Paid advertising... looking for some advice

Hey guys n gals, if you read my other post you'll know I'm coming back to SEO after a very long break.

I've got my head 'back in the game' and the on and off page SEO is coming together. However results will take time and I want to build it right rather than fast

So in the essence of everything good online, I'm looking to run some advertising along side to bring in some traffic in the meantime.

However, just as SEO changed a fair bit, the advertising side has almost vanished into thin air.

So I'm looking to everybody here and their infinite wisdom of all things marketing, what is the best way to advertise these days? I'm not ruling PPC out but I'd rather try and brand at the same time.

I look forward to all your replies

Darren

Bluefron 1974,

This is a good question. The type of advertising you choose will depend a little on what you are selling. Not all products/services lend themselves to all types of advertising. For example it is incredibly difficult to get good conversions for home improvement services through PPC campaigns. I would start out by researching where your target market spends most of their time online. If you have a service whose target customers are using social media like crazy, perhaps advertising on Twitter or Facebook would be fruitful. If they use search engines to find your products/services, search advertising may be the way to go. Just like with offline advertising, you must go to where your customers are and remain present there.

I have seen people have lots of success with Google Adwords and you can utilize the platform's display network if you want to include branded messages.

This post raises some good questions you should be asking yourself before you decide on a venu,

http://www.bluecorona.com/blog/what-is-the-best-type-of-online-advertising

This post has some good tips about different types of online advertising,

http://www.echoditto.com/paid-promotion

Hope this helps you and good luck!

Shawn

This are some very good information shared here,thanks Shawn.

What works for me is reviews...either I create a review site or hire someone on payperpost.com who has a high authority blog to write and publish it on their blog. This is one of the best methods to have a non bias review about your site or product posted on a high PR site and remains there for life!

-Shawn
That was a great post. It really helps me out.

TheContentAuthority said:

Bluefron 1974,

This is a good question. The type of advertising you choose will depend a little on what you are selling. Not all products/services lend themselves to all types of advertising. For example it is incredibly difficult to get good conversions for home improvement services through PPC campaigns. I would start out by researching where your target market spends most of their time online. If you have a service whose target customers are using social media like crazy, perhaps advertising on Twitter or Facebook would be fruitful. If they use search engines to find your products/services, search advertising may be the way to go. Just like with offline advertising, you must go to where your customers are and remain present there.

Click to expand...

Best advice, right there ^

Advertise wherever your core market is. Most audiences are using social media. I go for article marketing with targeted niche publications, publish something great that isn't self promotional for a higher redistribution value. One thing I've seen a lot of is promotional (relevant) memes being shared on Facebook, seems to be very effective. Maybe PPC will work for you, maybe purchasing an ad directly on a highly targeted website... it's really about where your audience is though. Like Shawn said.

Thank you so much guys, that is exactly the kind of help I was looking for, perfect advice once again - thank you

Like it has already been said, you should start by analyzing your target audience and figuring out where they go to find services.

If you do engage in PPC (AdWords) be sure to fully understand every element of adwords before. This may take some time (and money), but a well configured PPC campaign is hundreds of times better than a poorly configured one. This includes creating separate ads for each keyword you're targeting, creating a different landing page for each keyword, different urls, different bids, zip-code targeting and so on.

Google Adwords is a very powerful and surprisingly simple monster once you've got the hang of it.

Look into throwing together a overly helpful and graphically stimulating infographic. If you got the design skills and a creative idea, I saw some connected SEO newb ranking hard with for only about 3-5 hours of work using GAKT to make charts and graphs of "seo" search term . Overly broad subject was the key to get it into the mainstream. Just make sure you have the channels lined up to promote it like it needs to be in order to get get it to the top industry blogs/people. If it were me I'd do it tonight, and start pushing it to pick up around 8-9am tuesday for best chances.

Also just read Hubspot's getting more traffic from pinterest than yahoo alone. On that note I need to go start my pinterest page and see wtf they're doing right. Everyone probably should.

Good luck brother. I'm beasting out the rest of my site now too and should be joining you realll soon.

any linkbaiting would do, but the one i was talking about:

searchenginejournal com/an-infographic-to-show-people-how-big-the-seo-industry-really-is/45758/

probably doesn't hurt that she's hot either.

You get the point though. This isn't exactly ground breaking data that she slaved to put together lol

You said the review post will remain their for life but it won't remain on 1st page for long. As a result, nobody will be able to see the review and hence no traffic. What to do think?

kelvincuts said:

What works for me is reviews...either I create a review site or hire someone on payperpost.com who has a high authority blog to write and publish it on their blog. This is one of the best methods to have a non bias review about your site or product posted on a high PR site and remains there for life!

Click to expand...