7Search Referral Partnership Update

If you have access to a community of online advertisers or Web marketers, referring advertisers to 7Search just got a whole lot easier. In an effort to improve the effectiveness of our Advertiser Referral program, we have recently added new banners that affiliates can utilize to passively promote 7Search on their websites. Each banner will automatically link any advertiser accounts created to the Affiliate, making this partnership offering one of the easiest, effective ways to earn with us.

In case you weren't aware, there are two advertiser referral programs available:

Standard Advertiser Referral Program

Simply sign up for an affiliate account, copy the provided code, and paste it into your website to create a link to 7search.com's Advertiser Program. When a new advertiser registers after clicking from your site you will earn 10% of that new advertiser's spending for one full year.

Premium Advertiser Referral Program

Are you an advertising agency or individual managing accounts for your clients? Join our program today and earn 15% of your client's advertising spend for one full year. This is an excellent way to further monetize the relationship with your customers in a non-obtrusive way.

While many other programs require a higher minimum, both partnerships offer payouts starting at $25 via check. Interested in learning more? Visit 7Search.com/Partners to learn more today!

Join 7Search for the Search Engine Strategies Tradeshow in New York Next Week!

7Search is back at SES in New York again. Join our Business Development Managers, Brad Stanley and Robert Payne at booth #511 at the Marriott Marquis on March 26th and 27th. The team will be discussing all things 7Search, both PPC and our newly launched Display Network. Be sure to drop in on the two to say “Hi!”, they will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have about advertising or publishing on the 7Search network.

While visiting our booth (#511) on the exhibit hall floor, be sure to pick up our handouts, we’re featuring a special SES New York only promotion that can only be found at our booth. While at the booth, enter our raffle to win a $200 Apple Gift Card, winner of which will be drawn at the close of SES’ expo hall.

Coming to SES this year? Veterans of the conference repeatedly attend because of the value the sessions provide. It’s a place where thought leaders in the Search Marketing space can come together to discuss new ideas, share winning strategies as well as ideas that just don't work so they can benefit from each other’s learning experiences. New attendees are always in for a treat. SES' website states that this is an event that caters to “Education for Today’s Experienced Marketing and Advertising Professionals”. Most that attend are already proficient in their areas of focus and do a wonderful job of getting the newcomers up to speed.

March 26th’s opening keynote will be delivered by Mike Proulx, Senior VP and Director, Social Media at Hill Holliday. Day 2’s headlining keynote will be given by Joel Lunenfeld, VP of Global Brand Strategy at Twitter. Impressive opening acts for sure, but don’t miss out on Michael Bayle, the Senior VP and GM of ESPN Mobile. Also part of the lineup are Brendon Kraham, the Head of Global Mobile Sales and Product Strategy at Google and Eric Litman, Chairman and CEO at Medialets. SES’ lineup of speakers is, as usual the highest quality, so expect the networking opportunities to be just as beneficial.

Expect topics at the conference to vary and the session descriptions reflect that. Choose from sessions titled “Building the Social Media Machine”, “SEO in the Boardroom: Tangible Search Metrics”. “Landing Page Optimization”, “Next Generation Site Architecture”, “The New Inbox: Intersection of Email, Mobile and Social Marketing” and that’s only to name a few. For a complete list of speakers and session topics, click here.

If you’re attending, please look us up at booth #511! If not, you can always follow along with what is going on at the conference by following #SESNY on Twitter. Tune into our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages to find out more about 7Search and how you can use our PPC and Display products to grow.

The Growing Trend of Niche Social Media

Social media is a relatively new space that’s continuously evolving. It’s already proved itself a force that won’t be dismissed. Social media is a huge driver of traffic and it’s become a powerful way to effect change. So far we’ve seen social media allow the “masses” to organize and be heard. Notably, Twitter played a huge part in the fruition of the Arab Spring movement by giving the world a window into what was going on at Tahrir Square. Social Media also played a pivotal role in fighting 2012’s SOPA/PIPA legislation.

Social Media communities like Facebook and Twitter are essentially iterations and improvements upon niche forum communities, where surfers who shared similar interests gathered to chat about their hobbies, learn from each other and establish relationships based on their niche. This could be done anonymously if the user so chose. Forums are still around and very, very vibrant. Facebook and Twitter are similar, except instead of discovering an already existing and active online community, they have brought physical communities online.

Popular social networks have built themselves around already established pre-existing relationships and grown outward from there. It’s now possible to directly communicate with companies, celebrities, politicians and other titans of industry (don’t forget friends and family members!). Twitter especially has been very good at this, making all who are part of the network very accessible to each other, and to be honest it’s resulted in some great relationships and products that would have otherwise not existed.

