My life was the classic story of a struggling small company trying to make ends meet. Then I met a man who literally transformed my business.

More on him in a second…

As many of you know, I am a writer by trade. About 5 years ago, my business was hurting and I really needed some quality leads-and quickly!

I was ready to place an expensive ad in a trade magazine. But some sage advice from a peer stopped me cold. The advice was, “You should consider search engine advertising.”

To say I was skeptical is an understatement. After a little research, I happened upon Andrew Goodman–the man who would help me achieve success.

I devoured his materials and began my own search engine marketing campaign.

I was shocked to see four leads come in the first day. There were 40 by Friday, no joke! At the end of the first year, I had more than 4000 leads.

All these opportunities came through Google search advertising.

Today, tens of thousands of leads have resulted from the lessons I learned from Andrew. And, I was able to land clients such as Microsoft, HP and FedEx!

Are you wondering how I did it? Do you want to know what Andrew taught me?

I recently asked Andrew if he would consider breaking from his speaking circuit to share some of his secrets with you.

He said yes!

And now it is my distinct pleasure to be joined by pay-per-click guru Andrew Goodman for a special teleclass entitled Navigating the Search Advertising Frontier (How to Outsmart the Competition).

Andrew is one of the world’s foremost authorities on pay-per-click advertising. Together we will examine how search marketing and white papers can transform any business.

This class is sure to sell out.

Click here to reserve your seat.

If you're new here, be sure to signup for my newsletter and join 20,000 others. Thanks for visiting!

This is the second article in a series that discusses on-site optimization tactics. Today we talk about the importance of the meta tags.

Meta Title

The meta title is the most important tag on the page. You can see what your competitors are using as their title tag by looking at the blue bar at the top of your browser when you visit their website.

Google uses the meta title as the clickable part of the search results. This is why you need to optimize your title tag not only for the search engines, but for the searcher too.

The meta title should be shorter than 100 characters and include your main keyword as early in the text as possible. Some web sites include the company name as the first word in the meta title: I generally advise against that and suggest to add the company name at the end of the title tag, if they really want to have it there.

Creating the same meta title for all your pages is very tempting, I know, but that would kill your SEO efforts. Take the time to create a unique title tag for every page of your website. This is a great opportunity to target different keywords with different pages on your web site.

Finally, since your title tag will have to compete with others in the search results, you want it to stand out as much as possible. To do that, you can capitalize the first letter of every word in your title tag and include a benefit too, to encourage the searcher to click on.

Meta Description

The meta description is less important than the meta title, but some search engines use it as the descriptive text of the search result and Google looks at it to decide your ranking.

This tag should expand on what the title tag is saying. Don’t just copy the title tag in here: it can actually hurt your rankings. Instead, use one or two sentences to describe the content of the page. The meta description tag is a great opportunity for using your main keyword together with some synonyms too.

Avoid using the same meta description across all your pages: that will hurt your rankings.

Meta Keywords

Many websites still include a meta keywords tag in their pages.

Search engines used to look at this tag too, which contained a list of keywords the webmaster wanted to rank for. Unfortunately people started abusing it and nowadays you get no additional boost for using it in your pages.

Coming Up

My next article will close this series on on-page optimization. If you have any doubts and what was covered today, please leave a comment below and I’ll try to clarify my points.

About the author: If you are interested in video tutorials and articles that can teach how to increase your web site traffic and build a list of targeted prospects for your business, you are going to like what Vittorio Bosio is saying on his blog: www.TechSavvyMarketer.com.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Have you mastered the lucrative craft of writing white papers?

WhitePaperSource (I am their executive editor), has put together a really excellent program called “The Annual Pass Membership.”

With the Annual Pass, you get priority access to ten live classes that will be taught in 2008.

The classes focus on writing and marketing white papers and can be attended from the comfort of your home or office.

Some of the topics include pay-per-click advertising, white paper layout, writing compelling titles, how to price your writing services, performing expert interviews, time management for writers and white paper PR.

These classes provide live access to industry guru’s such as Andrew Goodman, Roger Parker, David Meerman Scott, Michel Fortin and Steve Slaunwhite.

What’s great is that the classes are less than $15 each!

Be sure to check this out by clicking here.

