December 8, 2011

New Video Course Helps Business Professionals Learn Online Marketing Fundamentals

Online marketing course taught on video by web marketing expert Lorrie Thomas Ross is on lynda.com – a subscription-based online video tutorial website.

SANTA BARBARA, December 2011 — In the ever-changing world of online marketing, the options are endless, which is exciting, but sometimes can often leave professionals overwhelmed on where to begin, regardless of their level of marketing experience. New journeys often go better with a map and directions, so online marketing expert and author Lorrie Thomas Ross created a course to help professionals map their online marketing with the launch of the new Online Marketing Fundamentals video course on lynda.com.

Online Marketing Fundamentals, released December 7, 2011, introduces web marketers, web designers, business owners and executives to the world of online marketing, and reviews how the different aspects of a business’ web site can support its marketing goals. Online Marketing Fundamentals helps even the smallest businesses to get started with web marketing and allows more experienced professionals optimize the marketing collateral they have already built. Thomas Ross teaches viewers how to set themselves up for success by covering all the critical pieces of the online marketing puzzle. She shows how to create an effective website and incorporates the use of social media sites as some the ways business owners can interact with customers. Lorrie gives instruction on the world of blogging and search engine marketing, breaking each concept down into easy-to-digest lessons.

Lorrie Thomas Ross is known as The Marketing Therapist® as her “healthy marketing advice” expertise is frequently quoted by the media, giving advice on topics ranging from search engine marketing to developing web marketing strategy. Lorrie is CEO of the full-service online marketing agency, Web Marketing Therapy®. She is a nationally recognized public speaker and teaches customized web marketing workshops for businesses big and small. Thomas Ross is the author of the “36-Hour Course: Online Marketing” (published by McGraw-Hill), a top-rated guide teaching everything online marketing has to offer.

“Having a website does not mean that you are engaged in online marketing”, says Lorrie Thomas Ross, The Marketing Therapist®. “You have to know the fundamentals of online marketing. Whether you are a VP of Search Marketing, a webmaster or a professional looking to make the web work for you, this course can help get you ideas for optimization and new channels. Smart online marketing comes from having a plan, doing continual optimization, tracking success and being creative. This is an ongoing process, so it requires a commitment and work, but once you get the hang of it, it pays off! Offering the Online Marketing Fundamentals course on lynda.com is fantastic, it’s affordable and embodies the way we learn today – on the web! The final outcome is something that everyone can take away knowledge from no matter what level they are at experientially.”

The twelve chapter course is featured exclusively on lynda.com and outlines the fundamentals of online marketing in easy to understand and informational video tutorials. There are many pieces to a success-backed marketing puzzle and the Online Marketing Fundamentals course highlights the necessary topics including up-to-date information on social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), search engine marketing, online advertising, blogging and content marketing. Thomas Ross teaches a range of marketing lessons on business branding, creating a better user experience, how to create an email marketing campaign and finally how to properly promote your brand through online public relations. Lorrie Thomas Ross believes you can’t have a successful marketing plan without strategy and measurement so before viewers implement all of the teachings from this course into their business, Thomas Ross covers web marketing strategy.

The Online Marketing Fundamentals course by lynda.com officially launched Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 and is available at www.lynda.com

About Lorrie Thomas Ross:

Lorrie Thomas Ross, M.A., The Marketing Therapist® & Wild Web Woman®, is a marketing strategist, educator, writer, web marketing expert, and speaker. Thomas Ross is the CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency and online marketing education company. She is the author of top ranking “36-Hour Course to Online Marketing” available on Amazon.com. As a she-geek with super relationship savvy, Lorrie’s craft brings the heart of marketing into organizations that are “in it to win it”. Thomas Ross was recently recognized as an entrepreneurial leader in the Pacific Business Coast Times “40 Under 40” Awards. She has been featured in Forbes, Success, Inc., Entrepreneur and Fox Business. Thomas Ross lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, daughter and cat named Grumpy. For more information, please visit: www.lorriethomas.com and www.webmarketingtherapy.com

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The landing page used in your PPC ads is an important factor in determining your Google quality score and can help boost your paid search conversions.

Want to boost your pay per click advertising conversions and maximize your Google AdWords spend? Where you direct your users after they click on your ad is a critical element to consider. In addition to your click through rate, the destination URL used in your ads is an important factor in determining your Google quality score.

While it may be tempting to use an existing site page for your paid search landing page, it could be detrimental to your campaign’s overall performance if that page is not relevant to your online advertising campaign, consequently costing you more in the long run!

Because you should always link your ads to the most relevant page on your site as it relates to your PPC ads, you may want to consider creating new landing pages just for your paid search traffic.

Here are 2 reasons why creating dedicated landing pages for your pay-per-click campaign is good for both users, search engines, and ultimately your conversion rate.

