More and more marketers are finding that Facebook ads are not performing. While companies aren’t abandoning their Facebook brand pages, it seems that advertising on Facebook is not living up to expectations.

GM decided to eliminate their $10,000,000 Facebook advertising campaign calling it ineffective and not significantly helping to sell more products. They’ll still spend about $30M on Facebook related initiatives but zero of that money goes to Facebook.

So GM thinks cars and trucks don’t sell well with Facebook ads. What about more common purchases like games and clothes?

Gamestop invested in a Facebook store but shut it down after less than a year. Many other retailers including Gap Inc, JC Penney and Nordstrom have also closed their Facebook stores. Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research, told Bloomberg that it just didn’t work:

“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop,” Mulpuru said in a telephone interview. “But it was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”

For years, Facebook has been hailed as a fantastic place to grow your business. With so many active users, you’d have to be crazy to disagree, right? Well, maybe, maybe not.

Facebook ad CTR (Click Thru Rates) have dropped over the years and hover around 0.051%. That’s half of the online advertising industry standard 0.1% CTR and is dwarfed by the 0.4% CTR of Google’s ad network.

Where are marketers spending their ad budgets? Google.

Google 2012 revenue for the 1st Quarter was $10.65 Billion. That’s 10x Facebook’s paltry revenue of $1.058 Billion for 2012Q1.

Should you be spending money on Facebook ads? It depends.

If you want to expose your brand to people when they’re not interested in shopping and you want to engage your existing clients, then the answer might be yes.

But if you’re looking for direct sales resulting from your marketing budget, you’ll see a much better ROI from SEO and Google AdWords.

Have you tried Facebook ads? What’s your experience with the performance of Facebook ads?

Nashville Web Design

4/31/12 6:30p Art Institute of Nashville; White Hat SEO

The bottom line: Quality Search Engine Optimization can significantly impact your website’s Google rankings. Google says White Hat SEO can improve a website and can be good for both users and search engines. In this meeting, we’ll discuss SEO best practices and SEO tips that come directly from Google.

Google has developed a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide to help webmasters improve their websites. Google says you should simplify, organize, be relevant and unique, and always be user-friendly. We’ll review Google’s SEO guidelines and explain the best way to optimize your site’s structure and content.

At every meeting of the Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group, we discuss what you can do to help your website rank better in Google and the other search engines. After our presentation, we’ll be doing a site review of a website belonging to one of our members. Want to have your website reviewed? Contact me with a few details about your website & we’ll get your site on the schedule.

Finally, we’ll close the evening with an open Q & A discussion of SEO and all things related to Internet Marketing.

Location
Art Institute of Nashville, 100 Centerview Drive, Nashville, TN, 1st Floor Activities Room. Ai-Nashville offers a 1 year diploma, an Associates Degree and a Bachelors Degree in Web Design and Development. I teach an Internet Marketing class to seniors and Ai has offered their location for our meetup.

Directions
Ai-Nashville is the large white building at I-40 and Stewarts Ferry. Follow the Argosy/Art Institute signs from Stewarts Ferry to McCrory Creek Rd. Then 1st left onto the campus. Park and enter through the front. Get a visitors badge from security. Our meeting is in the 1st Floor Activities Room. Please show up early as we’ve got a packed schedule!

What: What Hat SEO: Optimization Tips from Google
When: Thursday, May 31, 2012 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Art Institute of TN?
Cost: Free (with no sales pitches, just show up & learn with us)
RSVP: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group
Join us the last Thursday night of each month to discuss and learn Internet Marketing.
Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/
Even if you can’t make it to this meetup, you can signup there to receive alerts of upcoming meetups.

Founded in 2010, the Nashville SEO Group is a free Special Interest Group (SIG) that meets every month to discuss Inbound Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Led by Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, the Nashville SEO Group welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about how Search Engine Optimization works.

Nashville Web Design

4/26/12 6:30p Art Institute of Nashville, Make Money With Google AdSense

Got a website? Got visitors? You can make money with Google AdSense!

Join us for the April Nashville SEO and Internet Marketing meetup on 4/26 @ 6:30 as we discuss How to Make Money With Google AdSense.

RSVP Here: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group

At Podcamp Nashville, I shared “How I Got Google to Pay Me $150,000” (click there to see the video) with over 90 people in a standing room only session #pcn12. I told the story of how AdSense was a key part in helping me leave the world of full time employment and start doing Web Design and Internet Marketing full time for myself. 10 years later, 2 the Top Design is a growing, thriving web design and inbound marketing company in Nashville.

A lot of the people who attended the Podcamp Nashville session were trying to learn how to make money online. Some said they had been burned with get rich quick schemes or they just didn’t know how to get started with AdSense.

Podcamp sessions are very short so we didn’t have time to get into the details of how you can make money with AdSense. This meetup will get into the specifics of how you can use AdSense to make money online.

You’ll learn how AdSense works, how to implement AdSense and how to maximize your income from AdSense. Ross Jones will also share the lessons that he learned when he was temporarily banned from Google. It cost him about $10,000! Listen up so you don’t make the same mistakes.

