Internet Marketing is Not Hype

While most other online marketing firms tout their proprietary, black box keyword-finding software, we begin our research by talking to you and your staff. We use software tools for generating an extensive campaign, but we produce our ads and bid our keywords based on feedback loops that are tied to research and real time data. We look at the big picture. We think like owners. We know dozens of proprietary methods for increasing your lead flow while decreasing costs.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is rife with misconceptions and half-truths. At Reciprocal Consulting, we know from experience that every campaign is different and requires a custom solution.

At Reciprocal Consulting, we prefer our customers to have high rankings for both paid listings (also known as sponsored links or "Pay Per Click" ads) and natural search, but only when both are cost-effective. Contrary to popular myths, we have often seen the highest and best converting traffic from paid search. Because we have the ability to budget, test, and control a paid search campaign we can optimize the campaign in several ways to improve sales. We base our organic search campaigns on proven keywords ad text and landing pages that have consistently converted sales or leads in our Pay Per Click tests.

More often than not, we see every advertiser trying to rank highly for the same keywords. Everyone is jockeying for position in both organic and paid search on broad non-specific keywords. Ironically, the keywords with the highest conversion rates are usually priced much lower.

Of course, this is human nature. People bid a "hot stock" to an unsustainably high price, only to watch it crash. In search engine advertising the "bubble" for hot keywords never bursts. The high priced keywords will always be overpriced.

At Reciprocal Consulting, we specialize in finding low-priced keywords that have high conversion rates. We look at leads or sales conversions and trace them to the ads and keywords. Once we find good keywords, we begin split testing ads for the highest click-through rates.

By gaining a high click-through rate we fully engage the algorithms at Google and Yahoo to pull our ads out at the lowest possible cost to our customers. Sound complicated? It isn't if you understand it. When a marketing firm simply sets a daily budget cap for your Adwords ads, Google tries to maximize their profits by rationing your ads. But what is best for Google is not necessarily best for you. We make the Google algorithm work to pull the most traffic at the lowest cost. When you have a strong ad, Google's system will actually show your ad at a higher position than other ads on the page who are paying more than you are. When your competitor hits his budget cap he is gone for the day while you continue to get low cost traffic.

Most of our campaigns run on thousands of keywords. Optimizing natural search for thousands of unrelated keywords could cost over a million dollars a year. In most cases, that is impossible. We only optimize for natural search keywords with the best proven conversion rates and traffic. We get this proof from your initial Adwords campaign results. Reciprocal Consulting always look for traffic sources with the lowest conversion costs, no matter where it comes from. We use directories, natural search, paid search, banner ads, content matching, and opt-in email lists.

Every market is different. We tailor a campaign by focusing on maximizing lead flow with extensive testing and feedback loops. Many times we find that our real time feedback loops create counter-intuitive results. Market research and testing does not always yield results that make sense. But it should always make profits. We always go with what works in the real world. Focus groups, vague concepts and advertising doublespeak mean nothing to us. We like to get paid based on driving bottom line results.

A common misconception is that an optimized web page is stuffed with keywords in page titles, headlines, ad copy, and even in tiny text at the bottom of the page. This was true years ago. Now, keyword stuffing can actually get you banned from Google. At Reciprocal Consulting, we never forget that the primary purpose of ad copy is to sell a product or service. We have seasoned professionals who will write custom, unique ad copy for your firm. This ad copy highlights and sells your firm's unique benefits. Once the ad copy is written, we make minor changes in the headlines and text to optimize the page for SEO.

Any SEO worth their salt will tell you that 90% of SEO work is done off the page. Linking is the key to SEO. This becomes more important every month, as search engines learn to read and filter text the way humans do. Case in point - the top ranking page for the word "computer," Apple Computer, only has the word "computer" visible on the page in its copyright statement at the bottom of the page.

We customize our campaign to your market niche. Patent lawyer marketing is completely different than a software company that sells fax servers. We even have companies in the same industries that have completely different keywords because of their unique priorities and goals. We research each market carefully before we begin a campaign. At the launch of a campaign, we tell our customers that sales will be lowest in the beginning. We build our campaigns based on real time statistics and adapt quickly to the market. As traffic and conversion data come in, we focus resources on the highest converting keywords and landing pages. We split test ads, develop new ad groups, and rewrite on-page ad copy based on results. In this manner, sales ramp up over time.

While other SEO firms may specialize in law or real estate or B2B, we find that experience in all markets allows us to learn tools and tricks that we can apply to other markets.

When an Internet marketing firm specializes in a particular niche, they tend to offer the same package to every firm because it's easier to manage. If you are looking for cookie cutter SEO Marketing, we can refer you to some fantastic companies that we work with. We do use package deal setups from other marketing firms to get a campaign started for a very low cost. But if you are looking to dominate your space, you need to create a competitive advantage that goes far beyond the standard packaged website and link exchange program.

