Many startups use a variety of online marketing efforts to attract new customers and increase their overall sales. As a $16 billion industry, Search Engine Marketing represents an opportunity to connect with customers when they are looking to buy. A fundamental knowledge about the basics of Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click is not enough to remain competitive in the online marketing world. Here are five search marketing trends for every local startup to be aware of:

1. Customer search online influences purchases offline. As reported on TechCrunch, Forrester Research estimates that $917 billion worth of retail sales in 2009 were “Web-influenced.” A total of $155 billion worth of consumer goods were sold online during the same year.
2. Beyond Google: Startups should diversify their paid search. Google attracts the majority of paid search advertising, but Microsoft Bing advertising has had notable gains. A recent report from WebVisible showed that Bing click-through-rates for startups grew 109 percent and Yahoo 123 percent, compared to Google at 32 percent between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the fourth quarter of 2009.
3. Local and mobile searches: With the explosion of smart phones, the web experience has moved beyond the personal computer to mobile devices such as iPhones, Blackberries and iPads. For companies that serve customers in specific regions, it’s essential those businesses are present in local search results.
4. Social media advertising: With over 400 million registered users, Facebook offers an audience that shouldn’t be ignored. Social networks like Facebook provide online marketers advertising opportunities that can tap into new customer segments and complement other paid search programs.
5. Paid search and SEO boost overall SEM performance : According to Vanessa Fox, creator of Google’s Webmaster Central and author of “Marketing in the Age of Google, there have been several studies that show click-through rates, conversion rates and revenue are all higher when both organic and paid listings appear for a search.

If you are looking for more pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, the Google and Bing Content Networks can be great places to start. However, if not properly managed, the content networks can leave you spending a lot of money without giving you the results you want.

You can exclude domains and subdomains from your network in both Google and Bing. Use at least a 30-day date range when reviewing your performance. You may wish to use a 60 or 90-day range depending on your account.

To review and exclude sites from the content network in Google, go to the Networks tab and select show details next to Automatic Placements. From here you can see the sites Google places your ads on based on keywords in your ad groups. Then you can sort the data to find the sites that are converting at a high cost per conversion rate or that are spending without converting.

When you find these sites and want to exclude them, click on the box to the left of the website and select the Exclude Placements button. Confirm if you want to exclude the Campaign or Ad Group level, hit OK and you will see a red Excluded box with the site listed. When you scroll down to the bottom of the Networks page and expand the exclusions section you can see all the exclusions on the account.

In Bing, go to the reports tab and select an Ad Delivery Report from the reports listed on the left. You can review the domains and subdomains in a spreadsheet if you export the data.

When you are ready to add exclusions into your Bing account, click on the Administration tab at the top. In the Account General Information box on the left, there is a section called Blocked Domains. Click on edit and you will be able to add your excluded sites. You only get 500 exclusions, so make sure the sites you exclude are really not performing to your standards.

Adding exclusions into your Google and Bing accounts can help control your overall spend, cost per click and cost per conversion, so it’s important that you regularly review and update your exclusions list.

The Content Network is different from Google’s search so it’s important to know how it works and how to use it to optimize your AdWords for the best results.

First, understand that the network is driven by keywords. AdWords reviews every keyword in an ad group and makes a keyword theme that can be matched to websites within the network that have similar content.

There are two reasons to optimize AdWords for the Content Network. If you’re having success on Google’s Content Network the action can help strengthen your campaign.  If you’re not having success on the content network, you might want to optimize in order to get better results.

When you request a content optimization from your AdWords Rep, it will start a new campaign and create new ad groups within that campaign. Every keyword in your account can be regrouped into these new ad groups. The new content bids can be set for the ad groups, new ads can be written for each group and current content efforts and bids can be paused while a new content optimized campaign is uploaded and launched.

To make your optimization better, remember to revise or completely re-write your ad texts, make sure your destination URLs are correct and adjust your bids accordingly.

The Content Network can increase leads but it also has the potential for a user to end up spending money quickly on irrelevant clicks.

Bing has added a few tools and reports to help advertisers along the way. One thing they’ve addressed is the amount of control advertisers have when deciding where ads will be displayed. Advertisers in the United States or Canada will be able to choose from: All Bing and Yahoo! search networks and syndicated search partners; only Bing and Yahoo! search syndicated partners; or only Bing and Yahoo! sites.

