Increase Your Search Marketing Leverage

There’s no doubt about it! Pay per click search engine marketing is a time-intensive career. Look at the Wall Street trading floor. Pretty hectic, right? Now, consider a 24 hour, 7 day a week Wall Street. That’s pay per click in a nutshell. All of us in pay per click have faced the challenge of time. We never have enough time to get it all done. Moreover, our job often permits very little personal time which is just not sustainable in my opinion. Today, I’m going to go through 10 tactical tips with the goal of saving you time immediately. In my opinion, the 40 hour work week is not only possible in pay per click, but it’s preferred if all 40 of those hours are passionate, high energy, and high leverage.

Tip 1: Outsource Manual Work, Spend Your Time on PPC Process

Cube Standing Out

There are certain routine manual (yet extremely valuable) PPC processes that can be well defined with the right manager who’s passionate about good documentation. Leverage the global business economy to find cost-effective resources to focus on your well-defined processes. This is quite possibly the best way to quickly gain more leverage for your entire pay per click team! (Side Note: Documentation is a cornerstone of solid pay per click people management. I’ve written a few hundred pages of documentation during my various gigs and have gotten tremendous leverage through documentation. What’s the ultimate leverage? It’s when you can leave the equation and your team continues to function smoothly thanks to your flawless documentation.)

Tip 2: Build, Buy, and Leverage Free SEM Technology

I learned this very early on: Automation and leverage through technology is everything. In my early SEM days, I spent half my time product managing complex internal bidding and campaign management solutions. The good news: Times have changed and the off the shelf solutions are absolutely amazing and better than what most organizations could build internally these days. Moreover, the desktop editors available today make free what many companies have invested significant time and money building. The end verdict: Stay on top of the technology and leverage it to your advantage.

Tip 3: Reports and Alerts Are Your Friend

Tired of cycling through all of your campaigns and adgroups every morning just to make sure everything’s ok? Even more tired of knowing that your entire team is doing this as well? Invest some serious time building reports and alerts. While you’ll spend more time up front, it scales rather quickly. Another tip: While you’ll be able to leverage free alerting and reporting (Google’s alerts are great), I highly recommend talking to your internal Engineering and operations teams for more robust intra-day solutions.

Tip 4: Leverage Your Search Engine Reps

I view my Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft reps as extensions of my internal pay per click team! When I report on my team’s priorities, I include my reps side-by-side with my internal team. Make sure your search engine reps always have a full meaningful queue of work and your leverage will reach a new level.

Tip 5: Get Sleep and Exercise: Make Every Hour High Impact

I’m a huge proponent of the 40 hour work week. It’s absolutely amazing what you can accomplish when you’re firing on all cylinders. How do you accomplish this? Get sleep and exercise. You may even want to consider a personal trainer. My wife and I see our trainer regularly and it’s one of the best investments we’ve ever made!

Tip 6: Proper People Management and Delegation Is Key

What’s the number one pitfall I’ve seen in the world of search engine marketing people management? Improper delegation. Why? In my opinion, there are two reasons. First, most SEM people managers are young and aren’t formally trained in management and delegation. Second, we’ll often face such complex problems that it’s “easier” to solve it ourselves. As someone who takes people management very seriously, I encourage you to delegate and invest time training your team. Otherwise, you’ll rob your team the ability to learn and you’ll rob yourself the opportunity to manage and leverage your time.

Tip 7: Prioritize Your Queue of SEM Work Effectively

You arrive in the office a ton of stuff is thrown your way. You just jump into the action and start doing stuff. Sound familiar? This is a very common scenario in the world of search engine marketing because our job is incredibly real time and complex. While it may sound counter-intuitive, I strongly encourage you to spend at least 10% of your time planning. The ramifications on your productivity and prioritization will yield incredible results.

Tip 8: Audit Your Time Allocation Regularly

I’ll admit I don’t follow this SEM productivity tip too often. I’ll perhaps audit my time allocation once every year or two, typically when I find myself in a rut. My advice to you: Invest the time in this one. Seriously! Keep a log of everything you do throughout your workday for two weeks. You’ll oftentimes be absolutely amazed at the stuff you’re wasting time on and how little time you’re spending on the important stuff.

Tip 9: Leverage Every Excel Shortcut Imaginable

Excel shortcuts really add up. If you can save second here and there throughout your day, all of the sudden you could find yourself saving 15 minutes or even a half hour per day. That’s some serious time. Moreover, you just can’t call yourself an expert search engine marketer without leveraging every Excel shortcut out there! Side note: If you’re managing a team of pay per clickers, this is one of the first things you will want to teach them because it immediately streamlines their work by getting rid of the tedious stuff.

Tip 10: No SEM Project Should Take More Than 2 Hours

Rewind 5 years, Ian’s first day of work in search engine marketing. I received some incredibly valuable advice that day: never spend more than 2 hours on any analysis. There are exceptions to every rule. However I strive every single day to hold myself to this rule. The rationale: If something’s taking more than 2 hours, it should be automated, outsourced, completed by someone who can do it quicker, or approached in an entirely different way.

Bonus Tip 11: Change Your Location of Work

I really enjoy my current job because I’m splitting my time between two different offices. This change of location is really helping my productivity and focus by keeping things fresh and interesting. My advice to you: make sure to change things up. If you’ve got a flexible employer, try to spend some time working on your laptop at Starbucks one or two days a week (a strategy that really helped at my last search marketing job)!