Social media users now acquainted with each other have begun to gather under banners of their own creation. These banners can be hashtag chats on Twitter or Invite-Only Facebook groups, the thing of note is that the people that these “banners” attract are like-minded individuals with similar interests and passions that don’t necessarily know each other offline. Thanks to social media activity, each individual has a presence or reputation that is credibly interpreted as “social-proof”. This makes sense, too, forums weren’t exactly the best organized or the easiest to navigate, all the anonymous users further lent to the confusion. The Twitter and Facebook platforms aren’t necessarily easy to organize or navigate either, but they do give you access to a plethora of potential members with established social-proof, which is key to quickly establishing and growing a quality community.

A network that is paying special attention to this is Google+, and they’ve done a great job with their community offering. Anyone can create a public or private community right on Google+ which also provides the ability to categorize and sort community posts as Questions, Discussions, Guides, Tips, Introductions etc. While probably not the solution to organizing a community, categorization of posts is definitely a huge step in the right direction. Google+ provides an organized, clean take on forum communities.

What’s more is that there are a LOT of active communities on Google+. Take a look at the Google Analytics community, or the Social Media Professionals community, or the HTML5 community. All sporting members that share a common interest that can come together to educate each other, learn from each other and bounce ideas off of each other. Some are invite-only, some are communities where you can request an invitation, and some are open to everyone. If you have a slight interest in something, chances are someone else does too and that community already exists. By the off chance that it doesn’t, you can create that community and invite those you think would be interested in joining. Google+ has created a powerful system here; a community that is home to a multitude of smaller, niche communities. If only we had more individuals that participated regularly!

A great use case for Google+ communities occurs to me. Companies, big or small can create private, non-indexed community forums using the G+ platform for their employees or customers that extend to the entire company or can be limited to a single department. Use the community page as a way to keep your department, company or customer base updated about new developments, who is doing what, and also share media like tutorial videos and pictures from the company picnic. This can be a great tool to bring your offline communities, online and retain the intimacy of the offline community.

Social media is far from coming full-circle, but it is definitely expanding. As it is expanding, new networks are emerging and communities are further defining their niches. As services increasingly become more and more integrated into the social world (social media is definitely not going away) it will be interesting to see how it breaks out. Will we still have Facebook serving as the catch-all network? Will Twitter still be the place to go for breaking news? Will email be replaced? Will file sharing earn a place on social networks? As we continue our move to the cloud (voluntarily or involuntarily, that’s a whole different can of worms) that latter could actually become a viable option.

We’ve seen the social space blow up in the last few years, and we’re going to see it grow even further, but into smaller, less general niches. We’re already seeing it now. Facebook was once the home of images, video, and text. Now we have networks like Instagram and Pinterest becoming the home of images on the interest. Similarly, YouTube, DailyMotion and Vimeo are doing the same for video. Github and Dribbble are catering to developers and design-professionals respectively. The success of these networks demonstrates the need for more concentrated communities, they are outlets for communication in differing mediums. It will be interesting to see where social media stands in 5 years.

Thoughts? Let us know on our Facebook, Twitter, or Google+

PPC Advertising: It Pays to Learn the Ropes

You wouldn’t jump behind the wheel of a running car, put it in gear and hit the gas without knowing how to drive as this would more than likely cause you to crash. The same holds true for starting a paid search campaign. Even if you are simply switching from one advertising platform to another there are likely to be differences and finding out what they are can help you avoid a great deal of frustration in the long run. For instance, advertisers who decide to start running ads on a second tier platform after using a first tier engine may find that some of the automated processes that they have grown accustomed to may not be readily available with their new provider. Even if you are a complete newbie to paid search, while there may be a lot to learn, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Selecting a user-friendly platform can help take a lot of the guesswork out of getting started. Consider starting with a smaller, quality search engine such as 7Search.com where you will have access to both online support as well as phone support when you need it as you are sure to have tons of questions.

Being the new kid on the block in any situation is never easy. When it comes to getting started in PPC it takes time, persistence and patience to carve out your own space and find out exactly where you fit in. While learning a new industry skill can be trying, it can also be downright stressful when your hard earned money is on the line. Add to that the lure of potentially earning great returns in a short period of time and you have a recipe for the perfect storm, a plethora of new, uninformed advertisers ready to skip the classroom and get straight to campaign creation. Unfortunately, those that follow this school of thought soon find out that this route often yields disastrous results.

Before investing in coaching programs or funding a PPC advertising account, ask yourself the following questions:

*What is PPC?

*How exactly do I make money with PPC?

*Where do I get the product of services that I want to promote?

*If I make a sale, who pays me and when?

If you are unable to answer any of these questions then that is a firm indication that you will need to take time to learn more about the entire process before you are ready to proceed. Just a word of caution: a coaching program can provide you with a starting point but there will be many critical details that you will need to take time to learn on your own.