As we saw in a previous article, SEO consists of two main activities: on-site and off-site optimization. Today I am starting an article series that will give you tips and tricks on how to do on-site optimization, which is the easiest and least time consuming of the two.

Domain Name

If you don’t have a domain name yet, pick one that contains your main keyword.

The ideal would be to have a domain like “mainkeyword.com”, but it is going to be very hard to find it available nowadays. You can try with “yourmainkeyword.com” or “mainkeyword4you.com”, though.

People tend to trust (and remember) .com domains better. If you really can’t find the right fit in a .com, you can still go with a .net, if you want.

Having your main keyword in your domain name will help you because:

1. websites with the main keyword in their domain name tend to perform better
2. the keyword will be shown in bold in the search results, thus making your listing stand out
3. since it is important to have your keyword in the anchor text (clickable text) of the links pointing to your website, a keyword-rich domain will help you even in those cases where people link to you with your domain as the link anchor text.

Do you already have a domain name? Even if it doesn’t contain your main keyword, you can still benefit from it. Google tends to like older domains, because it feels those are “real businesses”, that are there to stay. It is not uncommon to see remarkable ranking improvements with just some on-site optimization, in these cases. Just follow the tips I am about to give you.

Navigation

The technology you use for your website navigation has an impact on how many pages the search engine will index. Search engines can only follow standard html links.

If your website navigation is based on a flash animation, the search engines won’t be able to spider your pages. The same holds true for Javascript.

Page Names

It doesn’t matter the technology you use to create your pages. Google will index .htm, .asp, .php, .aspx pages and many other formats (including word documents and pdf files, for example).

The way you name your pages, though, can have an influence on your rankings. Having keywords in your page names can help you from an SEO perspective.

Instead of “yourwebsite.com/page.php?id=bluewidgets”, use something like “yourwebsite.com/blue-widgets.php”. Separate the words in the page name with a dash, so that Google knows where every word starts and ends.

More To Come

The list of on-page optimization tricks is not over. Wait for my next article to find out more. If you have any questions or comments on what you just read, please leave a comment below.

About the author: If you are interested in video tutorials and articles that can teach how to increase your web site traffic and build a list of targeted prospects for your business, you are going to like what Vittorio Bosio is saying on his blog: www.TechSavvyMarketer.com.

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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a very popular form of driving traffic to a website, especially to a brand-new one.

Google Adwords is the leader PPC engine, followed by Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter.

No matter which one you choose to start with, the process is the same: you decide which keywords you want to target, write an ad and are charged every time someone clicks on it.

PPC advertising seems pretty straight-forward at first. If you don’t carefully track how well your campaign converts, you can end up with nothing in your hands at the end of the month.

Let’s analyze the pros and cons of PPC as a traffic source.

Advantages
PPC traffic can be turned on and off instantaneously. Once you have done your keyword research, you can be up and running in less than 15 minutes.
It is very targeted, since you can decide the time of day and the location from which your ads should be seen (country, city, etc.).

It’s the ideal method of testing how your website converts. You can run as many tests as you want, with the goal of improving your conversion rate. PPC can help you refine your website before using other traffic sources.

While in banner advertising you pay by impressions (an impression is when someone sees your ad), in PPC you pay only when someone clicks. This means you are paying only for the actual traffic Google is capable of sending you.

Disadvantages
While it has several advantages, PPC also has its pitfalls.

Google Adwords is a very popular way of driving traffic. The more people use the system, the more it will cost to achieve the top position. Depending on how many advertisers are in your market, it is not uncommon to go over $1 a click for the top spot.

Don’t rely solely on PPC. It easier for a competitor with deeper pockets to outbid you. Unlike search engine optimization (SEO), it is much easier for your competitors to replicate your success–they just need to have the budget for it.

Some people say that PPC is becoming more similar to SEO, because after the introduction of the quality score (a score given to every keyword in your account that determines the minimum cost per click you have to pay for your ad to appear), Google started assessing how you organize your campaigns AND if your landing page is relevant enough for the keywords you are advertising with. If you have a low quality score, Google will increase the minimum bid you have to pay.

Finally, since Adwords seems so easy at first, many advertisers do not invest the time necessary to track the ROI of their investment. They just turn their campaign on and suppose it will help them make more sales. Only by tracking your campaigns you know which keywords don’t convert and can exclude them from your campaign.

