By: Shirley Kelly | Source: site-reference.com

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is quickly becoming the fastest and most effective way to reach the top search engine rankings for given key words and phrases. The concept is simple - we pay or bid competitively, for the placement within each search phrase.

While many of the search engines still have free inclusion, this does not always guarantee top placement. Keyword saturation and search engine optimization or the purposeful use of the keywords often within the website content, is also an unpredictable and often unsuccessful method of gaining ranking.

PPC ads are similar to typical ads within Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERP’s), but they are above free listings often labeled ”Sponsored Sites.” While some offer image or banner advertising in the same auction manner, most PPC ad services focus on text ads with a website URL and brief description of what the site offers.

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By: Brian | Source: convertup.com

Sure, SEO, Social Media Optimization and Paid Search Marketing can drive hordes of highly targeted traffic to your web site.

But is your site’s structure, lack of usability and negative user experience blocking conversions and sales?

Here are 11 Quick and Dirty Ways to Increase Conversions:

Increasing conversion rate can be a daunting task that requires a delicate touch and some expertise, not to mention some trial and error. Don’t be afraid to fail at it - just remember to keep trying until you succeed. If you work hard at optimizing your site, you really can double or triple your conversions. That said, I put together this quick and dirty list to give you a few changes you can make to get started optimizing your e-commerce site for better usability and more conversions.

1. Remove clutter

Cluttered web pages are one of the most common mistakes on the Web. For some reason people like to jam all their information on one page. Clean things up by removing distracting, useless images, charts, or text. Provide users with information as they request it. You don’t need to put it all in front of their face at one time. The path you want the user to take should be clear from the homepage. When you stack up text and images, it dilutes the goal message, and can confuse users. Less is more!

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By: Miguel Helft | Source: nytimes.com

Monday February 5th, 2007, will be a day that goes down in search engine history. At 3pm PST today, Yahoo will bring together 30 to 40 engineers and start migrating the old Overture pay-per-click platform over to the new "Panama" model.

Its future success or failure will depend on how well the new platform is received.

Thousands of advertisers, and billions of dollars in ad spending, will be watched closely, as Yahoo finally moves from the pure "highest bidder wins" model, to the "bid plus quality" model. By making this switch, Yahoo hopes to increase the average revenue per click from 2.5/3 cents to something closer to Google’s 4.5/5 cents.

As successful switch could mean the difference between Yahoo’s road to a comeback, or instead, further languishing behind Google - and facing a strong challenge from Microsoft’s adCenter.

Starting around 3 p.m. Pacific time on Monday, a group of Yahoo executives will begin shuttling among three “war rooms” at the company’s search marketing unit here.

They will be scrutinizing an array of moving charts and graphs projected on walls and checking with a team of 30 to 40 engineers for any signs of trouble as Yahoo flips the switch on a new search advertising system.

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