In the last year, I’ve had several one-on-one sessions with Product Specialists from the Google AdSense team. I’ll share what I’ve learned about how Google suggests to optimize your AdSense earnings and how they expect AdSense publishers to follow their quality guidelines.

Already using AdSense? We’ll discuss how you can make even more money with Google AdSense.

At every meeting, we discuss what you can do to help your website rank better in Google and the other search engines. After our presentation, we’ll be doing a site review of a website belonging to one of our members. Want to have your website reviewed? Send me an email with a few details about your website & we’ll get your site on the schedule.

Finally, we’ll close the evening with an open Q & A discussion of SEO and all things related to Internet Marketing.

Location
Art Institute of Nashville, 100 Centerview Drive, Nashville, TN, 1st Floor Activities Room
Ai Nashville offers a 1 yr diploma, an Associates Degree and a Bachelors Degree in Web Design. I teach an Internet Marketing class to seniors and Ai has offered their location for our meetup.

Directions
Ai-Nashville is the large white building at I-40 and Stewarts Ferry. Follow the Argosy/Art Institute signs from Stewarts Ferry to McCrory Creek Rd. Then 1st left onto the campus. Park and enter through the front. Get a visitors badge from security. Our meeting is in the 1st Floor Activities Room. Please show up early as we’ve got a packed schedule!

Details
What: How to Make Money with Google AdSesnse
When: Thursday, April 26, 2012, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Art Institute of Nashville, 100 Centerview Drive, 1st Floor Activities Room
Cost: Free (with no sales pitches, just show up & learn with us)
RSVP: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group
Join us Thursday night to discuss and learn Internet Marketing.
Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/
Even if you can’t make it to this meetup, you can signup there to get alerts of upcoming meetups.
Founded in 2010, the Nashville SEO Group is a free Special Interest Group (SIG) that meets every month to discuss Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Led by Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, the Nashville SEO SIG welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about how Search Engine Optimization works.

Nashville Web Design

After meeting Jonathan Taylor and Russell Portland at PodCamp Nashville #pcn12, they invited me to join them on BIB Podcast.

Jonathan and Russell had driven down from Knoxville for the April 14 Podcamp Nashville event. They caught both my morning session: How I Got Google to Pay Me $150,000 and the impromptu session where I did quick 5 minute SEO Audits of about 5 websites. One of the SEO audits was for one of their friends, David Dutton.

Later at the bar, we compared notes on how their AdSense sites had taken recent hits and they showed me a really slick wireless microphone and auto-rotating camera stand from Swivl. (Sidenote: the Swivl microphone and the automatic follow camera stand blew me away. I’ll be purchasing a Swivl to be my personal cameraman soon.)

I really enjoyed talking with them and we arranged to have me be part of their Beginner Internet Business Podcast show.

In the interview, we discuss:

• How my background in SEO helped me get started in the Google AdSesne program
• How I got banned from AdSense for several months
• How I got un-banned from AdSense
• The key ingredient to getting your website ranked well
• Whether you really can Make Money with Google AdSense today
• The one best WordPress SEO Plugin that I use on every website

Jonathon and Russell also run Meetup Groups in Knoxville so we discussed my experience with running a Meetup for SEO in Nashville. Give a listen to my interview on BIB Podcast and check out their weekly shows!

Nashville Web Design

At Podcamp Nashville, I presented “How I Got Google to Pay Me $150,000″ which showed how I’ve used the Google AdSense program to earn some nice extra revenue over the recent years. Google AdSense was pivotal in helping me leave my day job and start my own company.

Want to learn more about Google AdSense? We’ll get into the details at our next SEO Nashville Group Meeting.

RSVP to the April 26 Meeting Here

Over 90 people signed up for the presentation and the session was standing room only. In this video, I go through the presentation and tell the story of how AdSense helped me to quit my day job and start making a living as an Internet Entrepreneur.

Later in the day at Podcamp Nashville, I was honored to have Allen Rodgers of TxtNation.tv tell me that my 2 sessions were the most influential sessions that he had been to all day. See his comment here: http://youtu.be/HmcDlUeC42s

Learn more about Google AdSense at our next SEO Nashville Group Meeting.

RSVP to the April 26 Meeting Here

Nashville Web Design

Here’s a great chart from Dr Mark J Perry showing how newspaper advertising revenue has simply been destroyed in the last few years. According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper ad revenue grew steadily from 1950 to 2000 reaching an inflation adjusted max of about $64 billion. Since 2000, print ad revenue has taken a nosedive to $21 billion last year.

Why the drop in print ads? I think it’s simply that the Internet has changed the way people get their information and ad revenue has moved accordingly.

One business owner summed it up this way: “I get very little response out of advertising in a newspaper.”

Another commentor said: “The man to blame for this is Craig Newmark. Newspaper ad revenue fell off the cliff when Craigslist really hit its stride.”

While there may be other reasons, these 2 comments carry the majority of the answer.

First, if advertisers can get a much better return on investment elsewhere, they won’t spend money on newspaper ads. Second, if classified ads perform better on Craigslist for free, why pay the newspaper?

