Ten years ago, almost no one guessed that by 2012, the mobile advertising market would be responsible for over $5 billion in business per year.  Until recently, the United States had lagged behind other mobile advertising markets worldwide, but now that has changed.  If you're a law firm professional, you need to keep up on the latest mobile advertising market trends, so keep reading.  You'll find out what's really going on in the mobile advertising markets that make a difference for your firm.

Recent Changes to the Mobile Advertising Market

One of the biggest pieces of news for mobile advertising markets worldwide was when, in 2012, the United States outspent Japan on mobile advertisements.  A lack of high speed wireless internet in many areas of the United States had until recently prevented the mobile web from reaching its full commercial potential.  Now, though, smartphones are increasingly considered a must-have accessory for consumers even outside of bustling cities.

The mobile advertising market has also recently seen a shift toward app activity and away from the web itself.  While people using their smartphones want to connect, increasingly they're doing it in some way that doesn't involve a traditional web browser.  Interactive apps have taken the world by storm, and in 2012, it's estimated that apps will be downloaded in the world's mobile advertising markets a total of 100 billion times.

Social media browsing has increasingly gone mobile in mobile advertising markets around the world.  The United States is no exception, and now a third of U.S. web traffic on major social networks is coming from mobile devices.

What the Mobile Advertising Market Wants

Learning to talk to mobile advertising markets can be tough.  The biggest thing you'll want to avoid is having your advertising and landing pages act exactly the same as if your visitors had come through a traditional web browser. 

Mobile phones and desktop computers just aren't the same, and trying to shoehorn the same content into fitting both applications is like trying to have identical copy for a radio ad, a TV ad, and a newspaper print ad.  Mobile advertising markets are like any other groups of consumers: they like to have their decisions acknowledged and affirmed.

The mobile advertising market also doesn't always want to interact with the web on a traditional website any more.  Increases to app downloads and purchases of in app items shows that the mobile web isn't all about search engines.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're preparing for mobile advertising markets if all you're doing is making sure your ads and landing pages display correctly on a smartphone.

Capitalizing on the Mobile Advertising Market Today

Okay, so your firm doesn't have a full time computer programmer on staff.  That doesn't mean that you can't capture the segments of your target mobile advertising markets that want to use apps instead of doing web browsing.

If you can't come up with an app idea, you should consider working with a mobile advertising network that can help you get your ads placed in apps that people in your area are using.  Local targeting with these in-app ads can give you incredible mobile advertising market segmentation.

But let's say you have an idea for a simple iPhone app that could make some aspect of life easier for your mobile advertising markets.  Whether it's an informative guide about what to do if you're pulled over or a checklist for making sure you're legally protected after a vehicle accident, you can probably make an app fairly easily.  You don't necessarily need to have a programmer: many app creators are available that allow app creation even by novices to the mobile advertising market.

Of course, if you want to do something truly novel, like a simulation game about life in your law office, you may have a tougher time creating your own app.  These kinds of apps are best left to the professionals, so you may want to hire a software company to write one for you if you need the latest and greatest app for your mobile advertising markets.

Mistakes to Avoid with the Mobile Advertising Market

On the web, advertising fatigue sets in soon after someone sees your ad.  Web users are so used to tuning ads out that they essentially develop a blind spot for your advertising after they've been overexposed to it.

If you're running the same ads to the same mobile advertising markets for weeks or even months at a time, the sad truth is that you've been wasting huge amounts of your advertising budget.  Your mobile advertising market knows what it wants: if someone was going to click a particular ad, they'd do it within the first few times they saw it.

Cycling a huge number of ads and changing them up on a daily or near daily basis is one of the best ways to avoid ad fatigue and capture mobile advertising markets.  Some advertising platforms make this kind of cycling automated and quick, while it may take some work to change ads frequently using other platforms.

The Future of the Mobile Advertising Market

No matter what, it doesn't look like people are about to be spending less time on their phones.  Mobile use continues to soar, and increasing adoption of smartphone technologies by middle and working class consumers means that mobile advertising markets are expanding on a daily basis.  Even if your law firm has been late to adopt some of these technologies, it's not too late to get on board now.

