I attended my first Think Visibility conference on Saturday and found it to be a really useful and informative event which was also fun at the same time. It was held at the Alea Casino’s conference area, a splendid venue in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Tom Critchlow’s overview of Local SEO Strategies provided an interesting insight into how to make Google Local work for any business and I took away some handy tips that I will definitely use to help my own clients maximise their exposure across that specific channel.

I also sat in on Paddy Moogan’s session about Link Building. As a first time presenter, Paddy did a great job and put forward a constructive plan of action to help any SEO Manager target and achieve the links that will be of most benefit to them and their advertisers.

Judith Lewis gave a terrific presentation about her SEO experiences and offered some brilliant advice about which activities will actually help you get to the top of the SERPS and those that won’t. (Judith also handed out lots of chocolate which may be another reason why I enjoyed her presentation in particular!)

Unfortunately I didn’t get to stay for the after party but if the tales of the pre-party and the antics at the lunch time quiz are anything go by, I’m sure it was a lively night. Well done to Dom Hodgson and his team for executing a great event.

If you are interested in Search Engine Optimization, I also recommend reading Why you should combine SEO and PPC efforts to dominate search rankings.

• 80% of the time searchers go to the organic results first
• 65% of search traffic goes to the top ten search results
• 60% of searchers click on paid ads sometimes while 12% say they click on them always or most of the time.

Use them together for the most effective marketing strategy:

• Organic SEO is a great long term investment which everyone who is serious about their website should invest in, but PPC can start driving traffic right away. Smart customers will use this to their benefit. Begin SEO and PPC at the same time so you are getting traffic to your site right away, while you wait for your organic rankings start to rise. Once you’ve obtained strong organic rankings, you can reduce your PPC spending, but you shouldn’t stop it altogether.

You should never put all your marketing budget in one basket – it’s too risky. A solid marketing plan should minimize risks and maximize impressions:

• If you have high organic rankings but no paid ads, then you are letting your PPC-savvy competitors steal away some traffic from you because a large percentage of potential customers will click on paid ads too.
• If your organic rankings suddenly take a dive due to search engine algorithm changes and you don’t have a PPC campaign then you are suddenly invisible in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Granted you can start PPC at any time, but if you aren’t familiar with it, it can take some time (even for a professional) to figure out the most-effective PPC strategy for your site.
• If you only focus on paid listings, you are missing out on the 80% of traffic that goes to organic rankings. Also, research indicates that many customers put a higher “trust” level on organic rankings since many customers are aware that those ads are paid for. You may find that your conversion rate for organic rankings is higher than that of your PPC campaign.
• If you only focus on paid listings and suddenly a competitor enters the PPC market with a big budget that you can’t compete with, then you are going to lose your placement and now you are looking at 3-5 months before you can counter that with organic rankings.

Budgeting

PPC and SEO can be combined to offer an excellent search marketing campaign. Together they can help to maximize web traffic, capture highly targeted visitors, enhance sales, and generate brand awareness. By budgeting wisely, you will be able to use PPC and SEO to their full advantage.

• For new online storefronts or websites, PPC will drive traffic to your site immediately. Based on your budget, a good strategy will be to start using PPC advertising, invest in SEO as soon as you have the funds to invest in it, and begin to taper off your PPC advertising as your organic listings begin to increase.
• From a recent study at the Penn State School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), researchers found that on more than 80% of searches, study participants went first to the results identified as “organic.” Sponsored links were viewed first less than 10% of the time. A safe bet is to break down your SEO and PPC budget into roughly 70-80% organic SEO and 20-30% PPC. This will help you drive long-term, consistent traffic to your site.
• Set a goal for the amount of traffic you expect to see in a given day. Then, monitor your traffic sources using a quality web analytics program. Turn on conversion tracking code provided by PPC engines like Google and Yahoo!. Information is power. You will begin to see which form of advertising is working best for your industry and your unique situation. When you know where your traffic is coming from and which visitors are converting, you’ll be able to make better marketing decisions.
• Diversify your efforts. Remember that the search engine marketing industry is not limited to these two forms of advertising. Additional options such as blogs, press releases and RSS feeds will help you take advantage of the fact that consumers are first visiting search engines when they are looking to make a purchase.

USA businesses: drive local customers through your doors! Sign up now to get your website listed in local directories & we’ll waive the $19.95 setup fee.

SEO and PPC jobs at Azam Marketing

Our relentless pace of growth shows no sign of abating and we’re hiring again. Below are a list of six exciting new vacancies we have.

These are all senior roles; you must have at least two years full-time or three years part-time experience in the discipline you are applying for the position in.

Click on the job title for detailed information about each role.