Consider the steps listed as a quick point of reference on how to get started if you are new to PPC advertising:

1. Take some time to research the basic principles of exactly how PPC works. A simple online search using the terms such as “how does PPC work” will yield some very good results with great explanations such as the one shown here

2. Once you understand how Pay-per-click marketing works, now you can select a search engine to advertise on. While in the process of looking into the many different platforms that are available, make sure to consider areas such as keyword bid prices, traffic volume, available support and ease-of-use as it relates to the actual interface that you will be using to run your ads.

3. If you will be promoting affiliate offers then you will need to fully understand what you should expect from your affiliate company as opposed to what you can expect from the search engine you are advertising on. Many new advertisers tend to find this part confusing as they are under the impression that the two operate as one which is not the case. The only link between your affiliate company and your PPC Company is YOU… the advertiser. These are two separate business types and you will need to be clear on what each side will do for you.

4. Now it’s time to select your offer. Take care not to overwhelm yourself by running with too many offers at once. Start out with no more than two to three offers that you can effectively manage. Keep in mind that each ad campaign will require time investment as you will need to manage them to insure that they are optimized for best results. Since you are still feeling your way around this means that you must spend time learning how to scrub campaigns and analyzing the feedback that you receive from them. Having a source of support readily available to help field your numerous questions will be critical at this stage.

5. Build on what you are learning. Beginning any new endeavor can seem daunting at first but it can also offer you the most useful insight and excitement as you begin to discover how each piece of the advertising puzzle fits together. Take what you learn, apply it and analyze the results. You might be surprised at just how knowledgeable you can become in a short amount of time.

It is understandable to get excited about the possibility of creating a new source of unlimited income but it is also important to keep in mind that you can’t build a successful business without knowing how to properly use the tools needed to do so. How you start determines how far you will go so start with the understanding that knowledge is power and gather as much of it as possible and set yourself up to finish strong.

Tools of the Trade: 5 Tools to Effectively 'Listen' to Social Conversations

The internet has given rise to blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, Youtubing, Instagramming and emailing. This series of interconnected tubes has brought down entire industries, reshaped others, and given birth to entirely new ones. It’s made the world a smaller place and while some may argue that the world being a smaller place is not a good thing, the list of pros heavily outweighs the cons. What do all these services have in common? They make communication easier.

It’s gotten to the point that you can communicate with the [internet] world using the medium of your choosing. Do you find you’re able to better get a point across with images? Take advantage of a service that caters to your preferred medium and use Instagram or Pinterest to communicate. The written word your thing? Blog about it, create a Facebook post, or keep it simple with a Tweet. Are the thoughts in your head racing too fast for pen to be put on paper, to be typed out? Record yourself and have people listen to your latest manifesto in the form of a downloadable podcast. Display the emotions your hands speak with a YouTube video.

The common thread here is that the internet makes communication with a large crowd or a select few very, very easy in almost every format available/imaginable. This is not cited, but I’m positive literally billions of conversations take place via the internet every single day. I know I participate in several of those, I know I share a few links and chuckle at a few cat pictures per day. The internet is my go to source to find out what is going on around me.

It’s safe to say if you work for a brand or a company that sells a product and uses the internet as a sales channel, your brand, company or product has been talked about on the internet. Your brand, company or product is subject to user reviews, opinions, or demonstrations. Odds are someone has brought you up either in passing tweets or made you the subject of a full featured review or exposé. These conversations can take place on any network and originate anywhere in the world. The conversations can be favorable or unfavorable. What’s important is that you are aware of what is being said on any forum or outlet.

Why is this important? Conversation can run roughshod and go unchecked, with users or commentators having questions, being confused, or just in outright awe of how amazing everything you put out is. Being aware enough to interject when necessary can be a huge boost to the perception of your brand, company or product. Both to battle inaccurate information, and for the appreciative nod in response to praise.

So how do you stay on top of these billions of conversations and filtering out the irrelevant bits? I’ll share the tools I use to do exactly this:

HootSuite in conjunction with TweetDeck

I use HootSuite in order to create conversation by using HootSuite to schedule Tweets, Facebook posts, Google+ posts and even LinkedIn posts.

TweetDeck I have set to monitor conversations. I get notifications every time I have a mention so I can respond in a timely manner. I’ve set it up to monitor relevant hashtags, users and topics of conversations so that at the appropriate time I can chime in with something that will add to the quality of the conversation (and increasing my perceived value as a brand, company or product).

SocialBro

SocialBro at first glance seems to overlap with HootSuite and TweetDeck, but that is not the case in the least. SocialBro really digs deep to provide you with useful, relevant Twitter data. Data such as, where my Twitter followers are from, what industries they work in, when they’re online and how active they are on Twitter. If I were to notice an out of place trend among my followers or those I follow, SocialBro would be the bro to supply that information. My Bro also helps me identify who the influencers that follow me are. I like to think when those influencers follow me, I, in turn influence them and want to make sure I’m tailoring my content to influence them positively.