Keeping up with these trends means you'll need to subscribe to blogs and keep an eye out online for new statistics and reports about the mobile advertising market.  The next new social media trend or big advertising development will likely appear in blogs and news aggregator feeds long before it shows up in glossy magazines or newspapers.  Staying informed is absolutely critical if you want to keep your campaigns looking fresh and converting clients.

Everything About Small Business Social Media Marketing

You may be surprised (or maybe not!) to learn that small firms are almost twice as likely to use social media for business marketing as large firms—70 percent to just 37 percent.  However, there's a big difference between just using small business social media marketing and using it effectively.  From outdated social media profiles to boring blog content, most lawyers are making big mistakes when they use social media for business marketing.  This guide will help you stop making those mistakes and start exciting your clients.

Why Smaller Can Be Better in Social Media

There are definitely advantages to being a large law firm when it comes to using social media for business marketing.  Almost 20 percent of large law firms now have a full-time social media specialist helping to design their campaigns.  But what if you don't have the money for a social media specialist?  How can you maximize your small business social media marketing without spending more than your firm can afford?

There are two things that make small business social media marketing substantially easier than marketing for a big firm.  The first is flexibility.  Using social media for business marketing is only effective when you are good at responding to comments and joining in on conversations.  Small firms can excel at this kind of responsiveness if even one or two attorneys are interested in contributing to your small business social media marketing presence.

The second big advantage your firm has when it comes to leveraging social media for business marketing is branding.  Small business social media marketing depends a great deal on your ability to successfully differentiate your business from competitors.  When you don't have a lot of red tape and bureaucracy, it can be easier to figure out what you stand for and what the brand personality of your business is.

Social Media For Business Marketing: Expanding What You Have

A lot of attorneys at small firms have already made small, tentative steps toward small business social media marketing.  Maybe you've got a Facebook profile, not just for yourself but for your law firm as well.  Maybe you occasionally update a blog.  Perhaps you casually surf websites like Reddit, Dig, or StumbleUpon.

When you start using social media for business marketing, start with what you know.  Every website is a bit different, and it can be hard to learn the etiquette for several sites at once.  In a small firm, you may be able to divvy up responsibilities for small business social media marketing: the attorney who already has a personal Twitter account can start tweeting for the firm, while an attorney who spends a lot of time surfing Reddit can start submitting blog posts to the site.

When you start by engaging with the social media communities you're already connected to, you already know the rules and—more than that—you can have fun with what you're doing.  It shows when you genuinely enjoying your conversations when you use social media for business marketing, and that kind of enthusiasm can translate directly into new leads and new clients.

Social Media For Business Marketing: Building a Reputation

In today's small business social media marketing world, it's not enough to just make a series of great entries on a blog or to get a few ratings on Yelp.  Getting ahead of your competition means building a reputation, and that takes two things: time and content.

Content is incredibly important, because even if you have a great deal of fantastic content, you need to keep it fresh and new.  On the internet, information seems to have a short shelf life, and waiting too long to post about the next new thing can mean that your posts go unread.  

Stay abreast of new developments in your field, and always look for new opportunities to develop your small business social media marketing content.  A client's question, a disagreement in a meeting about a legal issue, a judge's decision, a link you read elsewhere—all of these can be fertile grounds for creating engaging content for your blog or social media feeds.

Social Media For Business Marketing: Mistakes and Missteps

When attorneys start using small business social media marketing, they often make mistakes, big and small.  Sometimes, what starts as a small mistake—a faux pas in how you talked to a commenter, or a minor gaffe on your website—can seem to spiral out of control in the social media world.  When this happens (and odds are, someday it will), you need to know how to handle it.

Start by acknowledging your mistakes, which isn't always easy for attorneys.  Some companies have managed to turn social media nightmares into positive experiences by promptly apologizing in an authentic way.  View the mistake as a learning experience: if you can, ask for feedback that can help you to avoid similar mishaps in the future.

