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Do you have any clients using a TV station or other online source for advertising, such as a banner ad, online newsletter or a law line page? One of my clients, car accident attorney Michael Barszcz and I were going through Google Analytics and he noticed the reports that the TV stations were giving him were significantly different from the stats in Analytics. The discrepancies were large enough that he was considering stopping services with one of the television stations he is working with.

After working with the TV station we created a unique URL using Google Analytics URL Builder. We sent it to the television station and they changed the regular link going to his website home page, to a URL that is recognized specifically as a separate campaign in his Google Analytics account. It still goes to his home page, but it automatically created a "Campaigns" section in the Traffic Sources Overview. Now the client can see a better view of exactly what traffic is clicking through to his site.

Creating a new URL takes about 5 seconds and is great for tracking separate online campaigns.

1. Go here
2. Enter Destination URL - ex: Client home page
3. Enter Campaign source - Where the campaign is coming from, ex: TV station home page, Newsletter, etc.
4. Enter Campaign Medium - Name of Campaign
5. Enter Campaign Name
6. Click Generate URL
7. Send unique URL to client or company working with client.

Once they have changed the URL, it will start to track in Analytics and you are all finished! There may still be some differences between the click report and analytics report, but the tagged URL will help mitigate the major differences.

For more questions on how you can track your marketing services, contact Page 1 Solutions today!

As an online marketing company, blogging is just one of many services we do for our clients. It is also one area clients have an opportunity to contribute to their online marketing efforts. It is relatively easy to do and can greatly increase optimization. There are a few things you can do to help make the most out of your blogs for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.

Make sure your blog is keyword rich. Blog about things you want to show up for on search engine results. Also add localizations for the area you are in. Putting both localization and an important keyword into your title will help with SEO.

Bolding helps to add emphasis to keywords in your blog. It helps users identify your important areas, as well as the search engines when they spider through your website. Linking is another great way to help with blog optimization. If you link out to other websites, such as an organization you belong to, or within your site; either way it will help users and search engine spiders move through your website.

Benefits of blogging:

• Shows you're staying current to potential patients and clients
• Each post gets indexed as an individual page
• Great opportunity to link
• Increase keyword and localization content
• Interactive- Patients can subscribe and comment on blog
• Opportunity to blog about patient experiences
• Shows a more personal side of your practice

Always end your blog with a call to action paragraph. For more information on how you make make blogging work for you, contact Page 1 Solutions today!

I am a fan of recommending a marketing campaign that combines both organic optimization and pay per click (PPC). Pay per click is a nice way to supplement your basic SEO and take a more aggressive approach to maintaining your presence on the search engines. Following are some basic points to keep in mind regarding how organic optimization and PPC work individually, and together:

Audience:

The purpose of any good marketing strategy is to cover all your bases and appeal to your key demographics. Daily I see two basic types of web users, both of which have different approaches to "shopping" for products and services. People who click on paid ads are typically more dedicated and likely to contact your office because they have completed their research and are ready to make a decision. These are people seeking "instant gratification." For this reason, PPC may be particularly effective in positioning the relevant, exact keywords they know will guide them to the services they seek. On the other hand, organic optimization creates a net to capture those who are just beginning the research process and are still refining their (re)search phrases and topics. These users linger on sites, taking their time to read about you and your company, digging into the details of what you have to offer. A combined approach of both PPC and organic optimization can give you a broader presence, appealing to both types of consumers.


Positioning your Presence, a Comprehensive Approach:

Not all Search Engines (SE) offer paid advertisements. While Google and Yahoo feed their PPC ads into other top search Engines such as AOL, and Ask.com, paid ads do not appear on every Search Engine. One of the benefits of having a combination of PPC and Organic optimization is that running a PPC campaign allows your ads to appear on the most highly trafficked SEs, and simultaneously, if you are positioned well in the organic listings, you are likely to still have a first page presence through the organic listings even when your paid ads are not visible.

In the best case scenario, you will appear in both the paid ad and the organic listings, securing more than one position on the first page of the Search Engines. When people see you in more than one place they assume you are more successful (i.e. "That guy is everywhere I look"), and it contributes to name branding.

Aggressively Gaining Ground:

If you have certain keywords that prove more challenging than others to position well in the organic listings, PPC allows you to appear for these keywords until your organic results for the same phrases percolate upward (Note: Some people even believe that by targeting certain keywords on paid listings that it will help speed up the process/improve your organic listings for those same keywords. This has never actually been confirmed so we can only assume it is conjecture).