If you’re a small business owner, it makes more sense to invest in a good website and an effective Internet Marketing campaign than traditional print advertising.

Nashville Web Design

A huge part of SEO is putting the Right Words in the Right Places. We’ve created this Perfect SEO Infographic to help you know those “Right Places” where you should put the right words for Onsite SEO.

What are the Right Places to put those Right Words?

• Meta Description
• Page File Name
• Page Title
• Page Headline
• Inside Body Content
• Bold & Italicized Text
• Image File Names
• Image Alt Text / Attribute
• Video File Name

Don’t waste your time on the meta keyword tag. Google has ignored meta keywords since 1997.

Get the PDF here.

Want to embed this infographic on your blog or website?

Just copy the code and paste it into your website.

<p><a href="http://2thetopdesign.com/perfect-seo-infographic-right-words-in-the-right-place/"><img src="http://2thetopdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/perfect-seo-infographic-640.jpg" border="0" alt="Perfect SEO" /></a></p><p><a href="http://2thetopdesign.com/perfect-seo-infographic-right-words-in-the-right-place/>Perfect SEO Infographic</a> by <a href="http://2thetopdesign.com/">2theTop Web Design</a></p>

Nashville Web Design

Exactly how much is Google worth? In 2010, we know that Google had $29.3 billion in revenue. 97% of this comes from advertising which is primarily the Google AdWords pay per click program.

BusinessMBA.org has a great infographic detailing Google by the Numbers. This shows:
Google had $29.3 Billion in revenue in 2010
Google’s revenue was more than the GDP of the 28 poorest comtries combined
$2.5 Billion came from mobile ads.
Most expensive AdWords categories are: Insurance, Loans, Mortgage, Attorney and Credit
Google gets over 1 Billion unique visitors each month. That’s 1 out of every 7 people on Earth.
If you base how much Google is worth on their 2010 revenue and apply a very conservative multiple of 4. Google is worth $117.2 Billion. That’s well below their current market cap of $199 Billion.

From: BusinessMBA.org

Nashville Web Design

2/23/12 6:30p Art Institute of Nashville; Social Signals in Search

The bottom line: What happens in social media affects search engine rankings. In this meetup, we will discuss the social signals in search. We will learn how social media is connected to search.

The major search engines have made a commitment to social media. What you do on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ factors into ranking algorithms. It is not just your social media interactions, but also your site. In this session, we will provide tips for webmasters to make their site more accessible and “social media friendly”. From extensions to conversation, we will discuss the integration of social and search.

With the recent announcement about Google+ integrating into Google search results the impact is even stronger. However, how does that affect you? What does that mean to social media? Learn social tips that can help you with a stronger search presence.

Local search and social expert, John Ellis of Crescent Interactive (http://www.crescentinteractive.com) will lead the discussion. Crescent Interactive is an online marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing and social media. John is a frequent industry contributor to the Nashville technical and marketing community, including leading PodCamp and BarCamp Nashville.

In addition to John’s presentation, we’ll also be doing a group review of a website, brainstorming ideas on how the website & company could better market themselves. Want us to review your website? Let me know about your situation and we’ll get you on the schedule.

Finally, we’ll close the evening with an open Q & A discussion of SEO and all things related to Internet Marketing.

What: Social Signals in Search
When: Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Art Institute of TN
Cost: Free (with no sales pitches, just show up & learn with us)
RSVP: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group
Join us Thursday night to discuss and learn Internet Marketing.
Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/
Even if you can’t make it to this meetup, you can signup there to get alerts of upcoming meetups.
Founded in 2010, the Nashville SEO Group is a free Special Interest Group (SIG) that meets every month to discuss Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Led by Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, the Nashville SEO SIG welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about how Search Engine Optimization works.

Nashville Web Design

For many AdSense publishers, getting banned from AdSense can be a nightmare. Google click revenue has lined the pockets of millions of web owners since its launch in 2003. And if you’re one of the few who is actually making decent money, getting banned from AdSense for invalid clicks might be the death knell for that revenue stream.

According to Google Employee AdWordsEng Laura in this AdWords Support thread, it’s most likely that you’ve been banned for clicking on yout own ads or for encouraging others to click on your ads.

I don’t think there’s any connection between AdWords suspensions and AdSense ones. AdSense “invalid clicks” suspensions are usually just that: publishers clicking on their own ads or encouraging their visitors to do so. If you think you didn’t violate that policy, contact AdWords support.

Props to Barry Schwartz of SERoundtable for pointing me to that quote.

The good news is that you can file a reinclusion request if you’ve been kicked out of AdSense:
AdSense Invalid Clicks Reinclusion Request Form

Back in the day, one of my sites was banned from AdSense for encouraging clicks and it was difficult to find reliable information and the reinclusion request form. Since then, Google’s made it alot easier to  get info on why you were banned and what to do about it. But if you’ve flagrantly violated their terms with invalid clicks, it’s probably time to give up on AdSense and look for other forms of monetization like affiliate marketing.

Nashville Web Design