Microsoft to Help Small Businesses Enter the PPC Market

Today Microsoft announced it's newest "feature" , they are going to offer PPC assistance inside of their Office Live Small Business edition. Personally, I think this is asking for trouble not only for them but for many small businesses who may not be ready for the challenges of adequately managing a PPC campaign. Doesn't this reek of conflict of interest to you? As a consumer I am definitely going to sign up to have my campaigns run by the company who owns the third largest search engine in the world, no questions asked. I am almost guaranteed a fantastic ROI (or so I would think) as it would be stupid of them not to give my campaign a healthy cost per click discount.

The press release says they are going to offer three classes at 19.95 to teach the essentials of SEM and SEO. Wow, I bet my boss would have loved a deal like that when he was spending thousands of dollars training us on SEO and SEM. The reality is that at best these businesses will get a crash course in Live Search, ROI, Adcenter and some basic information on what PPC is. My guess is there won't be real training that covers a/b testing, negative keywords, proper geo targeting by population, the importance of meta data, dynamic landing pages, effective ad copy writing, etc, etc, etc.

If 60 bucks was all it took to become an SEM/SEO expert then every campaign out there would have a fabulous ROI, a 25% conversion rate, and a CPC of under $3.00. The majority of these companies are going to set up their own SEM campaigns and then forget them, which is terrible for the industry as a whole. These businesses need to have a strong, well formed online marketing presence handled by a qualified professional who not only has the time but the skills necessary to coax these campaigns into success. The changes to search engine algorithms change regularly which often sends even the most seasoned SEM/SEO experts scurrying to regain lost conversions. Now imagine the effect one of these changes could have on "Jim the Plumber" who believes the hype that this solution is all he needs to secure his dream of retiring next year. It's Microsoft and they are the good guys... Right? When will Microsoft learn from it's own mistakes?

What A Girl Wants

The new marketing hype is that women buy more cars, and have a larger influence in the car buying process then ever before, but what does that really mean to a dealership? Search Engine Marketers are driving tons of high quality traffic to your website but how do you convert them?

Women buy relationships as much as they buy cars. I remember when my now husband and I were looking for my car I was that salesman's best friend. At every point of contention that my husband offered I countered for the salesman even though it was costing us money! Why? I liked him. He was a little on the cute side and didn't talk to me like I was a "girl". He answered my questions directly and didn't seem bored with us. Now a few years later I hate my car but I would still buy from that same sales guy again.

Another thing women want is safety. We want proof that the car we are buying is going to be safe to put our loved ones in. Most guys think we care more about color (well OK sometimes we do.... burnt orange is *NOT* the new black) then we do about anything else. We can have pretty colors in our home where our children won't be flying down the street at 60 miles an hour separated by just tires and some fiberglass. We would like to go to your website and get all the information we need (safety ratings, community posting area where we can ask information questions, price, color, options, contact us forms) quickly and without a high pressure sales pitch. Oh and if you can share Gram's recipe for monkey rolls that would be great too :)