If you do a lot of keyword research — especially for PPC — you might want to check out a new tool called BulkWords. It combines a keyword suggestion tool and a keyword list generator into one interface that’s easy to use, not to mention easy on the eyes.

There are three parts that make up the tool: Continued

On Search Engine Land today, Greg Sterling unpacks a new Borrell Associates report that, if you had to explain it one sentence, says this: Small businesses that try local online advertising almost universally give up after six months. The actual stats Greg quotes are:

• Up to 50 percent [of SMBs] quit by 90 days
• Up to 90 percent quit within 6 months

Important: We’re talking about small businesses that buy their local advertising from various resellers like yellow pages companies and other local advertising companies.

Let’s Cut to the Chase

We can go on and on about the need to reach small businesses and the need to educate them and the need to make things simple … but here’s the real reason all these small businesses are bailing on their online advertising:

The product they’re being sold sucks, and doesn’t have any measurable ROI.

Seriously, if the product was any good and the small businesses were making money, would they all quit after six months? Of course not. The Wall Street Journal talks a bit about the product here:

“…the resellers are charging local advertisers based on how many thousands of clicks they can drive to their Web sites. But those clicks are often worthless if they aren’t from the right kinds of customers.”

Bingo. The resellers are selling “guaranteed clicks.” I wrote Why Click Guarantees Suck back in August ’06, when this blog had about 12 readers. There’s a real life story in there of what happened when a small business owner bought a “local online advertising” package from the yellow pages, was promised a certain number of clicks in one year, and then called to cancel when those clicks never arrived.

If you read that, you’ll know why so many small business owners give up on these local advertising plans. They’re being sold a bill of goods.

There are a couple articles I published on Search Engine Land over the past few days that I think bear mentioning here for their meaning to small businesses. If you’ve already seen both of these articles, move along.

Yahoo Adds Local Content To Search Results Via SearchMonkey

What’s going on: All Yahoo web searchers are now able to see a lot of local business content in the SERPs without lifting a finger. The “SearchMonkey apps” for Citysearch and Zagat are now on by default, joining Yelp and Yahoo Local. I explain it on the SEL post, but it basically means that a small business with full and accurate listings on these local/social directories can get some extra exposure now in the Yahoo SERPs.

Yahoo Adds ZIP Code Ad Targeting

What’s going on: If you use Yahoo Sponsored Search, you can now geo-target your ads to specific ZIP codes. As with all geo-targeting, it’s not perfect. But it’s something that only Yahoo and Ask.com offer. (And who advertises on Ask.com?) It’s brain-dead easy to do, too — the screenshots on the SEL post are from my wife’s YSS account. Just supply the ZIP codes you want to target, and Yahoo will draw you the map to review before you submit the new geo-targeted settings.

I’m not going to advertise everything I write these days on SEL — just the “Small is Beautiful” columns and, as in this case, anything I think needs to be seen by the small/local business owners who read SBSM.

I’ve said before that I’m no PPC guru, so I could be way off on this one. But if you’re running PPC ads on the content network (Google or Yahoo), I’m thinking there’s a better chance your ad will be noticed and clicked on when there’s no content on the page to distract the user:

(click for larger version)

Yahoo Sponsored Search FTW!

If you’re a company that’s desperate to get small business signups, and you don’t really have good marketing judgment, you’ll use Google AdWords to position yourself as a middleman offering a “free” link “for SEO credit”.

(Never mind the likelihood that most of your business listing pages have no PageRank to speak of. Heck, not even the top business promoted on your Member Showcase page has any PR on its business listing page.)

On the other hand, if you’re a company that’s been in trouble because Google considers you a middleman that offers links for SEO credit, you’ll wisely change your tune and promote the idea of links-for-traffic instead of links-for-SEO-credit.

Strange times we’re marketing in, aren’t they?

About three months ago, I shared some holiday SEO tips on Search Engine Land — and since SEO is not a quick-fix, immediate return kind of thing, August is when you need to be thinking about holiday SEO tactics.

