While digging deep into PPC campaigns, search marketing professionals understand that it’s imperative to look at quality scores. A quality score is how Google rewards relevant and well-performing keywords in an ad group, specifically using factors such as click-through rate, landing page relevancy and other criteria. Keywords that have a quality score above 7 receive more impressions, higher positions and CPC discounts. Yes, discounts! Up to 30%!

But what about those keywords that score 6 or lower? Because they are not as relevant, these keywords are penalized with fewer impressions and lower positions. But the harsh and eye-opening news is about the CPC penalties: you could be paying up to 600% more for each click.

There is even more bad news. Low quality scores do not stop at the keyword level. These low quality scores bleed into the campaign, affecting the entire account.

PPC is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing effort. It involves serious management. Without it, you will lose money – resources that could be used to make your Internet marketing work harder for you. Even if a keyword has a passable quality score of 7, why settle for a 12.5% discount? Use those savings to test more options, which could lead to doubling or even close to tripling your discounts. Given that approach, the long-term impact of optimizing one single keyword across a campaign can be quite worthwhile.

Not bad for one little word.

A month in and I’m still here. That’s a good sign, right? Because if these guys couldn’t cope with my feisty bossiness passion for search, I think I’d be out on the street.

My job here is to bring clients’ search marketing efforts to a whole new level. Not a small feat since the MicroArts team has been doing it for years. But we’re ready to put it into overdrive.

How? Well a number of ways…

1) First and foremost, we take clients’ business goals into account. If our efforts are not meeting your business goals, we need to start over.

2) Our ability to work directly with clients is paramount.

3) We deliver on ROI. We need to justify and surpass monthly investments.

4) We can demonstrate main facets of search marketing: SEO (on-site and off-site factors), link building and PPC.

5) Understanding that SEO and social media are no longer mutually exclusive: tweets, comments, status updates, photos, videos are all content that strongly impact search results.

6) SEO needs to be a partner in site redesigns and site migrations. A single new page of content is an optimization opportunity.

7) As a result of numbers 5 and 6, SEO and content development go hand-in-hand. Your content strategy is the foundation of your site: there is no doubt that an excellent content strategy will deliver search and social results. As Kristina Halverson mentioned on her blog BrainTraffic, “Numbers don’t lie.”

Here’s a look at Google search results for “social media” over the past few years:

2005: 9,150,000
2006: 41,600,000
2007: 165,000,000
2008: 359,000,000
2009: 1,230,000,000

Here’s a look at Google search results for “content strategy”:

2006: 5,930,000
2007: 8,340,000
2008: 137,000,000
2009: 337,000,000

Content strategy is pretty much on the same path as social media was three years ago. And what do search engines look at? Your content.

Search marketing is ongoing and not a one-time engagement. We can set it up and implement, but the real work starts once the program is up and running. Reviewing and analyzing results, modifying search campaigns on performance and crushing the competitive landscape is not a one shot deal. It takes time. But it’s awesome when it comes together.

9) We love what we do, and it shows. We have been blogging, speaking and sharing our expertise for years. Personally, I firmly believe the more you share, the more you get back. Luckily, Peter feels the same way. So our clients are not just getting our expertise; they’re tapping into our network, too.

If you have a question about Internet marketing, fire away. Challenge us. It’s how we get better.