Mention

Mention is Google Alerts on steroids. Mention keeps track of everything! Forums, blogs, and social networks. Then it lets me filter out things that I know are just spam/noise. I get quick alerts/notifcations, so that I can act or react quickly to something that demands it. If the mention calls for it, I can use the application to tweet, retweet or share my mention from within the application. Most important is the Stats and data Export tool, which breaks down my mentions into easy to interpret PDF reports.

Topsy

Topsy is a bonafide veteran in the game of social search, established in 2007, right around the time RT’s became an official Twitter feature. Topsy is an index of the “public social web” that will analyze any topic, term or hashtag across years of conversations on millions of websites. The paid version, or free trial, will actually let you dive into any key terms of your choosing and let you find new ones and compare those to past trends. It really is a very advanced, in-depth “social” search tool. Being able to gauge the exposure of any event or campaign is huge. See how far your tweets penetrate, and how much your blog posts are shared with Topsy. For the analytically minded, Topsy is a must have.

Then of course, there is the old stand by, Google Alerts, which will send you an email every time a term you’re “listening” for is mentioned somewhere that Google indexes.

What do you think of our list? Got any recommendations for tools that should be added? Let us know on our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages!

Have You Been Using the 7Search FAQ’s?

Something we’re very proud of at 7Search is our excellent customer support team. They are always standing by on the phone, email and chat to answer your questions, complicated or not, ready to help you create and deploy a successful 7Search camapign and have a positive experience with our network. This team of customer service representatives is the key to the success of 7Search as a network, these individuals are the differentiating factor between 7Search and anyone else in the space, no one offers the level of customer suppor that we do.

We have advertisers and publishers of all shapes and sizes from all over the world and in all types of verticals, ranging from seasoned veterans to newbies. Never have I seen the team come across a question that is too difficult to answer. Many times, as is common, some of the same questions can crop up over and over again and despite the repetitiveness our team does a great job going above and beyond and giving each query made, individual attention.

A great resource, in addition to the live customer service, that is often overlooked is our very in-depth Frequently Asked Questions section. It’s a sophisticated Knowledge Base of everything 7Search for both advertisers and publishers. The 7Search FAQ is constantly being updated; it covers broad topics and dives into the minute details of the network. If you spend some time there, you will definitely find facts that will help you create much more powerful and effective campaigns.

A good example of an article like this in the FAQ is What is the ###KEYWORD### variable? How can I use it to improve my ad? This entry outlines and explains a 7Search advertiser feature (a dynamic insert to customize the Title or Description of their PPC ad) that a new advertiser on the network may not be aware of and even provides a couple examples of how it can be used. It’s very likely that the majority of advertisers could use this information to strengthen their campaigns and improve their conversions. Also useful is that each post has a series of related entries associated with it and can be rated according to usefulness.

If it’s a weekend and our Customer Service team isn’t available, I highly recommend taking a trip over to the FAQ section of our site and browse around for a solution to your issue. More likely than not you will find it! Want to sound in about the 7Search FAQ? Find us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

5 Reasons Why You Should Love Your Competition

You sell shoes. The guy across the street sells shoes also. Every morning you open up for business hoping that your competitor will post a going out of business sign; thus, driving his customers to your front door but unfortunately, that has yet to happen. What’s even worse is that the more you watch, the more it seems as though his business is booming. Although it may sound strange, this could be a good thing for your business. Why? Well for two reasons, A) It shows you that there is a strong demand for your product and 2) It gives you access to a ready, willing and able source of traffic just ripe for the picking. Competition in the business world should be expected, but it doesn’t have to be viewed as a bad thing. In fact, there are several ways to use your opposition to boost your business beyond what you could have ever imagined. Here are a few steps you may want to consider incorporating into your business growth strategy:

Bidding on competitor names. If you are running a PPC ad campaign, and you very well should be, don’t leave money on the table by neglecting to bid on your competitors Names. Although it’s not your product or service, if you offer a similar version, then you can pick up quite a few sales by pulling in web traffic that may be open to buying that same item for slightly better terms.

Search online to see what your competitors are receiving complaints on and do it better. Complaints against your competitors can mean money in the bank for you. This area can be a goldmine. Set your business up in such a way that you excel in areas that your competition falls short. Once you master those areas, PROMOTE THEM! Add details about it to your advertising so that buyers are made aware of just how important you view their satisfaction in this area. You are sure to garner a great deal of new business from buyers who have been dissatisfied with their previous experience with a competitor.

