February 13, 2012 – In full spirit of Valentine’s Day this week, SEMpdx celebrated on Monday night with its own version of speed dating. This month’s event proved invaluable to all who attended as we had a rare opportunity to sit down with some of the industry’s leading internet marketers and gain insight and answers to specific questions. Table topics ranged from pay-per-click to International SEO and everything in between. We even had a special visit from Google. Amanda Janney and Erin Kelley, both of Google+, and Christina Collada, of Google Places, had their own Q&A table available.
Here are just a few notes from the evening as attendees asked countless questions about their particular business needs.
– In selecting your bids for PPC, start with the CPL (cost per lead) and work back to the bid from there.
– Don’t let your ads sit uncontested. Test two or three ads at a time.
– For companies selling capital equipment, the value of pay-per-click is in lead generation.
– Track everything so you can link your internet marketing efforts to sales. Examples of tracking include incorporating a chat system, using a separate phone number and adding tags.
– Your landing pages should stand out from the rest of the website. Make it virtually impossible to leave the page.
– When working on international SEO, the most important thing to note is the domain, as that begins the trail.
– Consider a country’s general characteristics when developing your website. For example, South Korea is a very social culture and Sweden places a high value on reviews.
– Two of the top tools recommended for competitive analysis are Google’s Ad Planner and SEOmoz.
– Google will most likely downgrade your ranking if you include a keyword list at the bottom of your page.
– Create different landing pages to reach your different audiences.
It was a lively and informative night hosted by AboutUs.org and a great precursor to Portland’s annual SearchFest later this month.
Sarah is a search marketing consultant, helping clients improve ROI through paid search, SEO and social media initiatives. She is also the Official SEMpdx Event Blogger and can be found at all of the monthly events.