Image of Cube Standing Out © iStockPhoto – fpm

Celebrate Your PPC Team’s Success

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 7 10

What gets me most excited about my career in search engine marketing each and every morning? There really are a variety of factors including responsibility, excitement, and making lots of money (both individually and for the company). However, above and beyond all of this is the great thrill of managing and mentoring my team. I’m passionate about people management. More than anything, I measure my personal success in terms of my team’s success (morale, retention, promotions, results, and overall career success). In that spirit, today’s post focuses on one of my favorite people management tips: celebrating success. A lot of SEM team managers overlook this simple, yet highly effective technique.

Celebrate Your SEM Team’s Success

Fireworks

Search engine marketing is just like sales. As pay per click campaign managers, we’re on the battlefield each and every day, driving revenue and margin. Things can get a little crazy. When things are going well the thrill is unparalleled. When things are not going well (especially in our current economy), morale can be low and this is where the strong people manager can make a huge difference.

My advice to you: Please, make a conscious effort to celebrate you team’s success. When someone does a great job, take a step back and really highlight their success.

Why Celebrate Pay Per Click Success?

The answer to this question is really simple. Celebration of success is the ultimate motivator. Just think about it. What happens when you get a compliment? It’s motivating and empowering. Similarly, when you celebrate someone’s success, they feel a charge of energy. The success is addictive and they immediately want to work hard and achieve more success. The feedback will also encourage your broader team because they will want to get congratulated on future projects.

Another way of looking at this: What happened when you got your last raise and promotion (perhaps when you got promoted from PPC Associate to SEM Manager)? If you’re like me, you started working even harder because you were so fired up by the positive reinforcement. Now, celebrating success isn’t going to give the effect of a promotion, but you can certainly think of it along those lines.

Why Does It Work?

I especially like this PPC management tip because most managers don’t subscribe to this model. We’ve all had a few bad managers in our careers. The worst managers take credit for all of their team’s work. However, when the team fails, they blame the team and not themselves. If you’re a good manager, you never take credit for your team’s work. You give all the credit to the people doing the work. What do you take credit for? Training, managing, and enabling the team to do such great work! Most likely, the people who work for you have had bad managers at one point in their careers. If you start giving credit where credit is due, you’ll really stand out and build loyalty and trust for life.

How Do You Celebrate Your Team’s SEM Success?

There are many ways to celebrate. By far, my favorite is sending out an email to the entire team while including key executives. I spell out the specifics of the project, the impact, and focus on the fact that the project was driven by XYZ team member. This is a really great strategy because it highlights successful members of your team in front of the senior management team, something that might not happen on a day-to-day basis (especially at a larger organization). Another idea: Why not have team lunches or dinners (on the company) to celebrate successes?

A Closing Word of Caution on Celebrating Your Team’s Success

This is an extremely powerful tool. I’d like to close out with two words of caution, however. First, don’t go overboard. As with any strategy, if you leverage it too much it quickly becomes old and loses its impact. Second, please remember to also give your team constructive feedback. You don’t want to become the manager that always congratulates but never provides guidance and feedback when things aren’t perfect. One of the things that your team will appreciate even more than celebration is candid, constructive, and critical feedback. From my experience, most people in pay per click search engine marketing want to grow their careers rapidly. This is the exact type of person that craves regular constructive and critical feedback on how to improve!

Image of Fireworks © iStockPhoto – michieldb

Dress Up For Your Search Marketing Job

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 5 6

While today’s post really applies to all jobs, it’s especially applicable to those of us in the search engine marketing industry because we all tend to be young. Just look at me, I’m only 28 but I’m already a Director and have been managing people for over 4 years! I’ll jump right to the punch line: If you’re in the search engine marketing industry, invest in a solid business wardrobe and dress for success. The benefits of doing so are huge.

Why I’m Writing This Post

Business Suit

I really like today’s post because it’s high leverage. You don’t have to work harder. You don’t need to acquire new skills. You don’t need to stay at the office late into the night. You only need to focus on your attire and enjoy the benefits of this low effort, high leverage strategy!

I also feel this post is very appropriate for those of us in PPC because the tendency is not dressing for success. It’s nobody’s fault. Most people in PPC tend to be young. As an extension of our college days, we’re used to either dressing casually in a t-shirt and jeans or, for the more stylish, wearing “clubbing” attire. I’ve seen it time and time again: Managers and even senior managers showing up to work in their Friday night clubbing attire. Every time I see it I know I’m going to win the competition because of my strategy around dressing for success.

The Benefits of Dressing For Success In Search Engine Marketing

Do you want to get more respect from your superiors, peers, and reports? How about faster promotions? How about more face time with executives? How about more opportunities to present? These are just a few of the benefits of picking the right attire for your SEM job.

Just think about it: You’re only in your 20s but are already in a high powered management position, potentially overseeing multi-million dollar search marketing budgets. This is quite a lot of responsibility early on in you career. (Side note: This is one of the reasons why I’m such a big advocate of SEM as a career. There’s no other path to so much responsibility at such a young age.) Now, how do you show the company, your manager, your peers, and your reports that you’re serious about all this responsibility? You dress for success. When you dress for success, you immediately inspire confidence. You immediately gain respect. You immediately catapult your SEM career to the next level.

How Do You Dress For Success In Search Marketing?

