The TechnoPeasant Review
A view on the Web: Paid inclusion advertising
By Jeff Pasternack

Once upon a time, search engines let you freely add your Web site to their directories and your URL would appear reasonably high in the search results. Today, that doesn’t happen.

Previously, search-result algorithms primarily used a site’s keywords and content to rank the site. The higher the ranking, the higher the site appeared on search results.

Current algorithms use a complex calculation consisting of page popularity, keyword density, and other factors. How do you navigate through this complicated mire? Here are some ways:

• SEOs. To help you conquer search-engine algorithms, a group of people calling themselves search engine optimizers have sprung up, offering fee-based search engine optimization (SEO) services that allegedly improve a site’s ranking.

The question begs: Are these SEO services worthwhile? If not, what other alternatives exist?

For more than 99 percent of you, paying for SEO is not worth the expense. You are in a competitive profession with intense pressure on reimbursement and you rely on local residents to support your practice.

If you are in Houston, it is unlikely that someone from Minneapolis will become your patient. So, paying for a high ranking built on a generic phrase such as “back pain” will not likely generate enough return on investment to be worthwhile.

You also need to be aware of the many hucksters and incompetent people who employ black-hat tactics that may work in the short-term, but may have your site banned in the long term. If you are determined to pay for SEO service and want to be educated, visit SEO Pros (www.seopros.org), the industry’s accrediting organization, to learn what you should look for in an SEO provider.

• Open Directory Project. The one search engine registration task you should do is to list your site with the Open Directory Project (ODP) at www.dmoz.org, the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a global community of volunteer editors. ODP is a Web directory, not a search engine, that lists and categorizes Web sites. It does not rank, promote, or optimize sites for search engines. Instead, the ODP is simply a data provider. Sites such as AOL and Google come to it to get information.

Once you list your Web site, it will take time for your listing it to appear, but this free directory is used as a source by many others and the listing process is simple.

• Paid-inclusion advertising. Most search engines place a couple of sponsored links on top of the results and more down the right side. This type of advertising is called paid-inclusion and it is my favorite way of attracting site visitors.

HOW PAID INCLUSON WORKS

Here’s how this works. The two major ad networks are Google and Yahoo (formerly Overture). To use them, you select a word or phrase that relates to the service you offer or condition you treat, create a short ad, and decide what you’re willing to pay for placement on the search results page when someone searches on the word(s).

For all practical purposes, the primary difference between the two networks is the bidding mechanism: Yahoo lets you see your competitors’ ads and bids; Google does not. Both only charge you when someone clicks on your ad.

Each of the services also allows you to implement a localization feature so that people who are connecting to the Internet from Cleveland will see ads for Cleveland businesses.

Many advertisers create a local campaign and a national campaign. An example of a local campaign might be the words “back pain,” whereas the national campaign might use the words “back pain Cleveland.” When people from Cleveland search on “back pain,” they are shown the first ad, whereas the New Yorker will be shown the Cleveland ad if only they search on “back pain Cleveland.”

Obviously, people who perform a local search are much more likely to use a local service provider.

Pricing is also different at the local level. For example, “back pain” costs about $1.53 per click to be listed first on Yahoo, but “back pain Miami” costs 41 cents. Some markets are more competitive, however. “Back pain Los Angeles” costs $6 to be listed first, but just 12 cents to be listed second. Obviously, consider some budgeting strategy when you create campaigns. It may not be worthwhile to pay to be first.

TAKE VISITORS TO TARGETS

Without question, your ads should take visitors to targeted sections of your Web site. If you advertise on “sciatica,” the visitor should be taken to a page about sciatica, as opposed to your home page. When the visitor gets to that page, provide a way to give you value for the visit. For example, ask visitors to complete an “Evaluate My Condition” form.

For example: Visitor A clicks your “sciatica” ad and Yahoo charges you 51 cents. The visitor reads the material and leaves the site. You know you had a visitor, but the value is minimal and you don’t know why he or she didn’t go forward.

Visitor B goes further and views the “Evaluate My Condition” form and leaves the site. The value is conceptually higher. Did Visitor B find the form to be too complex, or was she not that interested? You won’t know for sure, but if only 1 in 1,000 visitors submit the form, the problem is likely the form and not the level of interest.

Visitor C actually completes the form. That visit produces the highest value to you, because now you can make contact.

KEEPING TRACK

Your Web host should provide a tracking tool that lets you see how visitors found your site, the pages they viewed, the most common paths through the site, and many other statistics.

You use the tracking tool to see patterns and to measure effectiveness.

For example: In a recent 16-month study for a company, I identified an equation for measuring the return on investment in paid-inclusion ads. In any given month, 5 percent of the visitors view the contact form. Of those, 18 percent submit the form, and 25 percent of them become customers.

Each customer purchase is worth about $15,000. So, if 1,000 people visit, 50 view the form, 9 submit it, and 2 become customers, the return comes out to $30,000. The company spends $1,600 a month on Google and Yahoo combined and another $750 – $900 a month to manage the campaigns — approximately $2,400 — to earn $30,000. That’s a solid return in an industry that has 4 million Web sites competing for placement.

Unlike other advertising campaigns, paid-inclusion ads produce a measurable result almost instantly, even though patterns take time to develop, as well as to learn which search terms and advertising language are more likely to produce a valuable click.

For example: A friend owns a rental property in Costa Rica. Would you have guessed that the highest performing term is the misspelling, “Costa Rico?” On Yahoo the misspelling costs 56 cents, instead of $1.64 for the correct spelling, Costa Rica. His $60 monthly budget is better spent on the misspelled word.

Search engines are still the primary method for driving Web site traffic. SEO is, to me, a murky, ever-changing arena with a very high cost to establish and maintain a presence. By contrast, paid-inclusion ads cost far less to establish and the maintenance cost is tied to what you are willing pay for clicks.

Jeff Pasternack is the president of Dynamic Consulting Group, a franchise partner of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and author of the TechnoPeasant Review, www.technopeasant.com. If you have questions or comments, please write to him at Jeff@TheDCG.com.