Advertising ideas are born from competition. Most businesses tend to go the route of “playing it safe” and use basically the same message in their marketing. “Buy Here, Low Prices”. Use this as a springboard to go in a different direction to pull a new untapped market. Buyers are so used to seeing the same message shoved down their throats over and over again that they are not sure which way to turn when it’s time to make a decision. Don’t become an advertising clone. STAND OUT! Invest more time in your ad creation and build a message that will be catchy enough that people will find it too interesting to forget. Funny, out-of-the-box ads have a way of becoming the topic of conversation as people often enjoy recalling them for laughs. If your ad gets people in the door just out of curiosity, it has already paid off in a major way.

Continually remain aware of your competitors’ prices, new sales or new product launches. Some say ignorance is bliss. Maybe it is in some cases but not when it comes to business. You can’t compete against what you don’t know about. Stay abreast of the latest products, services, sales and etc. that your competitors announce. Sometimes you may find that your recent decrease in sales is due to the fact that one of your major competitors’ just launched a new item or even dropped their prices by 25%. Follow your competitors on any social media sites that they maintain. You will learn a lot about what they are doing to drive business which can help you take additional steps to leap-frog ahead of them.

Timing is everything. After gathering information on what your competitor is planning, DO IT FIRST. This may not be possible 100% of the time but for most part your aggressive pursuit to stay informed can pay off big for your bottom line. Consumers have an ever-increasing passion to be the first to get the latest or to brag about how much better their deal was as opposed to their neighbors. Keep your finger on the pulse and strike while the iron is hot. Procrastination can cost you new sales, exposure and even repeat business. If you know your competitor offers a Presidents day sale every year, start your sale a week early. If they plan to offer a new line of widgets this summer, you should be prepared to offer them sooner. When you have the information to implement profitable changes don’t sit on it, do it now!

In short, competition can be healthy for your business. It helps bring buyers to the market by giving them several options to choose from. Learn to embrace your opposition and allow it to catapult your business to new heights.

Make Your Browser Work For You with Extensions

As someone who’s job it is to be in front of a computer for a good portion of my day, I’m necessarily on the internet quite a bit, more often than not my browser is open with a multitude of active tabs. My browser is a gateway to an effort to stay on top of what the latest memes (how GREAT was the Harlem Shake?) are, researching a current project, Tweeting and Facebooking for 7Search, taking a look at the more interesting Google Alerts I’ve received, things like that.

I can’t emphasize the importance of the browser I use to accomplish all this. I’m using Google Chrome, which according to Google is, “a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier." I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description, but leaves out one important selling point. Google Chrome is VERY customizable with the ability to add extensions from the Chrome web store. If you use Firefox, extensions are very similar to the plug-in system Mozilla’s popular browser uses.

For all the computer jockeys/internet addicts out there, I’m sure Chrome Extensions are not a new revelation to you. However, I’m sure that there are some extensions out there that you don’t know about and would make life just a little bit easier if you did. I’m listing the ones I personally use and find to be useful when doing my job and making my internet browsing easier.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite, if you haven’t heard of it already, is a Chrome “app” that aggregates multiple social media accounts into one very easy to interpret dashboard. You can also post to your different networks from the centralized dashboard. My favorite part has to be Hootsuite’s Hootlet. Whenever I’m on a page I think is worth sharing, I click on the little owl and a dialog box pops up with the name of the article/video/picture and a link to the content already shortened for my convenience. It’s made posting and sharing an absolute breeze!

HoverZoom

HoverZoom does exactly what it sounds like. When I come across an image link on Twitter, or Facebook Images (or really most any image links, anywhere, including .GIFs) instead of having to go through the laborious process of clicking the link to see the image, when I hover my mouse cursor above the link, the full image will pop up above the link saving me from having to click through to see the picture. I can’t stress the convenience of using this every single day. The fact that this extension is constantly updated to work better is just icing.

StayFocusd

StayFocusd is an extension I have a love/hate relationship with. The internet is great, it’s literally limitless information and connectivity. A major downside to all this is that it’s very easy to get distracted. Things like blogs, Facebook, RSS feeds and Wikipedia can really become wormholes that throw you off track and off schedule.

StayFocusd works by letting you allot a certain amount of time you can spend on a website, once that time is up, the site is blocked for the rest of the day. This has really helped my workflow. For example, I’ll give myself an hour max on Twitter, and then through the course of a day, I’ll log into Twitter once an hour for about 5 minutes to quickly check and see if I’ve missed anything important (I’ve usually never missed anything). By the end of the day I usually have time left over because I’m so conscious of the limitation. It really is very helpful for the procrastination prone.

