Sunday, September 30, 2007

Searching For A New Way To Market Your Business

When it comes to attracting customers, many small businesses rely on their annual Yellow Pages advertising buy. But these days, consumers are using the Internet more and more to search for local services and products, so being visible in search results is crucial for small businesses. But tackling search-engine marketing is still a bit of a mystery for many people.

What Is Search-Engine Marketing?

Search-engine marketing involves a variety of tactics to get a business listed within search results pages. Search engines typically display two types of search results-natural and sponsored. Natural results are generated by a search engine's own Web-scouring technology and are displayed in the main body of the page. Making changes to a Web site to help improve its ranking in natural search results can be a cumbersome process, which many companies choose to outsource to specialists.

Sponsored results, on the other hand, allow advertisers to pay to be displayed when people type certain words into a search engine. For example, if you own a restaurant in Portland, you would probably like your restaurant to appear in search results when people type "Portland restaurant" into a search engine. Sponsored results are usually displayed at the very top, bottom and right-hand side of the page and are labeled as advertisements. The process of getting into sponsored results is called search advertising or keyword advertising.

Achieving Positive Results

"We use keyword advertising and would not think about living without it," says David Knox of Lightstreams, Inc., a small business in California. "The return on investment with keyword advertising to date is over 25:1."

Indeed, keyword advertising is among the most cost-effective forms of marketing. The average search-engine lead costs just 29 cents, compared to 50 cents for e-mail, $1.18 for Yellow Pages, $2.00 for Internet banner ads and $9.94 for direct mail (U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, "The Golden Search," March 2003). Search ads can also be geographically targeted to reach the most relevant areas, thereby maximizing a budget.

Making it Work for You

"Many small businesses feel that keyword advertising is a complicated and expensive process, but with adManager it can be simple and affordable," said Baris Cetinok, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft Office Live.

adManager allows users to create keyword ads, establish a monthly budget and track the results. Small businesses can have their keyword ads appear on both MSN and Ask Sponsored Listings to reach an audience of more than 150 million potential customers.
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
By: Wendy Mitchell

Microsoft Office Live (www.officelive.com)-a service that helps small businesses take, promote and manage their businesses online-offers a simple, do-it-yourself tool called adManager beta for creating keyword advertising campaigns.

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Anyone Can Use Air Charter

Private air charter was once thought of as being in the realms of the rich and famous. Only very wealthy individuals could afford to book their own aircraft and fly around the world, right? Wrong, private air charter is increasingly becoming something that more and more people can afford. For a special occasion such as a wedding abroad, or for a group of friends wanting to attend a sporting event, private air charter might just be the lynchpin to a fantastic experience.

Here Jane, a seasoned traveller, tells us about her experience of private air charter and how she has now converted to this form of travel for those special occasions that she wants to celebrate in style.

I remember seeing V-One advertised in some lifestyle magazines and thought how cool it would be to do something like that myself. I thought that this kind of VIP luxury air travel was completely out of reach for the likes of me. I was really surprised when I contacted V-One as it isnt as expensive as I thought! Whatever the occasion, I can really recommend chartering your own airplane, especially if you want a pure luxury experience.

The first trip I did was from Glasgow down to Cornwall in May of last year. It was my boyfriends 30th birthday and he was always telling me how much he wanted to go to Rick Steins Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. So as a present, I organised a jet to collect us and two friends from Glasgow Airport and fly us down there. The flight was only an hour which meant we had the whole day in Padstow, and time for an amazing dinner at the restaurant in the evening. We flew back the next day. My boyfriend was absolutely speechless and really loved every minute.

The other great flight was my best friend, Kates, hen party in Spain. Shed heard me going on about the Cornwall trip and how easy it was to arrange and asked me to look into hiring an aircraft to fly us all to Barcelona. There were eight of us to share the cost so it wasnt too expensive either. A really stylish looking Lear jet took us out on the Friday afternoon for a two- night trip. The icing on the cake was when I asked the guys at V-One to arrange for a car to get us from the VIP terminal at the airport to our hotel and they set up two black Range Rovers to collect us!

When I was surfing the web checking out all the options for the trips, V-One were the only company who looked like they could offer the personal level of service I wanted. Until Id spoken to them, I thought that hiring my own aircraft was a luxury only the rich and famous could afford but now I know different. V-One can get you any type of aircraft you can think of and fly you anywhere in the world. Its all so easy, there are no check-ins or queuing for your baggage you just turn up and fly!
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
By: V-One Aviation Air Charter

www.v1fly.com/press-20-03-06-anyone-can-use-air-charter.htm www.v1fly.com

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