To update settings for your existing campaigns, set the distribution on the ad group level in Bing. This is different from Google where you set the distribution on the campaign level. Click on the campaign then ad group that you want to modify using the interface. Then under the Settings link you will be able to edit your ad distribution selection.

Bing has also created two new reports that will help advertisers manage their accounts. When logged into your account in the interface, under the reports tab you can choose Website Placement Performance and Publisher Performance.

The Website Placement report is similar to Google’s old Placement Performance report. You are given Campaign and Ad Group names along with the metrics for each URL where your ads were shown. Once you have run the report, go into the interface, and add website exclusions to help keep your ads from popping up on irrelevant sites.

The Publisher Performance report is also similar to the Placement Performance report in Google, because it also shows you the sites where your ads appear. This report also gives you data for both Search and Content ad groups.

In Google, it’s a good idea to stay organized by keeping your search and content campaigns separate. By doing this, you will have a better idea of the actual results of each campaign or ad group, and be able to optimize more efficiently.

Remember, you know your account better than anyone else. Listen to advice from your AdWords representative but always do what you think will work best for you.

Search engine optimization plays an important role for businesses, especially startups, hoping to be successful online. With SEO, a website can be ranked at the top of search engine results pages and be visited by more people.

Negative listings or incorrect information online can hurt the reputation of a business and lead to lost revenue. This is something that most startups can’t afford to have. While no one except Google employees know the algorithm for their search engine, it is possible to learn the best known strategies to push your business listing higher.

SEO is a process and your website won’t be on the first page of search engine results overnight. You can do SEO or hire a SEO company to do it for you. If you decide to leave it to the experts, remember that
you are ultimately the boss and you make the final decision about the company you choose to hire. Salespeople who are convincing may not actually represent the product their company is selling so it’s
important to do some research before you speak with a company you may hire.

Before speaking with someone, you should know the basics of what Internet marketing is about and have an idea of what you want your website to become. Always prioritize your goals, don’t settle with generalizations such as “I want more traffic” or “I want to rank higher”. Your goals should have a clear business purpose so that you can effectively measure the return on your marketing investment. Some of our client’s well defined goals:

• “I want more traffic to turn into leads for my sales team to follow up with.”
• “We want our visitors to sign up for the 30-day trial of our web application. Our site is currently converting 2 percent of visitors into trial members. Success if having that conversion rate at 5 percent. “
• “In order to justify my SEO marketing investment, I need to have organic search engine referrals go from 21 percent to 40 percent.”

Some SEO companies specialize in specific niches so look closely for the best match for your business. Check reviews and references for the companies you are interested in hiring and try to avoid SEO companies that use risky practices. If they promise immediate top rankings within days, you might want to reconsider that company. Ask for case studies so you can learn about the successful outcomes of their work.

Remember that the SEO process can take time so finding a SEO company that you can work well with is important. You’ll be glad you found a SEO company that works best for you.

There are four main things to know if you’re interested in lowering your advertising costs on Google AdWords.

First, everyone wants to pay as little as they can for a click but be careful not to set up your first cost-per-click (CPC) too low. By overpaying at the beginning or starting with a high bid, you can expect a high position among other advertisers and that will let you get a better click-through-rate (CTR) as your ad is in a much more noticeable position. Once you have a good CTR and a good Quality Score you can start lowering your bids until you reach your desired CPC.

Another mistake is having too many keywords in a single ad group. This can lead to a poor Quality Score because you cannot create an ad that would be congruent with each and every keyword. Try creating ad groups with only one keyword.

Using AdWord’s broad match or phase match can mean chances are good that people who aren’t searching an exact match won’t click on your ad and this will lower your CTR. Using the exact match instead can help your ad be displayed only when someone is searching exactly for your keyword.

One final mistake to avoid is not having your ads match your keywords. An ad matching a keyword is important to the success of your ad. Using your keyword in the ad copy can help improve the efficiency of your ads.

Are you aware of other common mistakes that people make in their Google Adwords Campaign? If you do, please share them in the comments below.