Your Thoughts?
Are you using Google Adwords? Can you think of a pros and cons that I forgot to mention above? What is your most burning question on Google Adwords? Please leave your comments below.

About the author: If you are interested in video tutorials and articles that can teach how to increase your web site traffic and build a list of targeted prospects for your business, you are going to like what Vittorio Bosio is saying on his blog: www.TechSavvyMarketer.com.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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You’re going to think I am nuts for doing this. But here we go. For the next three days, I am providing my loyal readers a special that I will never offer again.

But first let me provide a little background.

Nearly a thousand of your peers joined me for one of our teleclasses this year. These were radio talk show type classes, where I interviewed many industry experts (and in some cases was interviewed myself). We then opened the lines for live Q&A.

I was shocked at the popularity and interest level in these classes.

For example, one attendee said, “I’ve attended several teleclasses recently, and this one was the best-managed and most informative” and “these classes are by far the most helpful writing source I’ve seen in a long time!”

All ten of these classes have been recorded and transcribed. You can now benefit from them at your leisure.

We covered a wide range of topics related to writing white papers, marketing white papers and tapping into the freelance white paper world. We also interviewed famous authors such as Bob Bly, Brian Carroll and Peter Bowerman.

So here’s the offer, never to be repeated:

For only $99, you can access all ten classes—less than $10 per class. That’s nearly one-third the price of the classes themselves.

You get 10 hours of content and hundreds of pages of transcripts.

You must act soon as this offer will expire at midnight on November 29.

Click here to check out the lineup of classes available.

These classes are downloadable MP3 files that can be played from your iPod or you can listen online. The transcripts are printable and searchable PDF files.

Be sure to take me up on this offer by clicking here.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

Editor’s note: This is Vittorio Bosio’s first guest post to this blog.

You just finished writing your white paper and set up a page on your website where people can download it. What you need now, is traffic.

The quickest way to drive targeted visitors to your website is Pay-Per-Click advertising. And the PPC engine that can send you the most people is Google Adwords, even though we shouldn’t forget about the other main players, namely Yahoo Search Engine Marketing and MSN Adcenter.

With Pay-Per-Click advertising you are able to write an ad that promotes your white paper and display it when someone searches for your keywords. Unlike banner advertising, you don’t pay every time your ad is served (an “impression”), you only pay when somebody clicks on it.

Let’s analyze why PPC is the traffic source you should start with to give visibility to your white paper.

It Is Immediate
Provided you already know which keywords and keyword phrases you want to target, it can take as little as 15 minutes to get started with Google Adwords.

This doesn’t mean that you are done in 15 minutes, though: you are about to learn what other kind of activities you should carry out. Nonetheless, the time required is much less than what is needed to do Search Engine Optimization. And nothing stops you from letting your Adwords campaign bring traffic while you do link building and other activities that will help you score higher in the organic results (where you don’t pay for the traffic).

It Is Very Targeted
You get to decide who sees your ad. You don’t want any traffic, you want targeted traffic, that is likely to download your white paper and buy your products or services.

With Google Adwords, you don’t only pick the keywords that should trigger your ad, you can also specify in which countries you want your advertisement to be seen. But it doesn’t stop there: you can get more granular and specify single cities. If you offer your services in particular State or metropolitan area, you are going to use this option, to pay only for visitors that meet that requirement.

You don’t only control the distribution, but also the time when your ad should be active. For example, if you see that the traffic doesn’t convert as well during week-ends, you can have your campaign automatically deactivated during those days. You can even select times of the day where you don’t want your advertisement to be seen.

Test And Keep Testing
One distinct advantage that Pay-Per-Click has over other sources of traffic is the possibility to run tests, to see the effectiveness of the copy you have on your landing page and which keywords bring you the most targeted traffic.

Start by testing your headline: a good headline can make or break your campaign. You just need to create two different versions of your landing page and have software rotate them for you, so that half of your traffic sees the first version, the other half the second. You can use Google Website Optimizer, which is free, or go with a paid software, such as AdTrackz, the one that I use.

