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MenuHow do I get started in SEM with no actual experience in it? I want to do some Lead Gen for other businesses.
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Here is how I'd suggest you learn SEM:
#1 - Open a Google Adwords Account (You can search for free credit / promo codes) online and play around with it.
#2 - Review all of Google's training material: https://support.google.com/adwords/?hl=en&page=examstudy.cs#topic=3119071
#3 - When you finish Google's training materials, then read about Adwords on the web. Here is one good resource and you can Google for more:
http://www.wordstream.com/adwords-for-dummies
#4 - Sign up for an affiliate network (e.g. Commission Junction or Linkshare) and use your free credit to promote another company's offer.
#5 - Once you feel comfortable with Adwords, consider building out your own Lead Gen websites or selling leads to existing affiliate networks (e.g. Motive Interactive or Integrate.com)
#6 - If you'd like to learn from someone else, find an entry-level job at an agency: http://www.indeed.com/q-PPC-entry-level-jobs.html
#7 - Another good way to get good at PPC if you work in an in-house marketing role is to hire someone to audit or manage your own account for a period of time so you can learn how they think and what they do.
#8 - One word of caution: Google takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Their default settings make it very easy to waste a lot of money so really make sure you know what you are doing before you spend too much money.
Read some industry blogs like semoz.com or searchengineland.com. Then, I would say try to get your own site built up and generating leads. One step at a time.
Work for a small SEM agency or at a company with experienced marketers to learn the basics. Or, start by advertising other people's products as an affiliate.
There are some great suggestions here if you want to learn things on your own. But if you want to just focus on client acquisition or want to keep it lean/simple initially - just find a good partner/reseller who provides SEM services. It's better to spend money paying for SEM services if that's not your core strength and play with your strengths in other parts of business.
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How do I structure an offer for link building strategy/plan and implementation?
The way we usually do it it: Objective A,B,C. Action A, Result A, Action B, Result B. You want to make sure you're clear about your objectives and the client knows what success will look like weeks/months from now. Simple Headers and bullet-points are enough. This is a good example of really simple and useful document - http://webmeup.com/downloads/seo-checklist.pdf Also, don't forget about some conclusions, where you basically just wrap up everything, in case the client isn't patient enough to read the whole document. Good luck!SA
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What are your thoughts on setting up over 50,000 ad groups into 1 campaign (each ad group contains modified broad and exact match types) to test?
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I'm building a methodology for building keyword lists which have direction relation to search intents + stages of a buying cycle/funnel.
We have an overlapping but non-competing interest in this area. What I'd recommend is ... skip the books or guides on Google AdWords or the Bing equivalent. You've already read enough, and your question is framed with enough specific detail that you're obviously no slouch and probably past the beginner stage, I'd say. Reading guides would provide steadily diminishing returns. DIY time! Brainstorm keyword ideas. Research the search stats. Once you feel you've covered all the relevant search queries and prioritized them, then it's time to run experiments. That's why I say skip the books. At a certain stage, you have to leave biology textbooks behind and go dissect some frogs or observe the live frogs (your customers?) in nature. Nothing is more empirical than running an efficient SEM campaign. You know this. Rules are starting points to b left behind in this space. Books and guides might provide some preliminary tips (at best) or be authoritarian (at worst). Just arrange your spending alternatives as hypotheses. Measure which strategy performs better using some carefully planned A/B testing over a statistically significant period of time / impressions / clicks. Set aside the generalizations. No author will give you what you need because you're already thinking of your problem at a granular level of detail. Brainstorm. Plan tests. Measure. Rinse & repeat. If you want to put 2 heads together, I might be able to throw out some extra ideas. But you don't necessarily need another person.JP
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What was your experience with SEM Management Tools (like Marin Software, Kenshoo, AdCore, Acquisio, etc)?
I can discuss having done indepth research before we select Marin softwareSD
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What's the best resource for learning SEM/PPC bid/budget management of 100,000 to 1,000,000 keyword AdWords accounts?
Probably the training from Google for the Google Partners Exam heres a link to more information: https://support.google.com/partners/answer/3153810?hl=enJG
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