1. Relevant PPC Landing Pages Help Convert Searchers: When users click on your ad, they want to be taken to a web site page that matches your PPC ad message. If your PPC ad says one thing (for example, an offer for a specific promotion like Free Shipping for orders over $100), when users click on it, they need to see this reflected on the landing page. Otherwise they may feel confused and bounce – and you’ve spent money on a click that didn’t convert.
2. Optimized Landing Pages Help Google Promote Your Ads: Having a landing page that isn’t relevant to your PPC campaign not only confuses users – it also confuses Google. In addition to matching your landing page messaging to your PPC campaign, you should also optimize your landing page for relevant keywords that you are buying. For example, if you are targeting the phrase “Spanish guitar lessons Denver,” you need to use this in your landing page copy! Yes, this means that if you are buying multiple phrases, you may need to create several landing pages optimized for those keywords. But know that this is a long-term investment as Google rewards relevance by boosting Quality Score (which enhances ad positioning and helps you lower bids/costs).

Stop Wasting Clicks and Boost Your Conversion Rate. If you are already spending money on clicks, use your landing page to help them actually convert. An optimized PPC landing page helps increase the relevance for both the user (they are happy and more likely to convert) and Google (the search engine is happy and rewards you by boosting your quality score).

While it may be easier to direct your paid search traffic to an existing page (like your home page or contact form), you can get dinged by Google for directing users to a landing page that has not been optimized for your AdWords campaign. Not to mention you could be providing a poor user experience for the people who found your site through paid search – and missing out on those conversions.

For more paid search marketing tools and tips, follow me on Twitter @my_dog_ate_it

Snookie has taught us that it's important to know who you're up against, especially in your PPC and SEO competiive landscape - unless you just like asking for trouble.

Confession. I have to admit that I’ve seen MTV’s Jersey Shore on more than one occasion. In fact, the Season 1 Reunion celebrated new levels of meaningless hook-ups, breaks ups, and wasted hair and tanning product that left me traumatized for days. But just when I thought I’d lost too many brain cells, our friends at evisibility.com have come out with the perfect anecdote: What MTV’s Jersey Shore can teach us about Internet Marketing.

While Pauly D, Ronnie and Mike the “Situation” can teach us lessons about brand management, geo-targeted campaigns and ad saturation, I like to look to Snookie to inspiration for PPC and SEO strategies.

We can learn a thing or two about organic search rankings and online pay-per-click campaigns form Snookie’s Napoleon complex – which has caused her to get in over her head on several occasions. As the internet marketing pros at evisiblity.com point out:

Unafraid of a fight, she’s been punched more times than Kool-Aid. Learn from Snookie- It’s important to have a certain amount of real self-realization when considering online marketing channels.

So as a small business owner, if you are certain to be outranked in the search engines for popular phrases relating to your product or services, it’s first important to acknowledge that you may get trampled unless you start looking in other places on the web to attract traffic. You don’t have to abandon your SEO or PPC efforts, just re-think your strategy.

This includes thinking of more long-tail keywords to target. One way to approach this is to pick low-hanging fruit – phrases that target the people who are already searching for you, your brand online, and/or industry. These long-tail variations of popular phrases are typically less competitive, meaning they are easier to rank for and can be purchased at a lower cost. Targeting these highly descriptive phrases will not only help you expand your search engine marketing and paid efforts, but will also bring you more qualified traffic.

How’s that for some fist-pumping marketing inspiration to boost your SEO and PPC campaigns? Read more marketing secrets unearthed from MTV’s Jersey Shore here.

For more search engine marketing tips, follow me on Twitter @my_dog_ate_it

What does the Yahoo / Microsoft Search partnership mean for you business?

With the Yahoo and Microsoft deal finalized, the two companies are set to consolidate their advertising networks and search engines in 2010. But what does the MicroHoo search partnership mean for your search engine visibility, online advertising spend and other ongoing internet marketing efforts?

Lorrie Thomas weighed in on the consolidation of search engines earlier this year. Additionally, our friends over at Location3 Media have shared some great insight in their recent article Why MicroHoo Benefits the SEM Industry.

Like many of us, SEM expert Andrew Beckman is looking forward to another large player like MicroHoo that can potentially rival Google’s search dominance, which would in turn help control rising costs and encourage the industry to continue to innovate. He points out that while search inventory for Yahoo and Microsoft (Bing) will be the same (just combined into one interface) – the search alliance can bring MicroHoo the traffic search volume it needs so businesses would not have to rely so heavily on Google for the bulk of their online ad spend.

Beckman also points out additional benefits of the partnership for the search industry:

• People will no longer have to pay their way into Yahoo!’s natural results via Paid inclusion (PI) – which means that companies who are proficient in search can finally rank on the first page of Yahoo! for keyphrases that were once impossible to rank on without paying a competitive pay-per-click price.
• Collectively, MicroHoo will have a powerful content network that aligns two of the largest trafficked content networks on the web. A self-serve application (like Google’s AdSense) featuring advanced-targeting capabilities can eventually provide your business a great opportunity to generate a large amount of targeted traffic.

Read Beckman’s full article here.

For more healthy marketing advice, follow me on Twitter @my_dog_ate_it

I think that consolidation of search advertising would eliminate competition, ultimately increasing ad costs and devastating ROI efforts for most adver­tisers.   Salcido welcomes consolidation, saying it could result in a competitive price war and lower ad costs, as well as a possible race to develop better technology.

I can understand his point on better technology potential, but I still think that lack of competition will diminish desire to perform to the best of search marketing capacity (monopoly is rarely a good thing).

But I want to know what you think – read the opposing views on search consolidation, post your comments…let the ring debate begin….ding!