So, I’ve convinced you. Now, how do you dress for success? First, I’ll start off with the list of things to avoid. Please avoid “clubbing attire”. You know what I mean: tight jeans, tight shirts, loud colors, clothes with glitter on them, etc. I realize that a lot of these weekend pieces are expensive. However, price has nothing to do with it. No matter how expensive your clubbing clothes, please save them for the weekend. Next, you’ll want to avoid casual clothes such as shorts, jeans, and t-shirts. Unless you’re frequenting the office on the weekend to get a little extra work done, there’s no good reason to wear casual clothes. Last, you’ll want to avoid wearing the same outfit over and over. Establish a solid wardrobe with a good amount of variety. Otherwise, you might get categorized as the person with only one outfit.

Now, let’s discuss what you should wear to your SEM job. It’s actually quite simple. Pick classy, conservative clothes. Long sleeve dress shirts and slacks are optimal. The fit should be perfect, not too tight and not too loose. If your office is a bit more formal, wear a sports coat or suit. As a great guide, understand what your boss wears. Leverage that knowledge to understand how formal you should go. Important disclaimer: Never “one up” your boss. It’s important show respect where respect is due, use your intelligence to dress at your level.

This Is All Psychological

So I know you’re probably sitting there right now thinking this all sounds superficial and that nobody’s sitting there consciously analyzing your wardrobe. You’re absolutely right! However, this strategy has nothing to do with the conscious and everything to do with the subconscious. We are all humans and we judge each other subconsciously each and every day. Stand out from the crowd by dressing for success in your PPC career and everyone will immediately take subconscious notice. This is one of the easiest ways to rapidly grow your authority and responsibility. Moreover, it’s an awesome career tip because few people are following this tip in pay per click, creating an opportunity for you!

Image of Business Suit © iStockPhoto – SeanShot

Grow Your SEM Career With LinkedIn

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 4 15

I get search engine marketing job opportunities on LinkedIn almost every single day! Let me say that again: Almost every single day, I get emails via LinkedIn from recruiters who want to offer me jobs at various companies. Let me say that yet another way: I have never actively applied for a job in the last 5 years (except my first job out of college). Three consecutive search engine marketing jobs all better than the last have “come to me” via LinkedIn, despite the economy being rough. This could be you too! There is no reason you cannot be in my shoes. Today, I’m looking forward to sharing my LinkedIn strategy with you and why it’s absolutely critical to growing your career in search engine marketing.

The Fun Part: The Psychology of SEM Job Opportunities on LinkedIn

I’m going to start with the fun stuff and work backwards to the tactical implementation stuff. In my opinion, understanding the psychology of the situation and the recruiter’s perspective is everything. At one time or another, we’ve all wanted a new job. Sometimes the fit just isn’t right. Sometimes you’ve outgrown the position. However, let me get right to the point: You don’t want to actively look for jobs because you won’t be as likely to get a PPC job that way (or if you do it might not be on “your terms”). So, if you’re going to want to actively look for a job at one point or another, but don’t want to actively look because you won’t be as successful, what can you do? Invest in building a robust PPC LinkedIn profile!

Just think of the psychology of the recruiter. If you’re actively looking for a job, they know you’re looking. Your cards are on the table. Now, let’s look at the passive PPC candidate, the pay per clicker who built up an awesome LinkedIn profile (just like me). You’ll start getting job opportunities because you aren’t looking. Recruiters love candidates who aren’t looking. They have demonstrated that they’re not only good at what they do, but they can hold down a job and stay committed to a company (which is exactly what they want).

Going back to my point: At one time or another we’ve all wanted a new job. However, my advice to you: Never, give the impression that you’re looking. Keep your cards close. Build out a great LinkedIn so you’re always getting offers. Then, when it’s time for you to move, just wait for the perfect LinkedIn passive SEM opportunity and jump all over it!

An important word of caution: Many times, you don’t want to move. It is possible to find the perfect fit – I’m there right now! Just because people contact you on LinkedIn doesn’t mean you need to entertain the offers and most of the time you won’t want to.

How To Play The LinkedIn Passive Candidate Game

The game is actually quite simple. Most of the time, when you’re not looking for a job, you can respond nicely to the opportunities you get on LinkedIn. I’ll typically say, “Hi, thanks so much for contacting me. I’m currently running the pay per click team at XYZ company and am doing really well. I’m not looking for new opportunities at this time, but please feel free to add me as a connection on LinkedIn and I will add you back. Here’s my email address that I use for LinkedIn so you can add me: your email here. Things always change in this industry and perhaps we could work together at one point or another.” This message is very high leverage. It’s like a snowball effect. The more recruiters that friend you on LinkedIn, the more offers you will get over time.

Now, let’s say it’s a year or so later and times have changed. You’re ready to move. Or, perhaps you’re not really thinking of leaving but get an opportunity you want to investigate because it’s an awesome opportunity. This time you respond, “Hi, thanks so much for contacting me. I’m not actively looking for new search engine marketing opportunities because I’m doing really well at my current company. In fact, I just got promoted to XYZ title and accomplished XYZ accomplishment. However, even though I get a lot of opportunities on LinkedIn, yours really stands out. I would like to learn a bit more and could we set up a phone call or meet for coffee?” The beauty here is even though you are looking (and believe me your response makes this apparent to the recruiter right away), you are still a passive candidate which gives you leverage towards success.

So, there you have it, that’s the LinkedIn SEM game. It’s been a real asset to me all these years and I now hope you can leverage it to your advantage. Next, we’ll get into the details of how you can build your LinkedIn profile so you start generating these job opportunities that allow you to become a great passive PPC candidate!