Paid Search Marketing Specialist – full-time

Search Engine Optimisation Specialist – part-time

Affiliate Marketing Manager – full-time or maximum part-time

Website and Graphic Designer – full-time

Business Development Manager – full-time or part-time.

Chief Executive Officer - full-time.

You may find out more about Azam Marketing on our website and see all the fun we have in our Facebook Fan Group.

Please send applications to Melissa White at hr [at] azam.net

Applications without the information requested in the job ads will not be considered.

If you recommend a candidate to us who we hire, we will pay a generous referral fee.

We all know the importance of appreciating readers of our blogs from time to time. As we continue in our efforts to keep this the blog alive and kicking we have thought of utilising the goodness of the ‘Top Commentator Widget’ to thank our loyal and faithful readers.

A few months back we gave away ‘Microsoft Office Ultimate Edition’ worth £610 to our 21st Century Quotation Competition winner. However this time we thought of rewarding our blog readers on a continual basis and the ’Top Commentators Widget’ seems to be a perfect answer to do this.

Being in the ‘Top Commentators’ list rewards you with a clean ‘DoFollow’ link and traffic to your website from the right-hand sidebar on every page of Azam.info. So I would urge you to include a link when you leave a comment.

To make it even better and following in the footsteps of other good blogs, we will be publishing a list of top commentators in a post every several weeks to keep the link juice flowing; this means you get to keep our link love for good.

So get you name up on the list guys!

The report by Efficient Frontier indicates that spending on search marketing in the UK rose by 11% between Q4 2007 and Q4 2008, in contrast to an 8% drop in the USA over the same period.

Yahoo’s UK share plummeted during this period from 13.9% to 8.4%. Google was the beneficiary of this loss, increasing its share from 82.6% to a market dominant 88.2%. Microsoft’s search product remained consistent, with a 3.4% share.

The figures include spending on Google and Yahoo’s content networks. This is likely to have contributed to the majority of Google’s growth in market share, owing to the 300 percent year-on-year increase in spending on its Content Network.

At this moment it’s hard to imagine 2009 producing growth for Yahoo in the UK. They have reduced their discount to medium and large spending agencies as of the 1st January 2009, earlier this month they announced the closure of their contextual ad service in Europe, and so far they have not followed the example of their US operation in early 2008 and officially approved affiliates buying ads on a direct-to-merchant basis. Hopefully they won’t be importing their controversial ‘campaign optimisation’ scheme from the USA which involved changes being made to advertisers’ accounts without prior permission.

As the originators of PPC advertising, it’s a little sad to see Yahoo! Search Marketing in danger of falling behind both of its behemoth competitors. Both Google and Microsoft add a steady stream of additional features to their PPC services, and both now offer free desktop account management software tools, but Yahoo appears to be standing still.

Here at Azam Marketing we’re hoping that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz can start to turn things around.

Recommended Links: Use the new easycontentunits.com to add products from 11 affiliate networks within seconds to your websites.

We are following our announcement of the appointment of our two newest Affiliate Managers by drawing attention to more established colleagues, in particular Stuart Reader, our Director of Paid Search Marketing. Many of you will already have met Stuart at many of the online marketing gatherings around London he has attended over the years.

Stuart joined Azam in May 2008 and is responsible for overseeing the development and running of paid-search campaigns for clients and in-house projects. His day to day tasks include managing PPC campaigns, providing reports to clients, plenty of number crunching, and getting involved in pitches for new business.

Stuart has worked in Internet Marketing since the day dot and like many early entrepreneurs tried his hand at running a shopping directory before stumbling across PPC and harnessing it as a way to deliver fast results and make a full time living.

Stuart’s personal highlights within online marketing include his first profitable day and the first £500 single commission. However his most favourite sales bonus so far and one I’m very envious of, has to be an invite to the Royal film première of The History Boys and the unusual experience of walking past Stephen Fry and the paparazzi on the red carpet.

Describing what his most favourite aspect of search marketing is, Stuart says “I like finding untapped marketing niches and making a significant boost in the number of sales that a merchant can make each day”. That plus an invite to the odd film première and a bucket full of free popcorn hey Stuart?

It is with great pleasure I introduce Stuart as part of the Azam Team; he is a great asset and a truly nice guy.

When he isn’t wearing his PPC hat, you may find Stuart practising tai chi or hypermiling in his plastic Smart Car!

You can contact Stuart at:
Email: stuart [at] azam.net
Windows Live Messenger: stuartreader [at] hotmail.com
Direct Line: 01702 382 308
Mobile: 07795 574 178

While overall marketing budgets will drop in 2009 as the recession begins to bite, a number of recent studies have forecast that digital advertising spend will continue to increase.