These are only a few basic reasons to combine PPC with your organic marketing strategies. If you would like more information on whether PPC is worth pursuing, contact Page 1 Solutions today for more information.

My client, J. Steven Baker, DDS, believes in the power of Social Networking. He does a great job posting entries on his Facebook Fan Page. A few days ago we were talking about web marketing strategies and the question came up, "How can I pursue more fans"? The common complaint I hear from my clients is that Social Media is time consuming. It doesn't have to be. Here are a few simple and creative ways to get more Facebook Fans.

1. Put a sign in your office asking people to become a fan.
2. Add a reminder to find you on Facebook on your business cards, appointment cards, and stationary.
3. Add a link in your email signature letting people know you're on Facebook.
4. Put links to Facebook on your website.
5. On your other Social Networking sites add a link back to your Facebook Fan Page.
6. Offer a discount for patients who are fans on Facebook

Facebook is another tool you can use to create a buzz about your website. I encourage you to give it a try. For more questions about Social Media Marketing please contact Page 1 Solutions today.

Google has continued to impress many over the years. Google has become a noun in everyday language ("who was the 17th president of the United States?", "I don't know, Google it!"), created a cell phone, and is constantly creating new brand extensions such as Google Trends and Google Analytics. As an internet marketing company, we have seen firsthand how beneficial these extensions have been to us in the way we track the success of our clients' websites.

In this continuous trend of innovation, Google's new child, Google Ad Planner, is about to change the way marketers and advertisers gain insights into both their competition and target market. While it's still in beta, Ad Planner is a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers with the click of a mouse. Imagine an account planner and media planner combined into one, who is able to give you immediate results. That, give or take, is essentially what Google Ad Planner is.

There are 2 aspects of Ad Planner that I both love, and believe can change the way we gain insights on both our target market and competition.

First, Ad Planner provides in-depth information on who exactly is visiting your competing sites. By typing in a website, Ad Planner will give you information about the age, gender, income, and education of the people visiting that site. Ad Planner also displays other websites these individuals are visiting.

Another amazing feature of Ad Planner is the ability to gain insights on a specific target market based on particular keywords they're searching. Ad Planner allows you to enter your desired demographics and specific keywords, and it will display the top websites your demographic is visiting after searching those specifics keywords. All of this provides marketers, advertisers, and SEO gurus with unbeatable insights that would normally have taken months to gather.

While there is still plenty of room to grow and improve, this new tool has huge potential to transform the way marketers do their research.

Just recently Google released a new social search function. This new feature will now take into account what your social networks are talking about when providing search results.
In order to activate this particular feature, you first need to have a Google account. Within the settings area of your Google account you have the ability to sync all of your contacts and social networks. Once this is done you will began seeing keyword specific results based on what your contacts are saying. Are you confused, I know I was at first? What this means in plain English is if you have gone through and managed to sync your contact(something much easier for some than for others) if you search on the new Ipad and anyone of your contacts has mentioned it on one of their many posts you will see that in your search results. These types of search results are becoming more common and represent a new way to further optimize your site.
This type of function provides our clients (you) with a great opportunity to get your site on the search results page by using the social network sites you have already created. To take advantage of this you simply need take what you have already done with your social networks and expand on it. Here are some basic steps you can take:
1. Whenever possible add new contacts and friend to your social networks; more friends means more opportunities for visibility
2. Build out your Google Profile with as much information as you can and include all of the social networks you belong to
3. Specifically build your friends list on Google and Google chat since these contacts get top billing in the social search results.
4. Encourage your employees, clients and collogues to tweet, post, mention, or link to your site as much as possible using their networks.

How people search for information is changing. Traditional optimization is still extremely important but these types of new personalized searches present a great opportunity for the new "word of mouth marketing".

If you are running a Pay Per Click (PPC) online marketing campaign, you are almost assuredly doing so to extend your reach in the marketplace and generate new business. PPC campaigns are a great way to increase traffic to your website and convert leads for your business. A large part of running a PPC campaign is developing an effective 'landing page,' which is the page people navigate to (or 'land' on) after they click on your ad. Landing pages are the catalyst for a successful PPC campaign, so understanding how to design them effectively is crucial to the overall success of your PPC campaign.