Your testing should not be limited to your landing page: test different versions of your ad too. This is particularly important because Google rewards advertisers who get the most clicks out of 100 impressions by letting them pay less to achieve the same position. This ratio is called Click-Through Rate and your goal is to progressively increase it over time by constantly running split-tests to come up with better versions of your ad.

Start Little, Then Grow
If you do your homework and invest some time testing different versions of your ad and landing page, you will increase both your Click-Through Rate (how many clicks you get out of 100 impressions) and Conversion Rate (how many visitors download your white paper out of 100 clicks you receive).

When you feel that things are starting to work, you can increase your daily budget or your Maximum Cost Per Click, to have your ad shown closer to the top.

And when you feel you conquered Google Adwords, you can move to Yahoo SEM and MSN Adcenter to see how that traffic converts and whether it is worth advertising on those networks too.

Benefit From What You Learned
If you take my advice and start testing your landing page, you will soon find out what works and what doesn’t. And you can use that same landing page with other sources of traffic.

The secret is to test the water and achieve a good enough conversion rate with Pay-Per-Click advertising, then start expanding by doing SEO, banner advertising, article marketing, etc.

Once you have a page that you know can convert traffic, you just need to pick a new traffic stream and bring it to your website.

About the author: If you are interested in video tutorials and articles that can teach how to increase your web site traffic and build a list of targeted prospects for your business, you are going to like what Vittorio Bosio is saying on his blog: www.TechSavvyMarketer.com.

(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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The endless nominations arrived. The nominees have been carefully examined. What follows are the top 10 marketing blogs.

These folks excel at sharing their insight and craft with the world. Read each of these marketing blogs every day and you will greatly advance your knowledge.

1. Seth Godin’s Blog: Seth Godin finds marketing insight everywhere – make him a daily read.
2. MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog: Many of the marketing world’s greatest minds share their wisdom here.
3. Duct Tape Marketing Blog: This blog is a gold mine for small businesses and includes regular insights that are easy to implement.
4. Techno//Marketer: A very good blog on leveraging online tools for marketing (and includes helpful videos).
5. Buzz Marketing for Technology: This excellent blog, by BearingPoint’s Paul Dunay, helps businesses learn how to stand out in a noisy world.
6. Create Value or Die: The title of this blog says it all. Learn how to create value for visitors.
7. Web Ink Now: The ultimate stop for learning how to generate publicity for your business, from author David Meerman Scott.
8. Web Strategy by Jeremiah: Great social networking blog with embedded podcasts (for those of us who are reading-challenged) by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang.
9. The Buzz Bin: Excellent social media and PR blog by author Geoff Livingston.
10. Diva Marketing Blog: A cornucopia of marketing insight comes from marketing diva Toby Bloomberg.

Congratulations to the winners. Be sure to check out these awesome blogs!

Leave them comments and let them know you appreciate their efforts. Let’s keep these folks fueled—we need them!

White papers are very powerful marketing tools.

They are commonly used by prospects in the research stage.

What I want to ask you is this simple question: How are you collecting leads with white papers?

P.S. I am in San Fransisco today, speaking at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Demand Summit. Track me down and say hi if you are there.

If your white paper came up on the first page of Google without a penny in ad costs, what would it do for your business?

White papers are atomic marketing weapons. Search engines are where your future customers begin their research.

By applying the right tactics, you can move your white paper out of the darkness and onto the first page of major search engines.

Search engine optimization is the key to ensuring your white paper landing page is visible to prospects.

The result: newfound traffic and new opportunities.

Understanding how to apply proven search engine optimization techniques will change the face of your business.

Why? Because finding people at the moment they are searching is a marketer’s dream.

Do you understand how to craft white paper landing pages that appeal equally to people and search engines?

To unpack the proven tactics for improving your search engine rankings, I am excited to be joined by search engine optimization expert Dianna Huff.

Dianna is the author of the popular ebook, Turning Clicks into Leads Through Search Engine Optimization.

This Thursday, Dianna and I will dig deep into proven strategies for moving your white paper landing pages to the front page of major search engines.

The class is called “Search Engine Optimization for White Papers (How to ensure your papers rank high on search engines).”

During the class, you will learn tactics that can ensure your web pages get the attention you expect.

Make a resolution to expand your lead generation success. Register for this class today by clicking here. Seats are limited.