The latest Marketing Week YouGov poll reveals that 42% of UK marketers foresee their digital spend increasing. 21% say they will cut TV advertising, 26% print and newspaper spend, and 29% magazine advertising. Outdoor, radio and cinema advertising will fare no better, with 18% predicting budget cuts for outdoor and radio each, and 17% for cinema.

Things are no different Stateside, with UBS Securities Research projecting spend on traditional media such as broadcasting, print and outdoor to decline 11% in 2009, its biggest drop in 60 years. The research firm’s assessment for 2009 is that “only the Internet should remain positive.” Online advertising is expected to grow 7% in the United States in 2009 and, by 2010, should make up 14% of overall ad spend.

Typifying the move from offline to online marketing spend is Electrolux. Whereas the company has been spending 80% of its £50/$73 Million pan-European marketing budget on TV and posters, in 2009 its investment in television will be slashed to less than 40% and outdoor to a maximum of 10%. Alexander Darwazeh, senior brand director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, predicts that, while marketing budget will remain the same depending on market conditions, ”we’ll be moving aggressively out of broadcast and billboards and into customer relationship management, the internet and experiential.”

The shift of advertising budgets to digital is leading to traditional agencies desperately trying to move into the electronic world to survive. BooneOakley, for instance, Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest agency, is setting up an in-house online division. “You can’t even say this is the future anymore,” says John Boone, agency principal. “It’s the present. Agencies that aren’t doing this won’t be around very long.”

Consumers are turning to the internet to save money on their shopping on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca have reported their best ever holiday shopping seasons. Seattle-based Amazon.com said it sold more than 6.3 million items on 15 December, 2008, its peak day. UK online retail sales are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 12% through to 2012 with cashback, voucher code and comparison shopping sites predicted to become particularly popular.

Client News: January is the peak season for travel bookings. Promote Purple Parking on AffiliateFuture and Tradedoubler who are DOUBLING commissions up to 20% for the month. Beats the typical 1% from airlines anyday!

Netklix are not actually a new network; they were founded in 1999 and originally began life as an affiliate network, running programs in the UK and USA. Shifting from CPA to CPC, the reincarnated set-up offers a way for web site owners and bloggers to earn money for every click generated.

From an advertisers point of view the Pay per Click model allows for ads to run online, however you only need to pay when a person clicks on one of your adverts. Pay per click advertising usually yields a higher Return on Investment (ROI) than CPM advertising as there is less wastage.

Looking at it as a Publisher

As a website publisher you will probably always be looking for a way to monetise all the hard work that you put in when building and maintaining you site or blog. By joining Netklix you could maximise your earning potential.

Netklix works very much like Google Adsense. When you click the sign up button you get taken through to a screen where you design your ad space. You can choose any colours you want so that the ads fit nicely with the look and feel of your site.

Once you have chosen your colours you must choose the subject categories that your site or blog covers. This is important as the Channels selected will help the most relevant ads to appear on your site maximising your earning potential.

The third step of the sign-up process is to add all your details such as name, address etc. I was a bit sceptical of the claim that the sign-up process would only take 5 minutes, but it does.

The interface looks easy and simple to use with the information you really want to know like “how much money have I made?” clearly displayed on the left hand side in your account. It is also really easy to create additional ad spaces and add more sites to your account.

So why would I want to use Netklix?

• The choice of content channels means relevant advertisers on your site
• You can create your own ads so they blend well with your site
• Netklix provides an additional revenue stream for your site or blog

Looking at it as an Advertiser

Netklix offers advertisers a cost effective way to run adverts online. It works in very much the same way as other PPC products. When you sign up you firstly choose your ad text and the maximum CPC that you are willing to bid. This is the maximum price you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad.

You then choose the categories that the product you are promoting fits into. This will help to place your ads on contextually relevant websites which will increase the conversion rates of your campaign. The third step is to add your details and you’re away.

One of the advantages I saw of Netklix was the bidding system which continually optimises downwards, i.e on the UK network you only pay £0.01 more than highest bid of the Advertiser in the next position below you, up to your maximum bid.

So why would I want to use Netklix?

• You only play when potential customers click through to your site
• You can choose from 400+ content Channels
• You can promote your business across thousands of sites instantly
• You set the click costs
• You can manage your account online anytime

Ask the CEO

Doing my impression of Deborah Meeden on Dragons’ Den, I posed some questions to the CEO of Netklix, Andrew Pike, which I thought would be the ones that advertisers and publishers might like answered.