Building The Ideal PPC LinkedIn Profile

I’ll start with a funny story. I never used LinkedIn at my first job, NexTag. I only started using it at QuinStreet because it was very popular with everyone there. So, I’ve actually built up a profile with 500+ connections and 45+ recommendations in only three years. How did I accomplish so much in three years? It actually started with an informal competition between myself and a co-worker, one of the coolest co-workers I have ever had. We wanted to see who could get to 500+ connections first. I ended up winning by not only getting there first but also changing the rules of the game by incorporating recommendations as well. The key point here: Making the best possible LinkedIn profile for SEM requires a bit of fire and passion. Make a competition with someone else or at least set some goals for yourself. As with anything, you need a bit of motivation to stick it through because it will take you hours and hours (and more hours) to build it out, but believe me: It’s worth it!

Search Engine Marketing LinkedIn Rule 1: Get To 500+ Connections

LinkedIn has been around long enough that a 500+ connection goal is now mandatory. Before, you could get away with a few hundred, but now there are just too many people with 500+. Now, you won’t get there overnight, but please add anybody and everybody you can. One of my great leverage points: I have been at multiple companies. Because of that fact alone, I was able to get to 500+ fast because I have worked with many different people over the years. I was able to add all of my NexTag and QuinStreet co-workers.

Some other tips: Add your college friends, add all of your search engine reps (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, second-tier), and make sure to add all the recruiters who contact you (mentioned above). Another tip: When people are leaving or joining your company, make sure to introduce yourself and add them on LinkedIn. People who are in a “transition phase” will be more likely to add you back quickly. Do you attend SEM industry conferences such as AdTech, SES, and SMX? You should be! Meet people there and add them on LinkedIn. The ways of meeting new people are plentiful and moreover everyone is on LinkedIn these days. To have an SEM LinkedIn that’s at the top of the list you need to keep pushing until you get to 500+ connections.

LinkedIn Tip 2: How To Get Numerous Recommendations

It used to be that 500+ connections alone was good enough. Now, in my opinion, there are too many people at 500+. How do you differentiate yourself? You get as many recommendations as possible. I have 45+ now and I eventually want to get to 100+. Now, let me take a step back and underscore that junk recommendations can actually damage your profile. Therefore, the goal should be as many quality recommendations as possible.

Well, it’s easy to say this, but in practice how do you actually accomplish this goal? My strategy has been straight forward: Send everyone you’ve worked with a recommendation request and tell them that you’d be happy to return the favor with a very strong recommendation. By telling people up front that you’re going to give them something good in return, they’ll be more than happy to write you a good one. Another tip: Go out of your way to do a good job at work and build solid connections. If people like you and you promise a strong recommendation in return, you’ll hit the ball out of the park. Of course, after you get a recommendation to your liking, make sure to make good on your promise and write a strong recommendation in return (I always try to make my return recommendations the same “strength” as the one that was written for me).

LinkedIn Tip 3: Apply SEO 1.0 To Your Profile

LinkedIn has gotten better about this over the years, but you can still apply basic SEO to get your profile ranking well on the appropriate keywords. Make sure to include all relevant keywords in your profile. Make sure to build out your profile and invest at least a few hours summarizing your experience, qualifications, accomplishments, and more. If you get the right keywords in there and repeat all the different variations (pay per click, PPC, search engine marketing, SEM, search engine optimization, SEO, paid search, etc.), your profile will show up for relevant searches. Want to show up more on a particular query? Repeat it several times throughout your profile.

However, one word of caution: Don’t go overboard. I’ve seen profiles that are just bombarding the system with duplication. I’m an above board businessperson and can’t say enough about going that route and the long-term leverage it gives you. Don’t be cheap about it. Do the right thing and you’ll get even more respect as a result! Another tip: Make sure to link to your public LinkedIn profile from your personal webpage, facebook page, etc. to get it a high ranking in the Google, Yahoo, and Bing search results for your name.

LinkedIn Strategy 4: Protecting Your Established SEM LinkedIn Profile

So, let’s say you’ve built up a great profile and you’re now in my shoes. Just like anything, once you’ve built scale, you want to protect yourself. I have one very unique and important tip: Go to your outstanding requests and remove all the ones who haven’t accepted. It’s happened to all of us. There’s that fool you’ve worked with in the past, but for whatever reason they say they don’t know you. Once you’ve reached your goal, why risk someone saying they don’t know you? This actually goes against your standing in LinkedIn and if you get enough of these you can’t add anyone else. Moreover, your account could actually get shut down. Once you’ve surpassed 500+, I recommend removing all your outstanding requests and moreover being extremely selective about adding more people (let them add you instead).

LinkedIn Is At The Core of My SEM Career Strategy

To close out, I really hope this has helped. I realize this is a long article, but I think it’s all very meaningful stuff. If you invest some serious time building out your LinkedIn and understanding the recruiter’s perspective, you’ll be positioning yourself to get from pay per click associate to director of SEM within 5 years, that’s what I did!