While a mistake can certainly be embarrassing, and can even feel like it's destroying your small business social media marketing, keep in mind the old saying: This, too, shall pass.  The same short internet shelf-life that makes it necessary to keep producing content will mean that soon, your gaffe will just be yesterday's news.

Social Media For Business Marketing: Staying Ahead of the Competition 

In the same way that you continue your legal education with seminars and online classes, you should give serious thought to getting formal training in small business social media marketing.  It's not a bad idea to make sure that everyone in your firm understands at least the basics of using social media for business marketing, just so that all staff members are on the same page.

You should also make sure that you're keeping informed about changes to the social media platforms that you're using, so that you don't get blindsided.  For instance, even small changes to the way profiles are displayed could have a significant impact on your LinkedIn advertising.  Avoiding technological surprises is key to making sure that your social media marketing strategies succeed.

Everything About PPC Management

So you've started using pay per click marketing for your law firm—but what now?  Do you want keywords that cost $50 or more, or to bid lower on keywords for just a few dollars?  PPC bid management software can cost hundreds of dollars, and PPC management services can cost thousands—are they worth it?  This guide will explore how you can best manage your pay per click advertising, with or without PPC management services.  You'll also learn about common PPC bid management mistakes to avoid when you begin working on your PPC management strategies.

PPC Bid Management Options

When you start learning about pay per click marketing, one of your first questions might be “how do I know what to bid?”  There are several different answers to this question, depending on your PPC management needs and your current pay per click advertising budget.  Usually, the search engines offering this type of advertising also offer PPC management services and options that can help you manage your bids.

While it's easy to use these services for your PPC bid management, you may know about your other options as well.  Some companies offer software that can help you make bids and learn more about PPC management in your pay per click campaigns.  Others offer full PPC management services that allow you to focus on your firm's business without thinking about your own pay per click advertising campaign.

When Should I Use Search Engine PPC Management Services?

If you're new to marketing with PPC, you may want to start doing PPC bid management with the tools offered by the search engines themselves.  These services have a few distinct advantages: they're easy to use, with effective tutorials that can help you learn how to do the basics of PPC management.  However, there's a reason that up to 70 percent of big businesses eventually hire specialized PPC management services to handle their pay per click campaigns: it's not easy to just use what you're given by search engines.

Keep in mind that any PPC bid management that you do with the services offered by Google or Yahoo will be run by them, and that they're more interested in their own profit than your law firm's.  When you use their tools, then, don't be surprised if the way they do PPC management seems hazy.  They simply don't make all the best analytical information available to consumers.

When Should I Use Third Party PPC Bid Management Software?

Once you've worked with PPC management tools from the search engines for a while, you may be ready to move on to tools that give you more control.  For this, you'll want to look for third party PPC management services software.  The quality of these tools can vary, and some can cost hundreds of dollars for a user license, so you'll want to make sure to look for online reviews of any software before you buy.

Of all of your PPC bid management options, using third party software can give you the most control over your bid strategies—if you know what you're doing.  Make sure that you understand the tools that you have, and consider sending an employee to a training that can help them get the most out of any PPC management tools that you've spent money on.  Remember that the tools you use are only as good as the people using them.  If you're not able to spend money on training someone to use PPC bid management software, you may want to hire PPC management services to handle your bids.

When Should I Use PPC Management Services?

Micromanaging pay per click bids isn't for everyone, and many law firms end up deciding that it would be better to leave PPC bid management in the hands of specialists.  There's nothing wrong with using one of these services for PPC management, but keep in mind that the cheapest service may not be the best.

PPC management services that keep your data may be cheaper in the short term, but make no mistake: when you lose data, you lose money and time. You may not think that your data means much, but think of PPC bid management as a series of experiments.  Some work, and some don't, and every time you find out one that works you'll save money and attract clients.  If your data doesn't belong to you and you switch PPC management services, you're back to square one: you won't know which of your PPC management strategies worked, and which were failures.  

The best companies that provide PPC bid management won't just make bids for you, they'll discuss your marketing strategies and help you build a website that converts clicks into clients.  This can be much more cost-effective than hiring bare bones PPC management services to handle your marketing on the web.

