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Many companies delude themselves into thinking they are getting “good value” from their current Internet advertising initiatives. But is that really the case? There are many things to look into – the most basic of which is the conversion rate. The conversion is not only translated into actual revenue, but it actually depends on the goal of the website. For example, conversion can come in the form of leads, subscriptions, sales, and even referrals.

Internet advertising is also linked to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. There are three main players in this industry including Google Adwords, Microsoft Ad Center, and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Let’s look deeper into these options below:

Google Adwords – The value of your money depends on the “quality score” of your ad groupings. Since Google is the most dominant search engine among English-speaking countries, ads can gain maximum exposure through this medium. But take note that popular keywords here can cost heaps so choose carefully.

Microsoft Ad Center – This site gets a decent amount of users. Because there is less competition, you can get more targeted clicks from your Internet advertising campaign here. The interface has limited features, but overall, it provides good value for your money.

Yahoo! Search Marketing – Although Yahoo! certainly doesn’t get as much traffic as Google, Internet advertising here can still contribute to your bottom line. The tool provides in-depth keyword reports, but the minimum bid is quite high. Conduct thorough testing first before going full blast with your campaign.

If your customers can’t find you, they won’t be able to acquire your products or services even if they so desire. This problem applies equally to potential prospects and existing or past customers. Without an easy-to-remember phone number, it is also much more difficult to generate word-of-mouth advertising and referrals.

Sure you can list your business in the Yellow Pages and various online directories, but what we are talking about is an easy-to-remember number that can be memorized in a few seconds and is easily recognized as being yours. Smart business owners know how important it is to lock in winning vanity phone numbers that unify their branding and tie together their web domain names and company names from the start.

Just having a great toll free phone number is no use if no one knows about it, so make sure to include your vanity number on all of your marketing pieces as well as all communications with the public. Take a minute and think about your own shopping and referral habits. No doubt you have seen thousands of infomercials on TV, hundreds of billboards and display ads, and have received countless direct mail pieces. Often even may have been interested in what was being offered, but if you didn’t have the time to write down the phone number, you likely ended up going with another company for your needs, one that was easier to call. When it comes to referrals, you may often enjoy helping others by giving them contact numbers for companies and services that can help them. However, if you don’t remember the number off the top of your head and you can’t find it in your wallet or phone within a couple of seconds, the opportunity usually ends there. Referrals and word-of-mouth advertising are the most profitable forms of marketing; plan ahead for them. Isn’t it worth making sure you have a phone number that promotes for you?

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Most businesses today would find it hard to function without a website. And the first step toward creating a compelling site is to register a catchy domain name. The process of domain registration itself is simple and straightforward. But before you can go to this step, it is important to determine the domain name that’s most suitable for your business!

The domain name can mean the difference between mediocrity and success on the World Wide Web. With this fact in mind, it is not surprising that some of the best domain names available have already been taken up. But don’t let that stop you. A bit of creativity can go a long way in helping you find a great domain name – below are a couple of tips:

.Com is Still King

Many types of extensions are available these days including .org, .net, and country level domains. Despite these, .com is still king if you want your business to have a “global” feel. On the other hand, those who want their sites to attain a local flavor can opt for .co.uk domain if you operate in Britain or .com.au if you operate in Australia, etc.

Catchy vs. SEO Friendly

When it comes to choosing a catchy name vs. an SEO friendly one, there’s definitely no right or wrong answer. It depends on the purpose of your website as well as the specific industry. Each has its own pros and cons. For instance, catchy names like “Yahoo!” have definitely made it big. On the other side of the equation are websites like “hotels.com”, “auto.com”, etc. that have gained success by virtue of their domain name as well.

Make sure you pick a domain name that matches your branding, is creative, but also clear about what your business does. A compelling and effective website can make or break a business, so choose your domain name carefully.

1. Unifies Branding

A good toll free number should unify your branding. That means having a vanity number that matches with your business name and Internet domain name. Checking the availability of all three before you reserve any is important.

2. Keyword Search Tools

At least one of the leading toll free number providers now offers a keyword search tool for looking up toll free numbers based on keywords in your branding, whether it is your business name, Internet domain name, product, or service.

3. Check Out The Competition

See what the competition is doing. What is working for them? What companies are dominating your industry and is it because of their toll free numbers?