Image of Business Network © iStockPhoto – Palto

Moonlighting Will Accelerate Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 3 11

Many companies out there discourage their employees from moonlighting. I can totally understand where they’re coming from. Salaries in SEM tend to be high and the company wants to get their money’s worth. Moreover, they want their employees getting the appropriate sleep and rest on their off-time so they can come in recharged. Also, there’s the big fear about employees actually working on their side business during company business hours. I’m here to not only argue the other side, but strongly encourage you to start your own business on the side. If you do it the right way, the ethical and mature way, it will only accelerate your corporate search engine marketing career. I personally run a small portfolio of websites and I cannot say enough about the business and SEO knowledge I’ve gained from my side web publishing business. I cannot say enough about my personal growth from this endeavor and its benefits in accelerating my corporate career!

Motivation For My Personal SEM Business: Passive Income

Moonlighting

I’d like to start out with my own story. The corporate route has been awesome for me, better than I could have ever imagined. However, I know more than anyone that things can change. As a low risk kind of guy, financial stability means everything to me. How do you achieve financial stability and freedom? In the words of my favorite author and mentor, Robert Kiyosaki, it’s all about passive income. We’re in a unique space where SEM is the cornerstone of passive income. Build some great web properties and with minimal ongoing support you can keep receiving Google AdSense and affiliate commission checks month after month after month! This alone was my strategy. In addition to income from my job, why not build up a small base of passive income from web publishing? It seemed obvious to me…

I Gained A World of SEO Knowledge Too

As someone who didn’t have a ton of money to invest in my side business, I decided to go the SEO route, with a little bit of PPC. I was more interested in slow growth fueled by free traffic from search engines versus fast growth fueled by pay per click traffic and the potential cash flow (and risk) issues that come with it. I’ll definitely say, without a doubt, that my hourly salary from my side business has been very low (although ramping as expected). I now do have a base of passive income that without fail comes in month after month. I’m extremely proud of it and take great pride in cashing my AdSense checks every month. However, what I value more than this stream of passive income is the SEO knowledge that I’ve learned.

As you know, the name of the site is PPC Ian and not SEO Ian. I’m “the man” when it comes to PPC, period. I’m good at SEO too, but not the industry authority. My next goal is getting to the VP of marketing level. How do I accomplish this? I need to fully understand all of the marketing channels thoroughly. My game plan: I need to learn the other marketing channels on my spare time because there’s never enough time at work. A side web publishing business is one of the best ways to learn SEO during your free time, an awesome byproduct that I never intended from my little side business.

I Learned Email Marketing Too

In addition to SEO, I’ve recently picked up email marketing. Once you have a solid base of SEO visitors, why not add AWeber to your site and start building some email lists and sending newsletters? During my regular job, the extent of my email experience lies primarily in advertising on second-tier email search engine AdKnowledge. The beauty of my side business is it’s taken my email knowledge to the next level, allowing me to harvest email lists, craft newsletters, and learn new tricks to extract more value form my web properties while rewarding my visitors with the best experience ever.

I Even Learned PR

You’ve already got the point, but I really want to drive it home. I have had the great opportunity to write and publish press releases for my websites, leveraging PRWeb. This is something that I simply wouldn’t have time for during my regular job where I’m heavily focused on pay per click. Because of my side business, I’ve gained valuable skills in SEO, Email Marketing, and PR, making me a very well rounded marketer. All of these skills have directly translated into higher quality output during my regular job, better intuition and judgment, a strong ability to manage people, while positioning myself for the VP of marketing role one day. It worked out perfectly because I always kept the context that my corporate job is my first priority and that I need to schedule and balance my activities carefully.

Disclaimer: Please Don’t Lose Sight of Your Primary Job

Here’s the big risk: You love your side business so much that it takes away from your regular job. It can take away in several ways. First, you may find yourself staying up too late, compromising your sleep. Second, you may find yourself thinking (or even worrying) about your business during work hours. Third, you may find yourself losing interest in your regular job because you like your side business more. This is where maturity comes in. You need to be mature and stay focused on your corporate career. You need to have the perspective to understand where the majority of your money is coming from and allocate time and mind share appropriately. You need to do what is right. If you’re mature about things and able to balance these risks with the rewards, I highly recommend starting a small business on the side.

Who knows, one day your small business may become your exit strategy. You may get to the director or VP level and then decide it’s time to make it on your own. This is all great stuff. In the short run, be mature about things and leverage your knowledge to do an even better job at work. You owe it to your employer and yourself to do the best job possible. Also, please remember, not all employers allow side businesses. Be open with your boss about things. Come up with a strategy to make it work. Perhaps you can make it your hobby to launch a site or two on the side, but not a “side business”. It’s all about perspective and following the rules. The equity value of integrity and reputation will pay dividends your entire life!

Image of Moonlighting © iStockPhoto – HelleM

Your Recession Proof Career In SEM

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 2 2

I’ve been in pay per click search engine marketing for over five years now. When I started, the economy was rough. We were rebounding from the Internet bubble burst and companies were being very selective with their hiring. In fact, I only had one really solid job offer (thank goodness it brought me into the PPC world). We’re in another rough economy now, probably worse than the economy back in 2004. The financial industry has collapsed and we’re facing the worst recession since The Great Depression. This may all sound like doom and gloom, but I’m here to highlight the fun part of it all: Pay Per Click as a career path is recession-proof and has served me very well during all of this economic volatility.

Pay Per Click Drives Revenue and Margin

Let’s look at the worst case. Which employees do companies lay off or scale back on when things head south (either with the company or the economy)? First and foremost, they’ll lay off the poor performers. However, let’s assume you’re a star performer. (As a side note, there’s no reason not to be a star performer. Get out of bed each morning with purpose and passion for SEM. It will make your life much more fun!) After the poor performers, companies will typically lay off employees who are not critical to the day-to-day operations of driving shorter-term revenue. Restated, they’ll can the employees who are related to longer-term stuff or projects altogether that aren’t expected to bring in margin.