Common PPC Bid Management Mistakes

When you're new to PPC management, you can easily fall prey to common bidding mistakes.  One of the easiest traps to fall into is bidding too high.  Obviously you'll get more clicks when you bid high, but how many of those clicks become clients?  Experiment with bids that don't necessarily put you into the top position—you may find that you're getting just as many clients when you're spending a great deal less on your bids.

Law firms that are new to PPC management also tend to start by using keywords in their ad groups that are simply too general to get the kinds of clients they want.  Keywords that are too general hurt your PPC management in two different ways: they make conversion rates go down while causing your bid prices to go up.

It's also important not to keep changing your bids too often, too early.  While some PPC management strategies may require changing bids fairly frequently, smart PPC bid management relies on building historical data and using that data wisely.  Changing your bids too much when your campaign is new can result in bad data and bad PPC management.

Everything About PPC

In today's legal marketing world, the internet has begun to dominate the discussion, and pay per click is more popular than ever.  You may have heard that PPC pay per click advertising can raise your law firm's website traffic by as much as 66%, but have very little idea what else PPC can do for your firm.  This guide will help answer the most basic questions, from “what is PPC?” to “How do I manage my PPC bids?”  It doesn't have to be hard to set up a PPC pay per click campaign—you'll learn how to start from the basics here.

What is PPC?

Both new and old law firms need advertising that works on the web.  You have several options: you can manage keywords on your website or in blog entries, then use search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to get onto the first page of someone's web search.  However, this kind of search engine marketing requires a high level of skill with web writing to make sure that your content is relevant while keeping keyword density high enough to put your firm into the top few pages of results.

Instead of trying to get your website into the first few pages of results through a traditional search, you can instead use PPC pay per click marketing.  Even if you have little computer experience and are still asking “what is PPC?” you can still use Google AdWords or another PPC program to get your marketing campaign off the ground.  PPC pay per click advertising allows you to target your firm's advertising and only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

What is a PPC Keyword?

When you start to run a PPC pay per click advertising campaign, you'll need to think about what clients are typically looking for when they come to your website.  If your firm specializes in helping people to beat traffic tickets, for instance, your clients probably begin their web search by looking for keywords relating to traffic tickets.

When you advertise using PPC, you can decide which searches your PPC pay per click advertising is seen on.  You will choose the specific keywords that your firm will bid on.  If you're in the top several bidders for a keyword when someone searches for it, your website's ad will be seen by that person—meaning that your site is seen by the exact people you want to attract as clients.

What is PPC Going to Cost My Firm?

The cost of a PPC pay per click campaign depends largely on exactly what kinds of keywords you're bidding on and what your bid strategies are.  If you want to bid on very expensive keywords, like “mesothelioma,” the answer to “what is PPC going to cost” will be very steep indeed—often tens or even hundreds of dollars for a single click!  However, by narrowly tailoring your keywords, you can bring PPC costs down.

For example, you may want to include geographic terms in your searches.  You may also want to include very specific keywords that clients are likely to use, rather than using the kind of keywords that lawyers use.  Instead of using PPC pay per click keywords like “personal injury attorney,” consider terms like “rear end car accident lawyer.”  You can also choose some PPC keywords to exclude from searches—so if your firm doesn't handle a particular type of case, you can exclude clients searching for lawyers who can.

What is PPC Bid Management?

Because PPC pay per click advertising uses bidding, the cost you'll have to pay to get your advertisement displayed prominently will depend on what other firms have already bid.  While firms that are still trying to figure out “what is PPC?” may not be able to work out a great bid management strategy right away, as you continue to use pay per click services you'll learn how to maximize the profits from your bids.

For example, you may find that it might be much cheaper to appear early in search results with your PPC pay per click campaign when you're advertising at certain hours of the night.  If you still get the same conversion rates (the same percentage of people call your firm after clicking), you'll want to make sure your PPC bid isn't any higher than it needs to be.  You can use PPC pay per click bid management software to help you figure out what is PPC bid strategy that will work best for your law firm.

