Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Services
Search Engine Marketing 101 - This is an article that can help you understand the basics of how/why SEM works.
Benefits
The vast majority of websites in existence are under utilized. They may be fantastic sites, but they are either poorly marketing, or not marketed at all. Hiring a professional to drive traffic to your website can be one of the best marketing investments that you can make. Not only does it take that job off your "to do" list, but the professionals at BP have the experience to get results that are well beyond the reach of a staff person that is not 100% dedicated to online marketing.
If you haven't heard, the good news about marketing online is that SEM is by far the most responsive, trackable, targeted, and results-driven mode of advertising that the world has ever seen. Even better than that, BP can set up a profitable campaign at any budget.
Experience
BP currently (9/08) has three staff members that are certified search engine experts by Google. We maintain SEM campaigns for multiple clients with great success and have managed over $250,000.00 worth of ppc advertising. We are currently running a pay-per-click campaign that is generating about 200 qualified leads/week for the client. Our most successful SEO campaign currently gets tens of thousands of page views per day without any pay-per-click advertising (yesterday was close to 100,000 page views in that one day).
Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns
BP offers complete and customized PPC management services to set up and maintain your campaign.
A) Setup
Setup usually includes research/consulting on your existing marketing as well as looking at your online competitors. We work with you to develop a list of target phrases and ad copy, then set up accounts with the appropriate search engines. We also commonly put in place tracking mechanisms to gauge your total site traffic as well as traffic that is generated specifically by the campaign. We also set up your site so we can track exactly when/how your new campaign converts a visitor to a lead or customer. After we customize the settings on your account to match your needs we turn your ads on and search engine users who are searching on your chosen search phrase start finding their way to your website.
B) Maintenance
On a regular basis BP will monitor your campaign and make changes as needed. Examples of changes we might make would be to try different search phrases, ad copy, bidding amounts, change the sites that your ads are displayed on or adjust how your budget is spread across multiple micro-campaigns. Additionally BP provides regular reports to show you how your campaign is doing. Usually these reports include raw data, our interpretation of what that data means, as well as explanations/recommendations for changes. Those reports my be compiled automatically or manually and delivered electronically or by regular face to face meetings. Depending on the needs of the client the maintenance schedule can vary from daily to monthly.
C) Custom Services
For some clients it is appropriate to give a campaign a "full court press." In those cases, BP can/has developed small database driven websites that are specifically for PPC traffic. By doing that BP can set up a content management system that will allow for each search phrase or set of ad copy to go to a different landing page message for which it was specifically tailored. Of course we can also monitor and test the landing page messages and adjust as needed on a regular basis. Another custom service offered is monitoring for "click fraud."
Billing
BP believes that it is in the best interest of the client to have their PPC accounts with Google/Yahoo/Etc. in their own name charging their click fees to their own credit card. Although it is common to charge for PPC management services as a "percentage of spend" BP feels that is not an equitable billing method as the amount of spend does not necessarily directly relate to the amount of work put into the management of a campaign. We simply bill clients for our time on an hourly basis. Setup as described above in section A can commonly take 4-8 hours. Maintenance as described in section B above is somewhat determined by the client, however it is common to spend less than an hour or two per month and do a good job keeping a campaign on track.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Campaigns
BP offers services for both internal and external SEO.
I) Internal
In order to increase searchability BP will work with the client to make adjustments to the site that make it easier/faster for search engines to index. Some of the techniques used include title/search phrase mapping, the addition of "bread crumbs" and internal links, as well as html/xml sitemaps. Additionally BP will look for value-added ways to regularly increase to the volume of quality content that search engines are looking for on the website.
II) External
In order to increase the number of high quality external sites that link back to your site BP will launch an ongoing campaign to locate and engage those sites in a conversation about your website/product. These campaigns can include (but are not limited to): posting to blogs and online forums, participating in multiple social networks, posting articles in community resources (such as Wikis), posting to news articles, posting to review sites etc.
Billing
As with our PPC services, we simply charge clients hourly for the time we spend performing requested tasks.
Please contact us to discuss your particular online marketing challenges.