Now, let’s look at pay per click. What do we do in pay per click? We drive short term (and long term) revenue and marketing margin. There’s no way around it. More so than any other employee, we’re bringing in money for the company each and every day. Our job is bringing in money through our Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and second-tier campaigns! Looking at it through that lens, pay per click is just about the most important function in the company. Without pay per click campaign managers, companies lose an important component of their revenue (and with some companies all of their revenue). In my experience, search engine marketing provides a great buffer against recessions and for that reason alone is a great career to pursue (or stay in if you’re already there)!

PPC Is Just Like Sales (Enterprise Sales If You’re Managing Million Dollar Or Greater Budgets)

At most companies, which employees are respected the most? Which employees make the most? Which employees have all the expensive clothes, cars, lifestyle? Most of the time, it’s the salespeople. Within the world of sales, it’s typically the enterprise salespeople doing the big deals. Why do these employees command such a high salary? Put simply: If they’re not selling, the company can’t drive any revenue.

Now, let’s look at pay per click. In my opinion, it’s just like sales. Without pay per click, there is no revenue. Sure, we’re not on the phone in complex deal negotiations, but we are in complex software running complex algorithms. We’re making complex judgment calls each and every day. We’re oftentimes navigating complex relationships with search engines. Perhaps even more importantly we’re managing millions of dollars of ad spend! When you look at things through that lens, I view pay per click as the new sales. This is a very good thing because there’s always a job for a top performing salesperson.

How To Make Your Personal SEM Career Recession-Proof

So I’ve made the case, in general, why PPC offers a unique recession-proof career. To close out, however, I’d like to tie it back to you and offer some specific advice on what you can do to make sure your career is bullet-proof:

First and foremost, please work hard. If your campaigns are going down, join forces with you manager to figure it out. Nobody expects the campaigns to always go up (they’ll tell you they do but they never really do). As long as you’re flexible and dedicated, that’s half the battle. Never give up!
Have a great attitude. Even if the economy is down or your company is doing poorly, stay enthusiastic and optimistic. This goes a long way in terms of playing the game.
Quantify your work! The great part of SEM is you can clearly see your results. Tell your manager, “Hey, I know things are a bit difficult. Here’s what I did to save the company money and here’s exactly how much I saved.” It’s rather easy to pay for your salary over and over again if you’re a hard worker and do everything in your company’s best interests.
Be the employee that’s easy to manage. Put another way: Give your manager leverage. With as little contact with your manager as possible, do as much as you possibly can. Think of projects that you haven’t been assigned and execute upon them. Do everything you can to make your manager look good.
Invest significant time building out your network and LinkedIn. This is the topic of a completely different article, but I can’t say enough about having other opportunities lined up should things go south. This has been the cornerstone of my strategy over the past five years.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. If you combine these easy best practices (things I encourage doing no matter what) with the fact that SEM is recession-proof, you should be set for years and years to come. The benefits of this stability: Not only will you be able to sleep well knowing your income is relatively secure, but perhaps you could purchase a home in this down market at a favorable price. The possibilities are limitless when you’re in a recession-proof career!

Longevity: Your PPC Career Secret Weapon

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 1 10

This is one of my favorite articles because I’m all about getting more done with less, the power of leverage. (Side note: Leverage is also one of the main teachings of my favorite author in the world, Robert Kiyosaki.) If you haven’t realized it already, time is your most valuable resource, far more valuable than money or anything else. With enough time, you can do anything. To that end, I’m always looking for ways to gain more leverage and growth, while saving time. Today, I’m going to talk all about longevity and its effect in putting your PPC career into overdrive, all while giving you huge time leverage.

Longevity Will Accelerate Your Pay Per Click Career

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I’ll cut right to the point. While it’s simple, the power is very understated. Let’s say you’re at a company with three pay per click campaign associates and a team lead managing all of you. You’re not the team lead, but are one of the three campaign associates. You want to be the team lead one day, but everything seems daunting because you’re competing with three other people and your boss already has the position you’d like with no signs of going anywhere fast. Seem familiar? From my experience, this situation is very common!

Now, let me get right to the point: Attrition is rampant in PPC. I’ve seen teams of 10 go down to 1. I’m not kidding, I lived it! PPC houses some of the brightest people in the world. They’re great at keeping their cards close and playing the game, right to the very last minute. You never know they’re interviewing or thinking of leaving, but then, all of the sudden, everyone is gone! In the story above, I mentioned that things seem “daunting” for the associate looking to become the team lead. However, let’s reframe that: This case is never daunting in pay per click for the simple fact that attrition is rampant.

My thesis: If you’re at an early stage in your SEM career (not managing people), longevity is your single highest leverage point. Seriously! If you’re an associate and want to end up leading the team, all you need to do is stick around! It may take a long time, possibly two to three years, but it will happen. Eventually, everyone will end up leaving the team or even company. It’s sad to see your teammates leave and I hate it. My personal charter as a people manager is to never lose an employee. If I do, I’m not doing my job correctly. However, with most managers, attrition in PPC is a real issue, one that can put you in the position of team lead much faster than hopping around to different companies. Hopping does have its place when it strategically makes sense, but I highly urge you to stick around if you’re early in your career and not yet managing the team. Once you’re managing the team, you’ll have far more opportunities to transition to a more favorable company and career, if that makes sense.

