As promised, here is the web version of my July e-mail newsletter.  Read on to learn how a small business is making more sales now than before the recession! Thanks to SEO & PPC advertising this dog trainer is selling out his high-end program

I bring news of success in this recession.  Best of all, the methods used are accessible to all of you.  If you’re not up to reading all this, scroll on down and at least check out the pictures.  Then, imagine what this could do for your business.

SEO & PPC Case Study: Canine College of Chapel Hill

Gene has been working with dogs for over 25 years.  Locally, he’s known as The Dog Guy.  I have been Webmaster of his website, www.cc-ch.com, since early 2006.

Gene is a skillful marketer in his own right.  He owns the local minor league baseball team’s mascot, Lucky The Wonderdog.  He has self-published a quality children’s story book – also available to read online as a virtual book!  He holds multiple patents on dog related inventions.  Of course, he’s an excellent dog trainer too.

So, what do I do for Gene?  The most important things I do are Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising with Google Adwords.

Background: Canine College of Chapel Hill offers a board and train program.  Drop off your dog for 4 weeks with $1,470 and pick it up afterwards along with follow-up courses.  Well business hadn’t been very good since the economy tanked.  So, Gene asked me to target Raleigh — the largest city nearby.  Canine College is about a half hour from Raleigh, but that’s not a bad drive for a 4 week stay.

The Campaign: I implemented a site-wide SEO strategy focusing on the most important keywords as defined by keyword research.  Monthly adjustments were made and changes in results placement tracked.  A limited amount of link-building was also carried out.

In tandem to this, several geo-targeted Google Adwords campaigns were deployed.  The ads were continually split tested to improve performance.  Additionally keyword performance was tracked and adjustments made on a monthly basis.

Split testing was an integral aspect of the the Adwords campaigns.  By constantly running two slightly different ads side-by-side we were able to determine what copy worked and what didn’t.

Gene did his part too.  Together, we made frequent updates to the content of his site.  Search engines love to see an actively maintained website.

The Results: Gene sold out his Board & Train Program for July at $1470 per dog!  August is almost full already.  Every dog he’s currently training is from Raleigh or Fayetteville.  Gene never got business from Raleigh, let alone Fayetteville, when he relied on the Yellow Pages and posters.  He wasn’t even selling out before the recession!

How? He dominates the search engine results!  Gene’s site is the first result when you google [dog training durham], or [dog training chapel hill].  So far he’s only made it to the top of the second page of results for [dog training raleigh].  Nonetheless, when people search for dog training in Raleigh they can’t miss Gene’s ad above the search results!

Chapel Hill: Canine College gets first ad, first local result, and first organic result

Raleigh: Gene's ad above the search results

Durham: First organic result, Only ad, and a local business result!

Gene is getting 46.91% of his traffic from Google searches.  On top of that, 15.64% comes in from Google Adwords — mostly from Raleigh.  His site gets a good steady stream of traffic for a local business, with over 400 unique visitors in the last 30 days.  The average visitor spends about 3 minutes on the site and looks at 4.7 pages.

He pays under a dollar per click for his ads, on average.  Continual improvements to the ads have taken the click through ratio from 0.5% up to just under 3%. Plenty of those clickers and searchers are converting into happy customers.

Since visitors in Raleigh live too far away to be interested in lessons, the ads shown in Raleigh focus on the in-board program.  When a user clicks the ad it takes them straight to the page about the in-board program.  Searchers nearer by see ads that mention both in-board and lesson programs.

Thanks to a well managed SEO & Google Adwords Campaign, Canine College is moving forward with its expansion plans and is faring the recession well!

If you would like to see your website bring you plenty of business I can’t recommend SEO and PPC methods enough!  Strong placement in search engine results is priceless.  Google Adwords allows you to get on that front page before your SEO has time to work its magic.  Once you’re placing well, the ads continue to strengthen your presence on those results pages.

Contact me today to learn how these strategies could be applied to your company!

This month’s issue will feature a case study. I’ll explain how exactly one of my clients is doing more business now than he was before the recession!

I’m going to go ahead and post the images from this case study now. The full text will go out by e-mail only in the next 48 hours. After a week I’ll post the full text here on this blog. Subscribe to the RSS feed if e-mail isn’t your bag.