On the PPC side, you don’t need such an early start. A great PPC campaign can bring immediate results. So, with that in mind, small businesses who are looking for some holiday PPC hints may want to check out this webinar Yahoo is hosting on Wednesday:

Holiday Trends and Best Practices for Sponsored Search

Yahoo tells me the webinar is “specifically for small businesses, to share shopping trend information and search marketing best practices based on data from Yahoo!’s extensive user and advertiser base.”

It starts at 10:00 am Pacific on Wednesday. It’s free.

Full link-o-rama tonight, which may be an unconscious pre-reaction to knowing there probably won’t be a link-o-rama at all next week, so here we go, peeps….

I’m gonna start with a short list of good articles that have nothing to do with search. Because it’s my blog, and I can.

• The 7 Habits of High Successful Small Business Owners
• SMB’s Should Consider Surveys — Amen, Pamela Hazelton. Couldn’t agree more.
• Photography: More Than a Decent Camera — If I had a dollar for every small biz client that had crap product photos….

Christine Churchill wrote a great article for the “Small is Beautiful” column this week on SEL: When Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: What You Don’t Know About Your Web Site Can Hurt You.

I’ve seen a fair amount of posts on this theme in recent months, but Andy Beal uncovers a good example of small businesses dealing with the new realities online: Local Businesses Need Online Reputation Management Too!.

If you’re deciding between an agency or a consultant for your search marketing needs, Lee Odden shares 5 Pros and Cons of SEO Consultant vs Agency.

In the news this week: Google Introduces Hosted Site Search for Small Businesses, and there’s also Chris Sherman’s take on it at SEL.

Here’s a great post from Avinash Kaushik for those of you not selling products: I Got No Ecommerce. How Do I Measure Success?

If you’re diving into PPC on Yahoo soon, check out Top 5 Settings to Check When Starting a Yahoo! Search Marketing Account from PPC Hero.

And last but not least…, Mario Sundar shares some advice for businesses still not blogging: Corporate Blogging 101: 10 Easy Steps to Get a Corporate Blog Up & Running.

That’s all. Have a great weekend!

Now playing: “Warning Sign,” Coldplay

So many good posts/articles this week … I was gonna do one of these a few nights ago, but never got to it.

Anything that helps me think more creatively about something that can be incredibly monotonous is a Good Thing. That’s probably why I liked Tom Clitchlow’s guest post on the Link Building Blog: 5 crafty outside the box link-building tricks & tips.

Here are a couple good business blogging posts from the past week:

• Using Blogs to Market Your Business by Chris Brown, and
• How are Blogs and Brands Related from Drew McLellan

I often write about the first four items in this article, but I think #5 is one that gets overlooked a lot — not just by me, but also by small business owners. You’ll have to read The Top 5 Small Business Marketing Tips for Budget-Minded Business Owners to know what on earth I’m talking about.

Even if you don’t get the Fox Sports Net reference, you’ll like Stoney D. giving away one of his SEO playbooks in The Best Damn On-Page Optimization Process Checklist, Period.

Lee Odden offers a good thought piece on why SEO is not a short-term, “one and done” effort: Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting.

This was a good week for social media/marketing discussion and articles. Here are the ones I bookmarked:

• But What If They Say Something Bad? – Jennifer Laycock
• Why Social Media Belongs In Your Internet Marketing Campaign – Lisa Barone
• Why Facebook is Not a Viable Marketing Platform – Muhammad Saleem
• List of Video Sharing Sites and Impact of Video Marketing – Joe Whyte

Not done yet … stay with me here. Chris Silver Smith talks about using Google’s Webmaster Central to find Quality Scores for Natural Search Optimization.

And though I don’t cover PPC much here, the Google AdWords blog answers a common question: Not seeing your ad on Google.com?

That’s all for this week – have a good weekend!

Now playing: “Rain King”, Counting Crows