Pay Per Click Is A Core Operational Competency

Let’s look at the theory behind it form the company’s perspective. Often times, pay per click is the highest revenue per employee division in the company. The team is driving millions and millions of dollars of revenue (and margin), but there are only a handful of employees on the team. Now, let’s say everyone leaves except one employee. That’s a true risk for the company and a case that every people manager dreads. You never want such a large portion of your revenue hinged on just one (or a few) remaining employees. So, what does the company do? They quickly put the remaining person in a position of power. They allow them to take on more responsibility. If they prove that they can grow and handle the added responsibility, they are promoted and rewarded over time. In parallel, the company starts interviewing and hiring replacements. Who’s going to train all of the replacements? The person who’s left! Not only are you now taking on more responsibility, but you’re functioning as a first level manager, training and grooming the new SEM team. Moreover, you’re most likely now reporting to a VP or even C-level executive, yet another super opportunity to accelerate your growth path.

Let’s Keep Everything In Perspective

Now, let me take a step back. Nothing happens overnight. This if for very good reason. If you get promoted officially before you’re ready, it’s very risky for your career, your manager’s career, and the overall company. It’s very bad! You will get more responsibility overnight if you’re in this position, but it will take a bit more time to get promoted on paper. You need to function consistently and predictably at the higher level to prove to your manager and company that you’re ready to get promoted. This is better for everyone, trust me!

Work Through The Difficult Times In SEM

I hope this article helps give you a little extra incentive to stick it out when times get rough. Whether you’re in PPC or engineering, a startup or a publicly traded company, at the associate level or CEO level, there are always challenges. There are always times when you start questioning your ability to make it through. My suggestion to you (especially if you’re newer in your career): Stick it out. You will build character, strength, and judgment. The amount you learn will be tremendous. Moreover, people who might not have your perspective will leave. They won’t have what it takes to make it. When they do, an opportunity opens to grow your career rapidly. Again, I hate to see people leave, but that’s a fact of life. With a little bit of passion, you’ll be able to stick out the difficult times and emerge from it as a true industry leader. This, in my opinion, is the single easiest path to grow from associate to pay per click director in five years.

Search Marketers Make Excellent Domainers

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 31 4

What do we do in pay per click for a living? We buy keywords. We understand which keywords work the best for the vertical at hand and optimize the heck out of them. What do domainers such as Rick Latona do for a living? They invest in quality domain names. They buy great domains names at low prices and sell them for higher prices. Sometimes, they’ll build out a site before selling the domain and the site (you can think of this as the Internet’s equivalent of flipping a house). I’m here today to make the point that all pay per clickers should spend a portion of their personal time investing in domain names. You can think of it as yet another perk of our great industry!

My Personal Story: How My PPC-Driven Domain Portfolio Got Started

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At my first two jobs, I spent a very significant time managing some of the largest pay per click search engine marketing mortgage campaigns on the Internet. Having managing millions of dollars of PPC spend in the mortgage industry, with a focus on mortgage refinance, I became quite the expert on the industry.

As someone who’s always interesting in learning about new niches within online marketing, I became very interested in domaining right around the same time. Putting my two passions together, my strategy became very apparent: Why not leverage my deep understanding of the mortgage industry, pay per click, and keywords in general to pick up some great domain names? While my intent was to pick up several mortgage names, I quickly learned just how saturated the mortgage landscape is and only ended up with one. However, I’m very excited about that one domain because it has 8,000 searches each month based on Google’s Keyword Tool which is rather significant for this competitive industry. Moreover, I registered this domain on the open market leveraging GoDaddy’s standard pricing. This initial purchase turned into an addiction and I now own a nice-sized portfolio of domain names (both undeveloped and also developed) across a multitude of industries, most you’d never guess.

It’s A Fine Line, Do The Right Thing

Before I go too far, I want to highlight the seriousness of doing the right thing and playing the game ethically. There’s a clear separation of work and your personal business. Never mix the two. Don’t even think of your personal business during work hours. It’s all about maturity and ethics. Moreover, never buy a domain name that you feel, in any remote way, is “the wrong thing.” You know what I mean, as a pay per clicker, you’re privy to some pretty serious data. Let me make it clear: I think it’s ok to leverage your understanding of a particular market and keywords in general to research domains on your free time. However, it’s completely wrong to look up actual keywords you’re buying at work on GoDaddy for the purpose of registering them as domain names in your personal portfolio. That keyword list you’re leveraging is company property and is just too specific. Moreover, please keep in mind that you absolutely cannot develop any domains in the same industry as your current employer or even past employer (usually for a period up to 5 years). All the domains I’ve developed are in very different industries than those covered by my employers. I’m serious here: Leverage your judgment and maturity to do the right thing, while also leveraging your pay per click expertise to become the next big shot in the domaining industry!