What anti-fraud mechanisms do you have in place? – “We know that click-fraud is something that Advertisers are increasingly concerned about. Netklix have developed our own multi-stage technology to detect and isolate invalid clicks. That means Advertisers only pay for valid clicks, helping them increase traffic in safety. Publishers feel the benefit too. By tackling click-fraud, Netklix Advertisers are more confident in their CPC bids, which means a high-yielding, sustainable revenue source for Publishers”.

What controls do you have in place in terms of quality of publishers? – “Every Publisher that applies to the Netklix network is reviewed individually, by hand, prior to approval by our Account Management team. This means that Advertisers can be assured of our network quality. We apply the same rigour to Advert approval too, which means Publishers also gain from joining a responsible network.”

What are the strengths over Google Adsense? – “Netklix matches Advertisers and Publishers using our unique channel list. Keyword based targeting, although often effective, can be an added burden, especially when you are starting out. Advertisers have to build and maintain a list of thousands of keywords or risk congregating around which can burn budgets quickly. Publishers are also forced to constantly think up new ways to employ trigger keywords in their copy. In contrast, Netklix customers simply select the channels that best fit the content of their site and the Netklix does the rest. It’s as easy as that.”

In Summary

Netklix looks as though it is a great tool for advertisers to place highly targeted ads online next to relevant content, which will no doubt lead to higher conversion rates over CPM banner advertising. For a publisher the Netklix network will allow the monetisation of valuable online real estate.

The irrepressible Doug Scott contacted me a while back asking to carry out an interview with me for his blog. I must admit I had to think about it for a while as Doug’s writings have been known to ruffle a few feathers and I was worried about the questions he’d ask!

But he’s such a lovable chap that I relented, and he finally published the full interview today.

As one would predict from Doug, some of his questions were a bit cheeky, but he did succeed in making me open up in a way no previous interviewer has.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say the 5^th of May? May Day Bank Holiday? A lazy day sunbathing in Brighton or Blackpool or plonked in front of the tele?

The vibes at two online marketing events in the last week couldn’t be further apart with Technology for Marketing and Advertising proving to be a runaway success and Search Engine Strategies a damp squid.

On the way back to the office in central London from visiting our client Purple Parking at Heathrow, I stopped at Earls Court for TFM&A. I am always hungry to keep up with the latest developments in the industry and thought it would be useful to stroll around TFM&A, the UK’s annual showcase for the latest and greatest technology to make marketer’s lives easier and boost ROI.

The event filled a huge conference hall at Earls Court 2 and there were dozens of exhibitors selling software and solutions to handle data and content management, email marketing, e and m-commerce marketing, and the forth.

There was a impressive range of free seminars, albeit most being a tad salesy and not particularly enlightening, with 10 each on Database Marketing & Marketing Analytics; Online Advertising & Affiliate Marketing; Email, Mobile, Web 2.0; and CRM and Customer Experience. The latter featured the usual hypocrites preaching about the need to provide quality customer care while flogging solutions that make it increasingly difficult for customers to receive support from human beings, which survey after survey has proven everybody wants, and having as their biggest clients companies whose idea of telephone support is keeping “valued customers” hanging onto premium rate lines for half an hour before forwarding them to staff in India who don’t know what they are doing.

All in all, though, with 7,060 visitors in two days, an increase of 54% over the previous year, TFM&A has secured its place as a ‘must visit’ event for corporate marketers wishing to keep up with technological developments in digital marketing.

Me and my colleague Ather (web design and SEO supremo – pictured on the right) entered the Business Design Centre at Angel full of anticipation half way through the first day of the three day conference and expo. Our excitement turned to disappointment as we trundled into the venue hall. Had there been a fire-drill which had emptied the venue? A radon gas leak that had forced everybody to dart out of the venue down to the tube station? Nope… apparently the one man and his dog we were confronted with were more or less all the attendees at SES London.

Despite the distinct lack of atmosphere, Ather and I made the most of the occaision by enjoying valuable discussions with the exhibitors which included Wordtracker, Doubleclick, Hitwise and Efficient Frontier. It didn’t take us long to go through the exhibition hall, though, as there was only about 15 exhibitors.

I can’t put my finger on why SES London was such a non-event when SEM is where it’s all been happening for the last few years and the event boasted several mouthwatering speakers. Maybe Brendon Scott has the answer: I was chatting to him this morning and he said it could be the hardcore search marketers are too advanced for SES and those who would find it worthwhile were not aware of it.

Coming soon: ‘Is Video the Next Revolution in Online Advertising?’. Subscribe to updates.

Client news: eDealsUK is pleased to announce that our affiliates can now earn even more money with the launch of additional higher commission tiers on Affiliate Future. Affiliates can now earn a very generous 75p per new sign-up on the first tier for 1-250 leads, £1.00 for 251-500 leads and an incredible £1.50 CPA for over 500 leads per month.