Ideas for Business

AdSense is a monetization model that has made a lot of people money. So should you place AdSense ads on your company blog?

I agree with this blogger who says “No.”

Your company blog is there to drive traffic to your website and to close sales. You want to attract targeted customers and to do business with them. If you place AdSense ads on your blog and your readers click those ads they will be leaving your blog and heading over to your competition to do business with them. The thousands of dollars you stand to lose in business to your competitors will more than offset the few dollars you’ll make on the AdSense ads.

If you want to tap into AdSense as a revenue source then I recommend that you set up an information-only type blog and keep it updated with well-optimized content. Put all the AdSense on it you want. Your readers will click the ads and you’ll make money. Since you aren’t selling a service on those types of ads you can get away with the clicks that take your readers elsewhere. Don’t confuse your monetization models. Competing models work, but you don’t want them on the same properties.

Rand Fishkin provides a really good example of why you want to be honest, straightforward, and direct with your customers. I even like some of his answers here. One of the best answers to questions people asked Google was on the question of spam. Here’s what Rand had to say:

Google can take anywhere from a day to 2 years to take action on spam reports. Generally speaking, unless the violation is egregious (or appears publicly in the media), Google likes to find scalable, algorithmic solutions to spam issues. Thus, they’ll take your report, compile it with dozens of similar reports of the same types of violations, and work from an engineering perspective to come up with a solution that will catch everyone using the tactic, not just the single site/page you reported.

That’s a good clue for webmasters. It’s not all about you. Google wants to create an environment that benefits the searcher all the way around. Creating algorithms to address issues like search engine spam is one way of doing that. That’s much more effective than just looking at one or two sites and engineering them through human-centered ways. But I do take issue with Rand’s suggestion to publicly out your competitors:

My best advice, if you’re seeking to really get a competitor booted from the index or penalized in the SERPs immediately, is to write about them on major SEO-related forums, submit a thread at Sphinn or a blog post to YOUmoz. When spam is reported publicly, Google tends to take action much more quickly and directly.

That’s really dirty pool. I’d say report the competitor to Google and, if you really want to be competitive, try to figure out what tactic they are using to get the ranking they have. If they are already using blackhat SEO techniques that Google has algorithms for addressing then you don’t want to mirror those. They’ll get their just deserts eventually and it could be bad for them. But if they are using techniques that are not necessarily considered blackhat, but might be questionable, then mirror them and when Google changes their algorithms the playing field will be leveled naturally. This will save you face with industry peers and customers, who might take your public criticisms of your competition and use them against you.

If you do use this mirroring technique, do it sparingly and wisely. You don’t want to get on the bad side of Google either.

Learn how to get the most out of SEO copywriting.

(Source) The Bottom Line? Internet advertsising is probably the single most cost effective means of advertising available today and companies continue to up their budgets to capitalize.

I think this is an amazing announcement. With fuel prices climbing ever higher and more people losing jobs (and businesses), for anyone to say that advertising expenses are rising is incredible. I think it means that consumers are growing more confident of the Internet - at least, business consumers are. With the increase in online advertising, I think retail consumers will follow with more confidence of online purchasing, which means two things for businesses that operate online:

1. More advertising should pay off
2. Offering purchasing opportunities online will pay off

In both of these cases, businesses that advertise online should win. But you do have a budget to think about. Have you started allocating a part of your monthly budget to online advertising? If not, you should think about it.

How can you make Internet marketing pay?

According to the US Census Bureau the estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2006 was 44.3 million, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constituted 15% of the United States total population. Hispanic population in the United States is growing faster than any other minority and it is projected that by 2050 Hispanics will constitute 24% of the nation’s total population.

With numbers like these, it is no doubt that Hispanics in the US are having an increasing influence in U.S. consumer markets. In fact, Hispanic purchasing power is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2010 or 9.2 percent of all US buying power. This type of influence has led to the increased market research studies focused on US Hispanic residents, and their consumer preferences. Several of the well know Market Research Panels like GMI and LightSpeed Consumer Panel have formed specialty Paid Survey Panels specifically for US Hispanic residents to aid in this market research.

If you are of Hispanic Origin and a US resident, these Survey Panels can be a great way to help influence the direction of the research and development of products important to the Hispanic population. Plus, in exchange for sharing your opinions you will be compensated for your time. If you are interested please read the descriptions for the individual panels below.

Encuestanos.com is a panel hosted by GMI.

• Like all true Market Research Panels, registration is free
• Open to US residents 18 or older, and teens 14 to 17 with parents permission
• Members are rewarding with a minimum of 50 MarketPoints™ for Completing Surveys
• MarketPoints™ are redeemable for cash, via a mailed check payment, once you’ve accumulated 1000 or more points in your account
• If you are interested you can find more details by visiting Encuestanos.com

LightSpeed US Hispanic Panel is a panel hosted by LightSpeed Research

• Registration Is Free
• Open to US Hispanic residents 18
• Members are rewarding with LightSpeed Points and a Sweepstakes Entry for $3000 for each Completed Survey
• LightSpeed Points are redeemable for cash or prizes once you’ve accumulated 500 or more points in your account
• More details can be found by visiting LightSpeed Hispanic Panel

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Loren McDonald of Email Insider wrote a great post on the difference between direct mail and e-mail marketing. The gist of the post hinged on the following points:

• With e-mail marketing the consumer runs the show
• E-mail is more complicated
• Performance, ROI, and overall success are measured differently
• E-mail can appear differently to the recipient than it does to the creator

I concur with all of these points. One thing I’ve noticed about companies attempting to do e-mail marketing for the first time: They always think it will be easier than it is. Because e-mail is inexpensive (re: free), the thinking is that it will be easier to perform an e-mail marketing campaign. But honestly, there’s a lot more to think about.

CAN-SPAM laws are one very important thing you must consider. With direct mail marketing, you won’t be penalized for sending unwanted and unsolicited mail as long as what you are sending it legal. With e-mail marketing, you can be banned from your ISP and lose your e-mail account if you get too many spam complaints. That changes everything.

Another thing you have to think about is how often you send out e-mails. Too often and you’ll get blocked by recipients. Not often enough and they’ll forget about you. With direct mail, too often just costs you a lot of money.

When it comes to e-mail marketing the ease and low cost of it can be deceiving. Many companies do not accurately track their costs because many aspects of it are seemingly free. For instance, how much time does it take you to put together an e-mail that you send out? That’s a cost that many business owners do not consider. It does affect your ROI.

One more thing to consider is your audience. E-mail marketing and direct mail marketing work differently for different demographics. People who might respond to e-mail would just throw you mailer in the trash before even looking at it. On the other hand, some people who might read your direct mail brochure would hit the delete key on e-mail without reading even if they’ve opted in to your list.

There is no sure way to know whether direct mail or e-mail marketing is best for you. Chances are, you can benefit from both types of marketing depending on your goals and the individual campaign. For a consultation on your marketing needs, contact Small Business Mavericks.