Lazarus Form Recovery

Lazarus is an extension I discovered when it was too late. Now that it’s in my life, I can fearlessly tackle long, daunting forms unafraid of a crash or bug or timeout that could throw me off and make me start right at the beginning. If you’ve ever filled out a long form on a website and lost that information due to a mis-click or some other type of interference, Lazarus will make sure that doesn’t happen to you again.

If the worst ever does happen, Lazarus saves everything you’ve typed and you can recover the whole thing at a click of a button. Very useful and I highly recommend adding this to your arsenal.

Summer

Summer is probably my favorite extension of the bunch. Summer will scan any web page you’re on and provide an overlay of information that is in its database. This comes in handy when I’m on Tech Crunch or Hacker News and have no idea who the person the article is discussing and why they are significant.

What Summer does is put blue parentheses around names and places that the extension recognizes. Click on the name in parentheses and a tab opens up on the side of your browser (while you’re still on the article page) which provides you with a summary of the person or place, related photos, and even a direct look at associated public Twitter and Instagram feeds. Summer is incredibly useful and I’m always learning new things because I have it installed. Be careful though, it can also become a portal to procrastination, it’s like having Wikipedia with me on every page I visit.

Pocket

Pocket, this is the last extension you need to fuel your internet addiction, in the classiest way possible of course. Sometimes I have so many tabs open and so many things I want to read that I don’t have enough time to read it all. That’s where Pocket comes in. When I come across an article that’s too long to read right then, I’ll click on the Pocket icon and it gets saved to the cloud in a readable format that is accessible on my phone(a corresponding app needs to be installed for this), whether I have internet or not. I use the button indiscriminately and it’s always worth it. Especially if I find myself on a train somewhere with no internet connectivity, there’s enough content in my Pocket (what a great name?) to keep my occupied and entertained for hours.

That’s my choice selection for this post. I’ve left a few off the list, such as the more common screenshot grabbers and Google +1 buttons and Gmail checkers. A couple notable ones I use from time to time but won’t dive in-depth into are Evernote and Rapportive.

Do you know of any awesome extensions that need to be shared? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!

Creating PPC Landing Pages That Convert

Setting up the scenario:

Your efforts have paid off, your campaigns are set up properly, ads are generating clicks and now the visitor is on your landing page. They browse the page for a few seconds but do not convert. This happens a few times and since you paid for that click, you are left sitting there wondering why.

Does this scenario sound familiar? If so well, then take comfort in the fact that you're not alone. Paid search, when not designed around the user, is expensive. If you have set up your campaigns appropriately they will be organized into tightly themed campaigns with groups. The next step will be to focus on creating landing pages targeted to the specific offer stipulated in the campaign.

Here are some tips for creating landing pages that will convert:

Develop custom landing pages - Don't drive visitors to your home page, while it may be nice looking, home pages typically display too much information for our landing page purposes. Having targeted landing pages not only helps increase the chance of converting a visitor into a customer, it makes reporting easier, as less code will need to be placed on the site in order to track a conversion.

Keep content simple - Since most users scan through a website in a few seconds, you have little time to make a good first impression. Keep content simple and above the fold so the user will not have to scroll down or read through an excessive amount of copy. Devote time to creating content that is brief and gets to the point using bullet points and attractive headlines.

Call to action – Get straight to the point making sure to mention the offer stated on your ads. Make sure your call to action is in bold and repeated throughout the page.

Be trustworthy- Customers need to know your site is trustworthy, products are top notch, and that your services have generated results. To accomplish this include product reviews, client testimonials, SSL certificates and guarantee seals. Include contact information on your landing page in case your customer needs more information to make a decision and decides to call or email.

Use the KISS principle with forms– Best practices dictate that it’s best to place your headline at the top of the page and sign up form on the right hand side. Make sure to put symbols next to required fields to explain how fields should be entered in the form (02/13/13 vs 2/13/2013 for example). Try not to have too many required fields. Only collect information that is absolutely essential to completing the sale and converting the visitor.

Keep quality score in mind: The higher your quality score, the less you will pay per click. Quality score is based on the ad performance history, ad relevance to the user keyword and the quality of the landing page.

These tips when implemented, should help you improve your paid search conversion rates. We suggest that you try a few versions of your landing pages to see what works. Good luck!

The Importance of Numbers, Plus Analytics Tips

Numbers can be mesmerizing. Not because they can get really, astronomically, big, but because of what numbers can imply, with the meaning varying from individual to individual. Numbers influence decisions, they determine success and failure, and they provide direction. Google Analytics (or really, any form of analytics) is an absolutely essential tool when you’re working on generating and measuring traffic to your website.

Quantifying your efforts can be very challenging, and proper use of analytics can really ease that pain point. Analytics show you exactly what your efforts are worth, and where you should be focusing your time. More importantly, properly interpreting your data will help immensely when creating new initiatives and campaigns.