• How do you budget Adwords to simultaneously maximize the number of clicks and minimize cost?
• How do you know which keywords to optimize for natural search and which ones are best left to the "bubble chasers?"
• How do you find keywords that no competitor is bidding on, but that convert at half the cost and twice the frequency of conventional keywords?
• How do you geo-target a market with Adwords when many large Internet service providers use servers located in other states to serve customers in your area?
• How do you detect click fraud immediately?
• How do you measure conversions on specific sites on Adword's content network?
• Which search engines have the lowest incidence of click fraud?
• Which search engines have the highest incidence of click fraud (over 90%)?
• How do you bid keywords appropriately, knowing you will get fraudulent clicks?
• How do you know when to use content ads on Google or Overture?
• How do you set up a tracking phone number? Why should you?
• How do you track and handle leads when they come in to your firm?
• Is it better to have a lot of ad copy on a landing page or a lot of bullet points?
• How do you write your ad copy so people will fill out your contact form or call you?
• Where should a contact form be on a page? Which pages should have them?
• Where should the phone number be on a page? Which pages should have them?
• How large should photos be on a landing page?
• What does the term "above the fold" mean?
• What is "page weight" and why does it matter?
• How do you decide what web sites to get links from?
• How do you repair a site when it has been banned from a search engine so that its banned status will be removed?
• How do you fix a "page highjack?"
• How do you get a new website indexed by Google and out of the "sandbox" in only two weeks instead the normal three month's time?
• Will inbound "sitewide" links get your site banned?
• Is there a penalty for putting too many keywords in your meta-tags?
• How important is it for your website to be WC3 Compliant?
• How do you generate a nightly XML sitemap for a large e-commerce site and upload it to Google?
• How do you track site targeted ad performance in Google?
• How do you track conversions in Yahoo when their conversion tracking is malfunctioning?
• How do you know when traffic shown on your hit counter is nothing more than other websites pulling image files from your server?
• What are the benefits of a "content management system?" What are the drawbacks?
• How do you know when to use a broad match, phrase match or exact match in a Google Adwords campaign?

While some of the questions above are not specifically related to SEO, they are useful in helping you achieve your goals. Most of our customers have one simple goal - increasing sales at the highest possible rate and at the lowest possible cost. If your SEO firm is not focused on that same goal, you will end up wasting money. Over 50% of the companies to whom we make presentations have wasted money in the past on ineffective Internet marketing campaigns. Before you sign anything ask your SEO firm one simple question, "What do you anticipate we will pay in fees for each lead or sale?"

At Reciprocal Consulting, we know over one hundred SEO tricks of the trade. Each one can boost your sales anywhere from 1% to 10%. If we apply a combination of those optimization methods, we boost your sales by compounding the effects of each improvement. The result is a significant improvement in sales. Beyond applying what we already know, Reciprocal Consulting also learns a new sales boosting method every month on average. Sometimes it can be as simple as finding a top notch hosting company who can lower our customer's site's down time. Other times it can be as complicated as applying the conclusions of a newly released market study that shows how to integrate online and offline sales for retailers.

Trade secrets notwithstanding, the biggest improvements we can make to any site are achieved by simply eliminating glaring mistakes which result in wasted money. In over 56% of the companies we write diagnostic reports for, we find glaring errors in their Internet marketing. We find Adwords ads that link to dead pages. We see "doorway pages" that stop search engine robots dead in their tracks. We discover search engine bans caused by unethical optimization attempts. We often see gif images of important text that is unreadable by search robots. We find gaping errors no matter how large the client. We have seen multi-million dollar sites for billion dollar corporations with dead links, slow loading pages, and useless internal search algorithms. Recently a large hospital in Philadelphia was completely unaware that their site had been banned from Google for using tiny text at the top corner of their home pages. One week after we showed them the offending text, the ban was rescinded and their site was at the top of the rankings with a page rank of 7.

We provide end-to-end solutions for complete site design, hosting, and marketing. We offer you a custom report and a map for success no matter what size company you manage. We also provide simple report writing and consulting on a project-by-project basis.

Reciprocal Consulting works with customers who make a total and complete investment in Internet marketing and demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with us as a partner would. We partner with firms who demonstrate commitment and enthusiasm for marketing. We also grant exclusive agreements for our best customers.

Fraudulent clicks on search engine ads are pervasive on the web and they are widely tolerated by most SEO firms. Fraud clicks are not from genuine web surfers. They may be competitors trying to break your budget, or owners of websites where your ads are displayed who get paid a commission for click revenues. Fraud traffic does not convert to leads. It distorts data and rewards bad practices on the web. Other SEO firms may "tolerate" a certain amount of fraud as inevitable. We do not tolerate fraud because it directly impacts the ROI of our campaigns, and ROI is our focus.

We monitor referring links every day in order to eliminate the majority of click fraud. If fraud clicks cannot be eliminated from a particular search engine network, we will lower our bid prices to ensure that that ROI clears the desired hurdle for the campaign. We work to eliminate the source of the fraud and we work to get refunds for clients whenever possible.

Call Jacob Paciorek or John Pike today. We answer our own phones. As owners, we are working in the trenches with our staff and our customers all day, every day.