When I was in 4th grade werewolves were tops.  My friends and I watched the movies, read the books, drew pictures of them in class.  From our lunch table, we'd scan the cafeteria for signs of the curse.   There was a particularly furry custodian that was our prime suspect.  When it came time to do a paper in English class, my topic was werewolves.  I'm sure I got a C or D on it, like every other paper that I ever wrote in school.  I'm also sure that part of the low grade was due to my English teacher's lack of appreciation for werewolves and little boys who behaved like them in class.  To be fair to my teachers, I wasn't the best writer either.  In a five page paper I would use the term "werewolves" about twenty-five times.  I would say everything that needed to be said on the first page.  Then I had to figure out how to ramble on for four more pages.  It sounds like a C- method to me....

unless you're writing for the web.

After I had the ConwayJournal.com up and running for a while, I decided to go back in and do a little SEO (Search Engine Optimization) work to increase visitor traffic.  One of the first things that I realized was that while the site was something a lot of folks may enjoy, they had no idea that we even existed.  To further complicate the matter, they weren't even looking for a similar item.  No one was searching for terms like "Conway SC Blogs" or "online magazine conway" or "really cool website by really cool guys about a really cool city called Conway".  Nope, most of my traffic was coming from searches that my articles may have been related to.  Searches for "Conway Main Street", "Conway SC Business", "Downtown Conway, SC", and other similar search terms were driving all of my traffic.

What would you say if I told you that you could run a $300 ad campaign and get 300 responses?  What if you could test whether an ad campaign would be effective with as little as $50?  I know it sounds too good to be true, but that is exactly the results many people will experience with search engine advertising.  Modern online marketing has turned advertising from a mysterious art in to a scalable calculated science.  It is truly a revolution in the marketing industry.  There's a good reason why traditional media; such as print, TV, and radio are struggling to maintain market share.  The Internet can prove its effectiveness with a statistical precision never seen before.  Traditional media salesman preach repetition, consistency, and patience.  Internet marketing preaches targeting, testing, and measurement.  I believe most small businesses in Conway, SC would be shocked by the effectiveness of well planned search engine marketing strategy.

Advertising Online, The Basics Part 1

Last year I received a call from a Myrtle Beach fiberglass pool installer.  He had been hit especially hard by the recession and was looking for options to attract new business.  At that time he was spending about $350 each month to run two newspaper ads.  He was getting between one to four phone calls from the ad each month.  Those calls rarely amounted to a sale and his budget could not afford to run more ads.  He had heard a lot about the success others were having online and wanted to see if he had any options on such a meager budget.