4. Differentiate

Once you have researched your competitors, analyze what you can do differently. What niches are being left under-served or what direction can you go in to become more appealing to consumers?

5. Reverse Lookups

If there is a toll free number already in use that is ideal for your organization, you may wish to perform a reverse lookup to discover who owns the number in question. You may still be able to acquire this number, although it may be wiser to employ the services of a third party to negotiate the best deal for you.

6. Shared Usage

Shared usage of toll free numbers can be a great way to get use of a premium vanity number at a fraction of the cost. This option is perfect for businesses that are operating in only a few select areas as opposed to nationwide or globally. For example, you could possibly reserve a premium vanity number like 800-MORTGAGE or 800-HOMELOAN for use just within the one or two states where you are licensed to do business.

7. Testing

If you are still having a hard time deciding on which toll free number is best for your business, perhaps you will want to test out several. You can test by simply bouncing the ideas off of different focus groups or polling. Or you could even try out different toll free numbers in PPC ads, and different pieces in direct mail campaigns to see which pulls in the highest response and closing ratios.

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Web monitoring analytics offer one of the most powerful tools for improving your online advertising ROI. In fact, web monitoring analytics are essential for guaranteeing the maximum performance of your Internet marketing campaigns. Web monitoring analytics can be used to monitor all of your website traffic, which means being able to test the advertising effectiveness of your different campaigns and how much traffic they are bringing you, the flow of your website, and it’s ability to convert leads into deals.

Web monitoring analytics allow you to track which of your online marketing campaigns are bringing you the most visitors, and more importantly, which one is actually producing the most sales through your individual domain names. You may even be surprised to find out where your visitors are coming from. It may not be the campaigns you think. In this case, you are wasting thousands of dollars in the wrong direction. See which advertising channels are the most productive and optimize those, while scrapping or revamping those that are not producing results.

Next, use your web monitoring analytics to track the flow of movement through your website and identify what is the biggest barrier to prospects taking the action you want. If they are spending too little time on the first page they arrive at, it suggests that either your design is unattractive or your ads are not really reaching the right prospects. Just getting traffic by itself is no good; you want to drive in traffic that you can monetize. Use your web monitoring analytics to watch the flow of your traffic around your site. If visitors spend too little time on a long page and quickly leave, perhaps you are giving too much information and boring them, or if they make it to your closing page but do not acquire your product or service, perhaps your pricing is too high. Or perhaps you need to add more credibility by including your toll free vanity number on your website. Continually strive regularly to use your web monitoring analytics and constantly improve all aspects of your online advertising and you will watch your ROI and profit margins rocket!

Without a strong brand image and a unified brand, your business does not have a solid foundation to grow on. We all know the story of The Three Little Pigs and what happened to the homes made out of straw and sticks! Core to building a solid brand is making sure your Internet domain name, toll free vanity number, and business name all match and blend together. If they are different, you will find that you are losing a lot of business from customers who can’t find you and come across your competition instead.

Not having a domain name that matches your business name can be an easy mistake for new entrepreneurs and small business start ups. However, it can also be an extremely expensive one, not only from having to secure different Internet domain names, or toll free numbers, or changing your business name, but also in terms of new research that will need to be done and redrafting marketing campaigns.

So before you go too deep into the planning stage of a new venture or spinning off a new division, make sure you can reserve and secure the appropriate matching business name, vanity number, and Internet domain names. Just making sure that they are available isn’t enough. Hundreds of new businesses and websites are created each day. Lock in your Internet domain name early if you want to succeed.

Another factor that is often overlooked by those rushing to register new companies and web domain names is checking to see whether your proposed business name is in use in another state or has been used recently. If the name has been taken, you may want to spend time checking out the reputation of that company name. The last thing you want is to secure a new Internet domain name and launch a business only to find that one with a similar name was just shut down for fraud!

It is no secret that to survive and succeed in the business world today you must become efficient at testing marketing strategy. Split testing is the best way to compare quickly the advertising effectiveness of different factors of your campaigns. Direct marketing via direct mail and print advertising is one way to achieve split testing and can be incredibly effective and accurate using blocks of toll free numbers to pinpoint the successes and issues with your marketing campaigns. Now with most businesses extensively marketing online, it is also essential to test your Internet advertising campaigns before committing to one channel or strategy.