When there is data, there is usually a lot of it. If there isn’t any data, it’s your job to start driving traffic and creating it. Either way, once there is something to work with is when the exciting part begins. It’s up to you to decide how to interpret the data and how to act on what you know.

For instance, getting a traffic spike from an unknown source? Find out what it is and why! Determine if you can capitalize on it and turn it into conversions and sales. If you can take advantage of this, then optimize the experience for visitors coming from your new referral source.

Here are some of my personal tips for monitoring your analytics to stay on top of your traffic

• Define your goals: You cannot monitor a website without knowing what you are monitoring. What type of action are you looking for from your visitors? It’s likely that you can define it within analytics. Every time someone purchases an item can be set as a goal, and each time a user completes the goal it’s listed as a conversion!


• Define the funnels for these goals: How does someone buy a product from your website? What is the series of pages they go through before a purchase? Most importantly, determine which of these pages are the source of you losing potential buyers?


• Use Intelligence alerts. Three of my favorite are:


• 50% Traffic Drop – Applies to all traffic, alerts me when visits decrease by more than 50% the previous week.
• Referral Traffic Change Increases – This alerts me when referral visits from a specific referrer increase by more than 10% on the same day in the previous week.
• 125% Traffic Spike – My favorite of the three, if my traffic goes up by 125% than over the previous day, you bet I’ll be clicking over to the already open analytics tab to see what’s driving this surge.


• Don't just look at keywords. Find the surprising keywords and try to understand what the visitor is trying to find.


• Visitor Loyalty: Check the standard visitor loyalty report. If the majority visits the website once, then you might have usability issues. This usability checklist might help.


• Find pages with high bounce rates. Visit them. What's wrong with them?


• Follow this guy. He knows what he is talking about.

Minimum Bid update- Change is Good!

There is an old saying that goes “the only thing constant in life is change”. Well even if that is true, not all changes are bad. Proof of that would be the change recently implemented here at 7Search. For many years our advertising platform has been known for offering some of the most affordable prices in PPC with bids starting as low as a penny. Recently, we have announced a slight increase in the minimum bid required on certain keywords from one cent to five cent. Here are a couple reasons why we believe this increase will benefit our advertisers.

1. Increased Competition: As 7Search continues to see excellent growth in terms of new members joining our advertising platform the battle for traffic becomes much more intense. Increased competition combined with one cent bids is a recipe for little to no click activity. Higher bids can help place your ad in a better position giving you a better competitive advantage.

2. Partnership Traffic: 7Search obtains a chunk of its traffic from our affiliate network partners. Our partners combine 7Search ad listings with listings of other providers. They also have the option to choose which listings they will display on their network . Listings with keyword bids less than five cents are generally excluded from their selection when ads are chosen for display. As a result, bidding less than five cents causes our advertisers to miss quite a bit of the traffic available on our.

It should be stated that currently, this bid increase will only affect specific keywords. Visit the following links to see a list of those keywords that are affected by this change shown here & here . Essentially this change was initiated as a way to help our advertisers receive more exposure, more clicks and most importantly, more conversions.

What is the Google Knowledge Graph?

You may have noticed a square box in your Google searches recently, it’s to the right of your search results. This is the Google Knowledge Graph panel and only shows up when you’ve searched something relevant in Google’s relatively new database of facts. The Knowledge Graph panel provides snapshot details of your searched terms. The panel also allows access to related searches performed by other Googlers. Users can do some quick fact exploring right within Google’s search results without leaving the page.

The Knowledge Graph is an aggregation of 3.5 billion facts about 500 million objects, people, places, things or ideas. Use the Knowledge Graph to find at-a-glance information about:

• Sports teams


• Cities and countries


• Roller coasters and skyscrapers


• Planets and spacecraft


• Actors, directors and movies


• Islands and bodies of water


• Music albums and artists

The list is continuously growing, too. This information comes from specific sources, namely, Wikipedia, Freebase and The CIA World Factbook.

The Knowledge Graph is a proof of concept that Google Search is becoming more sophisticated, semantic, even (Hi Siri! See: Google Now, Knowledge Graph's home on mobile, which hooks into the Knowledge Graph to give you relevant information). Google is demonstrating that their search function has the ability to understand what you’re searching for and is capable of more than crunching 0’s and 1’s.

What Can You, As a Marketer, Do Now?

So what can webmasters do to take advantage of this? How are marketers affected? It’s really too early to tell. There are logical steps to be taken to best prepare for any eventuality that you can take now.

• Visit Schema.org – Schema.org is a collection of HTML tags websmasters can use to markup their pages so that major search providers (Google, Bing and Yahoo) can easily improve the display of search results. By structuring your data according to Schema’s suggestions, you’re making it easier for search engines to understand your data. This will lead to optimized display of that data and a higher organic ranking.