WARNING: These images contain graphic depictions of a small business dominating search engine results.  Click at your own risk.

Dominating Search Engine Results - Durham

Dominating Search Engine Results - Chapel Hill

SEO Takes Time. Google Adwords Gives Instant Results!

[Update: Two images were removed, as I realized the results were 'personalized' for me by Google. These images are all the usual results everyone sees.]

Today’s also my birthday.  I’m 29.

One thing that can be confusing at first is the PageRank system used by Google.  Obviously, you would like for your site to be in first place when someone searches for keywords related to your products or services.  So, a PageRank of 1 sounds pretty nice doesn’t it.  Well, it isn’t.

The PageRank system works on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.  Actually, it works on a much more complicated scale, but the details are a trade secret, as are exact PageRank scores.  Google is kind enough to give us a rounded off version of our PageRank.  Every page on your website may be assigned a PageRank.  It is basically a rating of how authoritative your site is in the eyes of Google.  There aren’t a whole lot of sites with a PageRank of 10.  Not long ago www.apple.com and www.whitehouse.gov were both PageRank 10, but have both fallen to 9.  Google is constantly refining the equations used to calculate PageRank, so there are shifts from time to time.

Okay, so you get what it is, but how does it affect you?  Think about it this way: If two webpages have the same relevancy (that is, they both match the searched terms equally) the one with the higher PageRank will show up first in Google search results.

How do you know what a webpage’s PageRank is? Well, the Google Toolbar will tell you, as will many fine Firefox Extensions.  Those links will open in a new window.

Don’t set your aim at a high PageRank just because it’s high.  You’ll do best to look at the scores of your competitors and aim to beat them, or at least keep pace.

So how do you increase your PageRank?  Links.  Get links.  It’s not just a matter of quantity though.  You’ll need quality links to effectively grow your PageRank.  The best links are from high PageRank pages that are relevant to your own site.  If you sell jewelry you want to get links from sites about jewelry, gemstones, precious metals, or weddings– assuming you sell engagement rings.

Want to know how to get these kinds of quality links?  Well that’s a topic for another day.   Why not subscribe to my RSS feed, or monthly eNewsletter to make sure you stay informed!

I started using Google as my primary search engine early on.  It was still in the beta testing phase.  You’ll notice some Google features have a ‘beta’ indicator in the upper left by their logo.  This means they are not considered a final product, or release quality, yet.  Final testing is being carried out to work out the last of the bugs.  All quality software products, and web applications go through this process.

But Beta versions don’t come out of thin air.  Google is kind enough to offer us an easy way to explore the latest search and web technologies they are working on.  If you dig deep enough, you’ll find it: Google Labs – http://labs.google.com .  From the main Google Search web page you have to click “More” then “Even More” then “Google Labs” will show up.

The Google Labs website lets you try out experimental web-based features before they make it into the official Google lineup.  You can explore the surface of Mars using the Google Maps interface.  There’s a search engine for the visually impaired.  Web developers and programmers of all sorts can search vast quantities of source code.  There’s also a list of Google Labs Graduates, which includes most Google features.

So, what inspired me to babble about this on the internet, for the world to see?  I just checked out Google Labs and found two new features…

There is an audio search tool that lets you search for web video where politicians have discussed your search terms.  You can type in any topic or issue and get relevant video of presidential candidates making statements on that topic.  It even marks on the seek bar of the video where your search terms are spoken.

The other new feature is also useful during an election.  It is a quotation search and comparison tool.  You can pick two politicians (guess who the defaults are) and type in some issues and Google will find you quotations from each person on each issue.  You can look at them side by side, and they are presented with cited source and link to full article.  There’s even a spin button to get another pair of statements.

Have fun with Google Labs.  If you’re still making up your mind on the elections, check out these new tools.  If you’ve made up your mind, then get out there and vote.  Early voting is the way to go, and here in North Carolina it has already started.  To find out details you can visit your local Board of Elections office.  Statewide information can be found by searching for “NC sboe” (replace NC with your state name) and your local early voting information can be found on your county BoE website, so search for “orange county, NC boe” or substitute your county.

Hope you have a great day!

I’m working furiously away at building this site, so please check back soon.

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