run a company and manage a paid search campaign. While it’s certainly not impossible to do-it-yourself, it’s just not a great situation.

What’s Better, Traffic or Leads?

by

Check out our newest Free SEO Tip. This one is about the most common mistake we see when we meet with business owners who manage their own paid search campaigns. Inevitably, they are wasting dollars on keywords that are way too broad for their business. They get sucked in by the allure of increasing their traffic and forget that the whole point of paid search is to get business!

The secondary lesson here is that proper keyword research is critical to any successful paid search campaign.

As always, I look forward to any questions or feedback you have.

Yahoo, Microsoft Deal

by

The oft-talked about deal is done. Pending federal approval, Yahoo and Microsoft did what they needed to do – combine forces to become a better foe for Google. It’s not a true merger, mind you, but it’s a pretty interesting partnership.

Here are the basics of the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft:

  • Bing will exclusively serve as the search and paid search algorithm for Yahoo’s sites
  • Yahoo will sell search ads for both companies
  • Self-serve ads (the kind that business owners are familiar with, think Adwords) will be done in a unified platform, Microsoft’s adCenter
  • The length of the deal is 10 years

Is Google quaking in their boots? Probably not. But this deal is good for advertisers (that means all of you business owners out there). It combines the best of the two self-serve technologies (from Microsoft) and adds the volume (from Yahoo!) necessary to try and make a dent in the big dog of search’s marketshare.

Here’s hoping they can get the deal to go through quickly and get up-and-running faster than a couple of years. I like competition and look forward to see what Google does, if anything, to react to this deal.

Twitter 101: A Must Read for Business Owners

by

A lot of you business owners out there already get the value of Twitter. Kudos to you, by the way. Some of you have either resisted registering for your first Twitter account, or simply haven’t had the time to think about it.

No matter which category you fall into, take 15 minutes out of your day and read Twitter 101 (published by Twitter). You’ll be glad you did. This quick read makes a compelling argument for why all businesses (large and small) need to have some presence on Twitter.  Even if you are on Twitter already, this will serve as a valuable refresher.

The best part is the section of case studies. My favorite is the one about the dessert franchise Tasti D Lite. After reading these, I’m sure you’ll be able to envision how your business can leverage Twitter.

People ask me frequently why they should invest their time in Twitter. After reading Twitter 101, you’ll feel the same way I do – you can’t afford not to invest your time in Twitter.