The first part is a Crash Course in SEO and PPC, the two foundational pieces of search engine marketing. My task with the article was to provide a big picture guide that references some of the excellent articles already published on OPEN Forum for further reading.

The second part is an interactive SEO/PPC quiz that’s based on the articles that I listed in the “crash course.” So, if you’ve read those articles, you’ll do well on the quiz. It’s 25 questions, as I recall, and it tracks your points along the way.

Enjoy, and good luck if you take the quiz!

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

On OPEN Forum: A Crash Course in Search Marketing

Facebook’s done a pretty remarkable job of building out its ad platform and there were already a lot of interesting targeting options — especially when they’re used in combination with one another. And this new ZIP code option makes it potentially more valuable for a lot of small/local businesses.

Here’s what it looks like — it’s brain-dead simple to use:

As you choose ZIP codes, Facebook shows as “estimated reach” in the right column of the page. But I suspect you’ll want to take their “this may not be accurate” disclaimer to heart with these ZIP code ads: Using the three ZIP codes above, Facebook says the estimated reach is more than 52,000 people. But I’m not sure if 52,000 people even live in those three Kennewick ZIPs.

Still, a nice addition.

(via Inside Facebook)

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Facebook Adds ZIP Code Ad Targeting

Todd’s second article explaining one of the things he changed is now available: DKI for Small Business. DKI stands for “dynamic keyword insertion” and I remember asking Todd why he was doing this. His article explains it quite well. Thanks again, Todd!

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Another PPC Lesson from Todd: Dynamic Keyword Insertion

• I haven’t logged in to the account in a year or so, aside from having to go in to update credit card payment information. I’ve broken the first cardinal rule of PPC advertising: I set it then forgot it.
• When setting it up, I’m sure I made all kinds of mistakes with keywords, ads, ad groups, and even campaign organization.
• I did no competitive research to see what the overall landscape was and is.
• Aside from seeing how many clicks we’ve paid for, I have no idea about the results of years of PPC (mis)management.

Basically, I should probably not be allowed within 500 feet of a PPC management console. I’m the poster child for how not to do PPC.

Good News!

I have friends that are really good at PPC. And earlier this summer, I struck a deal with one of them: Todd Mintz. Todd does a lot of blogging: for SEMPDX, on Search Engine Journal, on Search Engine People and some other places at times, too. Dude needs content.

So, the deal was like this: I give Todd complete access to my wife’s AdWords account and carte blanche to make any changes that he would recommend if we were paying clients. Todd cleans up the account and gets to write articles about how bad I am at PPC.

Pretty fair deal, don’t you think?

The point of all this is mainly to let you know that the first of Todd’s articles was published this week on Search Engine People:

Metricless PPC Management

If, like me, you’re completely lost when it comes to PPC, please start reading there and follow along as Todd posts additional articles. I’ll be sure to link to them when they’re online.

And Todd: Thanks a ton. Don’t go easy on me in future writings.

(Stock image via Shutterstock and used with permission.)

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

PPC Account Cleanup Project … Underway

There are three parts that make up the tool:

1. Keyword suggestions from Google. This functions pretty similarly to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. It shows search volume numbers from the Google tool (although some of the “last month” numbers were different in my testing from what Google shows).
2. List builder. This is where you start building keyword lists either by drag-and-drop from the suggestions above, or by typing in your own keywords.
3. Keyword lists. After you’re done building keywords, the green button compiles them into lists that can be exported for use on Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

BulkWords is free to use. You don’t need an account unless you want to save your lists for future use. It’s been created by a Dutch company called RevenApps. They’ve also made this short video that shows how it works.

BulkWords, a webapp by RevenApps from revenapps on Vimeo.

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

BulkWords: Keyword Suggestion & List Generator Tool

• 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.

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Small Businesses are Being Sold a Bill of Goods