What is PPC Campaign Management?

“What is PPC?” is a more complex question than just what keywords to bid on.  If you're still not sure how to use PPC pay per click marketing, you may want to look into PPC campaign management.  Campaign management services can help you get beyond the initial difficulties of setting up your PPC campaign so you can move on to getting the clicks and conversions you're hoping for.

What is PPC Strategy?

Building a great strategy for your PPC pay per click ads requires knowing about your potential clients.  When your clients are looking for websites to answer their legal questions or find a lawyer, they want accurate information and contemporary web design that is aesthetically pleasing.  In order to have the best PPC results, you'll want to create strategic landing pages that contain the content your clients are searching for.

When you have done PPC pay per click advertising for some time, you can begin to look at changing and developing your strategy based on what works.  What is a PPC effective strategy can depend largely on the exact nature of your practice—you'll want to look at which pages are driving conversions and what those pages have in common.

What is PPC Going to Do for My Business?

Used effectively, PPC pay per click can help your business to grow—not just by getting eyes on your website, but by getting the right eyes.  When you use PPC, you're targeting only clients who specifically want exactly the kinds of services your firm is providing.  When you begin to develop your PPC pay per click strategy, you'll find that your conversion rates can steadily increase, making it cost less for each new client you're finding online.  While other forms of marketing require a great deal of computer knowledge, you can begin a campaign with pay per click advertising relatively quickly and easily.

Everything About PPC Campaigns

The internet has changed everything about finding a lawyer.  Today, 65 percent of potential legal clients look online for law firms before choosing which lawyer to call.  One of the fastest ways to get your website into the top pages of search results is to use PPC search engine advertising.  This kind of advertising is highly effective, and can increase the traffic to your website by 60 percent or more when you design your PPC campaign with your client in mind.

Starting Successful PPC Campaigns

One of the toughest things about designing a pay per click ad campaign is just knowing where to start.  You may have seen other law firms buy their way into sponsored web results, and wonder if there's a way to have your firm do the same thing.  PPC search engine advertising is available through most major search engines, and many of these search engines offer quick tutorials that can help you get PPC campaigns off the ground within days if you want to move fast.

While the speed of starting a pay per click campaign is one of the advantages of this form of advertising, it's important not to get too carried away.  Waiting to initiate your PPC campaigns until you are sure you know what you're doing can ensure that you get the maximum return on investment.  Before you start working with PPC search engine advertising, here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you know what your goals are for your advertising campaign?  Keep in mind that just generating more website traffic doesn't necessarily mean you'll get more clients—don't just have a goal like “we want to see a 50 percent increase in visitors to our website,” think about how many new clients you're hoping for.

• Are you familiar with the jargon and terminology of PPC campaigns?  You'll have a much easier time understanding best practices for PPC search engine advertising if you know enough of the vocabulary to do your research.

• Is your website attractive and well designed?  Even the best PPC campaigns won't work if your pay per click ads lead to a website with inaccurate information or broken links.  If your website is merely mediocre, up to 85% of clients will leave before they've even looked for 30 seconds—and they aren't likely to come back.

What to Do If Your PPC Campaigns Don't Work

Because PPC search engine advertising is still relatively new, it's easy for people designing new pay per click campaigns to run into some trouble when they first start designing their advertisements.  Here are a few common problems and how to fix them:

• If you're spending your PPC search engine advertising budget too quickly on too few clicks, you may want to focus your PPC campaigns on narrower, less prestigious keywords.  Hyperlocalization can help you to get the most out of each click made on your advertisements.

• If your ads aren't bringing in many clicks, the copy of your ads themselves may need fine-tuning.  Don't bother including a phone number in your PPC search engine advertising—save that for your landing page, where it isn't taking up such a high percentage of your space.

• If you're getting a lot of traffic with “broad match” keywords, consider adding negative keywords to your PPC campaigns.  For example, you may want to make sure that your PPC search engine advertising doesn't involve paying for clicks from people seeking free legal aid.

