A Melaleuca representative 'cheat sheet' for search engine marketing.

A Melaleuca representative 'cheat sheet' for search engine marketing.

Day by day, tick by tick, and click by click, time is passing and none of us are getting any younger. Has anyone mentioned to you that 192 days have passed since the beginning of 2005?

Just as 2003 and 2004 marched forward in the blink of an eye, 2005 is rapidly marching on, yet for may web entrepreneurs few visitors are marching over to see what's up. Are they marching to a different drummer or is it that your marketing push is just not keeping the beat?

Are you marketing to women? It's important to note that the e-commerce gender gap appears to be widening, as more women opened their purse strings than men last quarter: the percentage of online purchases made by women reached 62 percent in the fourth quarter with men accounting for just 38 percent of transactions. (BizRate 2004)

With 173 days remaining in 2005, imagine how much different your business would be if you could get perhaps one "take action" type visitor to your site per week.

If you're asking "Wait a minute, just how can I do this?" Maybe a little internet advertising is in order? Seems that's what a lot of successful online marketers are doing. And of all the methods out there, nothing seems to beat a well managed pay per click search engine campaign...

Of funds budgeted for search engine marketing this year, marketers said they would spend 51% on paid search ads, 6% on paid inclusion, 10% on contextual ads, 12% on search marketing agency fees for paid search, 11% on search marketing agency fees for optimization, and 11% on other areas of search marketing. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

Every place you read you find stories and statistics that prove "it can be done". Yes, online sales are happening. Reports are continuing, sales are up, and the drum beats on.

91% of merchants ranked keyword search as "very" to "somewhat" valuable, the highest percentage of 39 features that respondents were asked to rank. Other highly ranked features include E-mail as a merchandising tool, 89%; Sales and specials, 89%; Seasonal promotions, 84%; Cross-sells/up-sells on the product page, 78%. (e-tailing group, 2004)

But I'm A Melaleuca representative, it must be more challenging with what I do?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your homecare, nutritional supplements & personal care. Nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, it is not the product or service that hinders a sale, it boils down to traffic, strategy and page presentation. Whether you advertise using Google's AdWords, or do pay-per-click at Overture, Yahoo or MSN search, it's the campaign strategy that's important.

In my last two blog posts we started our series of PPC search engine tips. These tips will unquestionanly help your marketing campaign and hopefully put some of the statistics on your side. So as promised, below you'll find this weeks installment of search engine tips...

PPC Tips:

• Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
• Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
• Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
• Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

In addition, I've written a many 'how-to' articles specifically to help get your internet marketing strategy on-track. You might find these internet marketing articles for Melaleuca interesting or helpful.

To make certain you don't miss this series of PPC tips, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed.


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Melaleuca | PPC | pay per click | AdWords | marketing | search | retail statistics | marketing statistics | sales statistics