• Continue to generate great quality content. The Google Knowledge Graph has made it clear that it is only pulling information from proven, quality sources. Updates like Google Panda have made it abundantly clear that higher quality sites are a priority and will appear at the top of search results. Quality doesn’t necessarily have to mean content; design and perceived trustworthiness are also factors. Keep your visitors coming back.


• As Knowledge Graph figures out what quality is, curate your site’s content and filter out the “noise” that doesn’t add any value to your web property. Stay focused on your site’s purpose. Keep your users on track so they’re finding what they’re looking for on your site. Don’t stop to compare apples and oranges when the conversation should be about bananas.


• Since the knowledge graph is supposed to “understand” keywords, help it. Use complimentary keywords liberally when creating content for your site. If you’re talking Apple be sure to include terms like iPhone, iPad and the stock symbol (AAPL). Help crawlers “get” that when you mention Apple you’re talking about the company and not groceries.

The Knowledge Graph isn’t exactly giving searchers access to any new information. Everything the Knowledge Graph displays (so far) is already easily accessible; presentation is what’s key here. Same goes for your site’s content. Keep it high quality and great looking. We don’t know what the implications of the Knowledge Graph are for marketers, but it is an indication of the direction search will be taking. Learn from it and imitate it for higher visibility.

Enjoy this post? Let us know on our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages!

New. Different. Better…7Search Display Ads

[image via Trada.com]

For years, marketers advertising our traditional text ads have clamored for additional opportunities to market their products, and 7Search listened!  We are proud to introduce our new Display Advertising Network, providing advertisers with additional ad groups to drive traffic to their offers.

New ad units include:

-Graphical Banners (both CPC & CPM pricing)

-Text Banners (CPC pricing)

-Pop Under Ads (starting at $0.003)

-Interstitial Ads (starting at $0.01)

Want to learn more?  Visit 7Search.com/display/advertisers to get started today!

Looking to monetize your website traffic?  We want you!

With new advertising options come new opportunities for publishers to earn with 7Search!  Our new display publisher partnership pays a 65% revenue share to all approved partners.  We are looking for high quality partners to Display our ads on your websites, feed them through your ad server, or plug them into your exchange…you decide how best to monetize your inventory!  XML feeds are available for Banner, Pop Under, and Interstitial feeds.

Interested?  Visit us at 7Search.com/display/publishers to learn more today.

New Years Resolutions For Your 7Search PPC Advertising Account

You have probably made the typical New Years resolutions to quit smoking, lose weight, eat healthier etc, but have you taken the time to give your 7Search PPC campaign a facelift? We suggest you check out our new display network offerings which will help you expand the reach of your campaign. We now offer some really cool options such as graphical banners, text banners, pop under and interstitial advertisements.

Other things you can do to give your 7Seach PPC campaign a facelift:

1. Try out new ads - You may have an ad that has been successful for awhile, but there is always the chance that a new ad may perform better than a previous ad has. Our philosophy is simple and that is ABT or always be testing.
2. Check out new partners – We have recently added new partners to our network that may be a good fit for your campaign.
3. Fine tune your existing ad groups - One of the most common things we see with customer accounts is that they tend to lump keywords together into one ad group. Breaking your existing campaign up into more targeted ad groups will help increase the click through rate and make it more likely that you will generate conversions for your campaign.
4. Try out new ad groups- Stumped for new ad group ideas? Run a search query report or use the keyword suggestion tool.
5. Try out new keywords -You never know when you might come across a profitable keyword so try new (relevant) ones this year.

Still not sure how to give your campaign a makeover? Call us at (800) 577-1165 Mon-Fri from 9am-5pm.

Happy New Year from the 7Search Team!

7Search ‘On the Go’ is now on iOS

Our mobile campaign management app is not limited to Android anymore! 7Search On the Go has been approved and published on Apple’s App Store.

The app is compatible with all of your iDevices starting with the 3GS. The iPad and iPod Touch run the application beautifully as well.

With the introduction of the iOS app and in conjunction with the Android application, advertisers no longer have to be tethered to their desktops. Advertisers are able to:

• Manage multiple 7Search accounts using the intuitive app interface.
• Review account performance at a glance, Campaign and Keyword Reports are now available at your fingertips. They are even downloadable, so you can attach the reports in your emails. You also have the option to email reports to your inbox directly from the app.
• The app give you the ability to pause and activate campaigns from your device.
• 7Search On the Go will become your doorway to our support team. Chat, email or call support using the application.
• Get notifications when your balance is running low.

Download '7Search On the Go' for your iDeviced from the App Store here and if you're on Android, stop on by the Play Store here.

Once you've given it a shot, reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter and let us know what you think, give us suggestions for improvement, or just talk shop!