Earlier this year (May-ish) Google became “universal” in their search results. While SEO Pros definitely noticed it right away, many site owners have not. Recently I have found myself explaining Universal Search to several of my clients, and decided to explain it again this time in a blog in hopes of educating more visitors out there.

Basically, Universal search in Google is everything Google offers in one result. For example, let’s say you type in the phrase, “swimming pools”. Depending on how Google is displaying the results that time, you may see several photos of swimming pools, then 2-3 maps for local swimming pool companies, then 5 organic results and finally at the bottom of the page, several links to news feeds related to swimming pools. This is Universal Search. Google’s way of combining all the options they offer into one.

This doesn’t mean each time you search, you will see this. I’ve seen nothing but organic results sometimes while other times, I see AdWords, followed by 3 organic listings, 1 You Tube video 2 more organic listings, a press release and 4 archived news feeds from the NY Times.

So what does this mean to your site? It is imporant that you consider other avenues of Web Marketing other than just SEO and Pay Per Click. Online Press Releases, Articles, Images, even You Tube videos can help.  The beauty of it is most of these areas can actually be FREE to you. It’s free to create a You Tube account, Free to submit many articles and there are many low cost and even free places to submit a press release.

Whether your launching your brand new web site, or trying to increase current business from the web, you should be using both pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) in your internet marketing plan.

Why both? Quite simply they can compliment each other. Pay Per Click is a fast, very controlable form of internet marketing. Search Engine Optimization is a viable, must needed method to promote your site ‘organically’ in Google, Yahoo, MSN and so-on.

Search engine optimization takes time. If you are a brand new site, consider a good 6 months to a year (yes that long) to really start seeing some good ranking results on the search engines. While you build up your organic SEO, you can have Pay Per Click in place helping you bring in leads by promoting sales, offers, specific products and services. Pay Per Click can literally turn on within a day, use a very specific budget (monthly, daily, etc), track results to and from your web site and even be geographically or industry targeted.

As your organic side of internet marketing grows, consider slowing down the pay per click side. For example, if you have a great keyword ranking in the top 10 positions of Google (the left hand side of their search engine), then you may want to scale back on the paid version of this keyword to save money. The beauty of this is simple testing, re-testing and reviewing your campaigns to see what works, what’s already ranking and what can be removed to save you on marketing costs.

Pay Per Click Marketing is a valuable component of your web marketing strategies. Unfortunately so many people believe in setting up the account, write some ads and set a budget and let it take its course. Pay Per Click (PPC as we call it) can only work for you if you make it a point to pay attention to it on a regular basis.

The beauty of PPC is the ability to add, delete or modify ads anytime you wish. If you sell products online and rely on the holiday season for your sales, this is absolutely critical for your web business to focus on.

Testing ads means just that; test an ad to see how well it is working for your business. You should many categories handy in your campaigns. For example, create a sale category in your campaign and use it soley to test various sales and offers you plan to run. Ads should point to various pages and not soley on the home page. Let’s say you want to offer a “Refer a Friend and Receive Free Shipping”. It would be wise to create a web page specifically for this target. This page should speak of the offer, and display some items of ‘choice’. 

PPC programs such as Yahoo will allow you to set up time limits on your campaigns. This means if you are indeed running a promotion, you can easily set it up to run the amount of time it’s available. Even if you are not running a promo, this is yet another great way to test your ads.

Beyond testing, you have to make sure you are tracking. Just about every big PPC search engine out there offers some form of  tracking or analytics. You should be able to see where your buyer came from to determine which ads work better than others.

Just applying  1-2 hours a week can make a big difference on how well (and how much you spend) on your Pay Per Click campaigns.

With the holidays approaching, web sites are gearing up for the last push of sales for 2007. One thing that still amazes me is the lack of gift certificate or coupon options available on so many ecommerce sites.

Even if your site doesn’t directly sell a product online, you should consider offering some form of ‘gift giving’ options. A cleaning service for example doesn’t offer a tangible item, but many out there (including myself) would love to receive a certificate for home cleaning services.

It’s actually pretty easy to offer such options on your site. Many shopping cart programs come with this feature. Start by asking your programmer or web design service if this is part of your cart program or if they have a script available to install.

If you manage the web site yourself and shopping cart certificates are not an option, consider offering your own version using PayPal.

Another creative way is to create your own using a simple printshop program. Place links on your site offering gift certificate denominations of 10, 15, 25, 100, whatever you choose.

Some other options:

Try to partner with sites that offer programs such as http://www.giftcertificates.com

Pre-paid cards are another option: http://www.parago.com/GiftcardPrograms

Keep in mind if you do decide to offer gift certificates or coupons that you have a way of tracking the purchased items. If someone does purchase via a shopping cart or PayPal you should be able to add a tracking number, code, phrase, etc that will allow you to enter whenever the certificate/coupon is used either in your site or at your store.

I read online reviews before making a purchase online do you? According to a recent Deloitte Consumer Product Group Study, virtually all consumers interviewed find online product reviews to be credible. 62% of internet users  read product reviews written by other consumers. As mentioned in a recent emarketer article, “More than eight in 10 respondents in the Deloitte study who read consumer reviews said that the reviews had affected their buying intentions: either they became more determined to buy the product or they changed their minds and bought a different product altogether.”

 More than 2/3 of US online retailers did NOT allow consumers to post reviews this dispite the high percentage of consumers relying so heavily on this information to determine whether or not to buy the product or service online. Another recent survey found that 42% of US internet shoppers thought that featuring consumer reviews on Web sites increased consumer trust in the web site and products.

As the holidays are right around the corner, one would think ecommerce sites would rethink their strategy in such a viable (and free) tool.