Aside from SEO, we are also a Utah pay per click company, an industry of internet marketing that I am continually learning about. I may not know much, but I do know a little about geo-targeting.

I am somewhat baffled at times when people don’t put any thought into geo-targeting their PPC campaign. For example, if you offer a service or products only available in a specific region of the states, why would you pay for ads to run throughout the U.S.? Or if you are looking to acquire clients from a specific area or country, then advertise only in that area. Not doing so merely equates to you wasting money, every single time someone outside your geographic realm clicks.

Thus, a more geo-specific PPC campaign may equal a greater ROI. Consider doing so if you are not already…you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.

This is just a quick gripe about how Ebay always seems to come up in Adwords, no matter what you search for. For instance, I googled myself, and for some reason, an Ebay ad came up saying I could be found on Ebay. Hmm. Really? I didn’t realize I was for sale!

My point is, be careful about the keywords you bid on. Be selective, and remember that the more specific the term is, the more likely you are to have a sale. Granted, you won’t get as much traffic, but I believe if you go for the more tail terms (see the previous post about head and tail terms), you’ll have more success with your conversion rates.

If you have spent any time researching SEO or PPC you have probably come across the phrases “head terms” and “tail terms.”

In order to understand what this means imagine a graph that starts really high on the left, but falls steeply toward 0 as you go to the right. Imagine, however, that the graph just approaches 0, but never reaches it, for miles (yes, that’s a long piece of paper).

This is a pretty accurate depiction of search engine queries every month - there are a few really high-traffic keywords (iraq, plasma tv, etc.) and then an astoundingly high number of keywords (more specifically, phrases) which may only receive one search per month (”where can i find news about the war in iraq,” “plasma tv 32″ wall-mounted,” etc.)

Five years ago when I started getting involved with SEO everybody wanted to own the head - meaning they wanted to rank well on the high-traffic terms. It’s pretty easy to figure out why - without as much competition as you face today they were easy to own and would result in a ton of traffic.

In the past couple years, however, I have seen more people focus on the tail. There is a lot to like about targeted queries such as the ones that have low search volume - while the volume of searches per query is very low, often there are several similar queries which produce an impressive aggregated volume.

I think, however, that the importance of the tail terms may have been overemphasized in the past few years and we strongly recommend that you consider your business model before making a decision - and don’t be fooled, this is an important decision to make before even choosing an SEO. Some are much better at getting head terms while others focus on the tail.

Do a bit of research and as your potential SEO what they recommend - make sure to talk to a few companies and ask for specific referrals for both head and tail keywords. Figure out what you need in an SEO and then seek out the best overall fit.

In my last post, I mentioned how important SEO is for driving traffice to websites, and how at times, the organic results are more “trustworthy” than the paid listings. While some consumers may feel the organic results are better, PPC still plays an important role in internet marketing campaigns.

First of all, with PPC, you get immediate results, depending on how much money you are willing to spend on a per-click basis. It’s just a matter of outbidding the other companies looking to rank on the same keyword as you. This doesn’t always mean, however, you’ll get the best results if you pay the most amount of money. They key is finding out the ideal amount to bid for keywords that will result in the best ROI. If you’re an HR Outsourcing company bidding $5 per click on Human Resources, it might not get you the traffic you want. It may be people just looking for information about Human Resources, rather than a company to provide those services. Your money will probably be better invested in bidding on a keyword like “Human Resources Outsourcing.” There will probably be less traffic than more general terms, but the traffic will be more qualified. Another benefit is that the per-click costs will be lower than that of more generic “head” terms.

I would say that managing a good SEO campaign in conjunction with PPC is very beneficial. Once the SEO campaign is doing well, if the internet marketing budget is tight, it may be best to phase out parts of PPC to save money, since you don’t have to pay for each click when traffic gets to your website through the organic results. It can be good to rank on both organic and paid listings, though, because if people see your website in both the organic and paid results, they can’t ignore you. They know you’re important because you’re right there. We call this a “road block,” and it is very good for driving traffic to your website.

There are many things to consider, but there are advantages to both SEO and PPC. It’s just a matter of figuring out what is best for your company and your budget.