My Core Domaining Strategy

It’s actually really easy. I’ve only purchased one domain on the secondary market. It was actually more than a domain, it was an acquisition of an existing web property and domain. All of my other domains are from the primary market, meaning I paid the standard registration fee with no markup. I really like Arbel Arif’s Blog because he created “the domain game.” He finds a domain each week with 5,000 or greater monthly exact match searches on Google’s Keyword Tool, a domain tha’’s free for the taking on the primary market. Then, he gives his readers 24 hours to register the domain name. If they don’t, he’ll register it! Bringing this back to my strategy, this is exactly what I do. I search for domains in industries that I love that either have an existing strong search query base or the potential for one in the future. I try to pick industries that I enjoy thoroughly, industries where I can write 100 plus pages of great content, no sweat. The end goal: Develop all of the domains into neat content sites that drive passive income from either AdSense or affiliate programs. The domains that I don’t develop, I plan to hold and then sell for a profit.

Why You Should Be A Domainer

So that’s my strategy, but what about you? I encourage you to do the same for one main reason: You’re an expert about something that others are not. Seriously, you may think there are a lot of competitors out there, but I can assure you that’s not true when you think about it through the lens of your niche interests. Think through your hobbies and interests. If you think hard enough, you’ll find an untapped market, I’m sure of it! Because you’re in the PPC industry, you’re in a unique position to not only pick the best domain names, but also to develop awesome web properties with all the relevant keywords in the titles, meta keywords, meta descriptions, page copy, and image alt tags. Your PPC background is guaranteed to make you a great domainer and part-time web publisher. Moreover, as a recurring theme through my blog, I can’t say enough about the growth and personal learning that will come out of this exercise. This is knowledge and growth that will directly impact your ability to do a better job for your employer, the most important goal of all! Want to learn more? I have learned a world of information from Lisa’s Website.

I’m Passionate About PPC and SEM

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 29 8

I’m very passionate about PPC. I’m very passionate about the corporate career path in pay per click. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than managing my awesome paid search team! Does this sound like you? Good! Does this sound very different from your tone and thought pattern each morning? That’s ok, but let’s work on that! This topic has been blogged about to death, but I couldn’t resist because it’s so core to my personal value. Let’s talk about passion today because I sincerely think it could get you a raise and a promotion.

Why Passion In Search Engine Marketing Counts: Your Perspective

Let’s purely look at it through your personal lens first. What’s in it for you? Before I even get to that, let’s get one thing out of the way. I’m not a psychology major, but I know from experience that passion is at least partly up to you. Every single morning, you have the conscious decision whether you want to be passionate or dull. If you’re not currently overly passionate every morning, I’m about to show you what’s it for you if you make that conscious decision. If you already get up with enthusiasm and passion each morning, I’m about to ask you to bring it up a notch. There’s always room for more fire! I’ll show you what you’ll get out of even more passion…

First and foremost, let’s talk about happiness. It’s a fact: Passion is directly correlated to happiness. If you’re passionate about your work and purpose every single day, the day will go by much faster and you’ll have a lot more fun (with a lot more energy). At the end of the day, we all want to be happy. That’s one of the most important things in life. Pay per click search engine marketing can be daunting. Sometimes it’s hard to be passionate, especially if your numbers are trending down or if you’re under pressure from your manager (it happens to everyone and pressure can be a good thing). Every single morning, take a step back and push yourself to be passionate. Write a note if you need, seriously. I can guarantee this conscious exercise will become more and more natural over time and will result in a nice bump in your happiness and job satisfaction. It’s in your hands.

Second, let’s talk about your career path in pay per click. It’s a great industry. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about PPC as a great career is the ability to grow quickly. I’m a director of SEM only five years out of college. In a more traditional industry, it would probably take me 10 to 15 years to hit the director level. Now, let’s face reality: The quick upward mobility in pay per click can cause problems because one can’t possibly learn all of the judgment of a 10 or 15 year veteran in only 5 years. This is where passion comes to play. If you’re passionate, you’ll learn quicker. If you’re passionate, you’ll emerge as a leader. What do leaders do? They rise above the naysayers and push the team forward, even when things are difficult. If you want to become a leader and people manager within pay per click, you need to consistently demonstrate passion for the industry and also the company. You need to be more passionate than anyone else. Excessive passion alone, in my opinion, can overcome management judgment that will take a bit longer to grow through experience, success, and failure.

Why Passion Counts: Your Employer’s Perspective

This part is really easy. Employers love passionate employees. Already mentioned, passionate employees increase the morale and purpose of the overall team. The output of the team is much larger than the output of any one individual. Passion from one employee can have tremendous leverage and exponential returns from an employer’s perspective. Passion can spark new innovation on the SEM team, one of the highest leverage teams within the company.

I’ve seen it time and time again in search engine marketing. There’s high turnover because people tend to burn out. In good cases, the employee decides to transition out of pay per click but stay at the current company. In the worst case, they leave not only the pay per click team but also the company as a whole. Companies want passionate leaders who can overcome this effect and retain their team. I have an awesome track record for employee retention even at companies with overall retention issues. This is one of the main reasons I’ve been able to consistently manage and grow leading PPC teams with a good deal of authority and autonomy from my employer. Not yet managing people but want to be? Invest in your passion! Managing people, but want to grow even more and be the most successful manager possible? It’s all about the passion!

A Topic Worth Visiting Over And Over

There’s a reason it’s hard to find a business leader who hasn’t commented on passion. It really works! Whether you’re already passionate about SEM or completely lack passion, there’s room for all of us to grow. Make it your purpose each morning and you’ll have more fun, get promoted faster, and add exponential value to your company! Don’t believe me? Check out my LinkedIn profile and specifically my recommendations. You’ll see a recurring theme around my positive attitude, passion, and morale-building powers. All of this has been a conscious decision, one that you can make as well.