• If you have plenty of clicks but no one's calling, take a long, hard look at your website. PPC campaigns can fail even when ad copy is brilliant if a website is messy or just plain boring. The more you can differentiate yourself from the competition with your website, the more likely it is that your PPC search engine advertising will be successful.

You may want to consider hiring a service to help you with your PPC campaigns if you have corrected what you believe to be the problem, but haven't seen any results.  A well-organized pay per click campaign should have a significant impact not only on your website traffic, but on your number of clients.  If it's not, you may want professionals to evaluate your PPC search engine advertising and your website.  Professional help may save you money and time when trying to design a new campaign—think of these services as an investment, rather than a cost.

Third Party Software and PPC Search Engine Advertising

When you want to step up your analysis of data from PPC campaigns, you don't just want to rely on Google or Yahoo services for bidders.  There are dozens of third party tools that can help you improve any aspect of your PPC search engine advertising.

In order to understand how to get the most out of any third party software tool, you'll need to know how to use it.  Some tools for PPC campaigns include enough tutorials and documentation that you'll understand the basic features right away.  However, if you're a power user or you want to be one, it's critical to seek out training.  Training seminars and webinars can make it easier to use the more complicated features on your software so that your analysis of your PPC search engine advertising is more robust.

Alternatives to PPC Search Engine Advertising

While PPC campaigns can be a great way to get your website in the spotlight quickly, it's important not to let pay per click be your only marketing strategy.  A more complete internet advertising campaign will also include search engine optimization (SEO) strategies that can help place your website higher in organic (non-sponsored) search results.  

You may want to work on your PPC search engine advertising at first, when your internet marketing campaign is new, and then gradually increase the effort your firm puts into SEO.  Then, once your organic search results are high enough, at least for some terms, you can scale back your PPC campaigns on those terms and work on different sets of keywords or simply reduce your pay per click budget.

Studies show that building inbound links is the single most important factor for searches, in part because it improves your Page Rank from Google.  “But how can I find my Page Rank?” you may ask.  Your Page Rank won't appear on your website automatically, and you'll need to download a tool or use a webpage to be able to find your Page Rank.  In this guide, we'll look at why someone might want to find their page rank, and what you can do after you know what your page rank looks like and how it's trending.

Why You Need to Find Your Page Rank

Let's say that I run a website for a law firm that has a large number of competitors in my area.  No matter what, I notice that it seems like my web pages always display lower than the pages of my competitors whenever I search online.  When this happens, I need to find my Page Rank.  When I find my Page Rank, I will probably discover that it is substantially lower than my competitors' PR value.  That will make it much harder to have my links displayed early in search results.

If you're running a website, you need to be able to not only find your Page Rank right now, but also to keep track of it over time.  “But how do I find my Page Rank value from times in the past?”  A tool like SEOMoz can actually help you to find your Page Rank value over a period of months or years.

How Often Does Page Rank Change?

So now, we'll say I decided to find my Page Rank and discovered that it was a 4, and that it has been a 4 for quite some time.  How often can I expect it to change?  How often should I find my Page Rank so that I can tell whether it's been moving up or down?

Typically, you can wait to find your page rank for several weeks to a month after you calculate it once.  If I try to find my page rank once a day, for example, I won't really be getting much new data.  That's because Google actually only updates the Page Rank values infrequently.  In some cases, you may have to wait up to several months to actually see a change to your page rank, even if you've been building inbound links at a very good pace.

How Can I Find My Page Rank Today?

In order to find your page rank right away, you can use any of several calculator tools online.  However, probably the simplest and easiest one to download (not to mention the one that is always, always available with no downtime) is the Google Toolbar.  The Google Toolbar is a very fast download, and by hovering over the Page Rank icon, you can find your page rank very easily for any web page on your site (or any other website).

The Google Toolbar, as well as any other tool I can use to find my page rank that relies on Google's numbers, will only display an integer value for Page Rank.  However, this is a rounded value.  You can even find some tools that will help you to estimate your current Page Rank so that you can find how many links you'll need to add to go up another level.

How Can I Find My Page Rank Numbers for Competitors?

One of the greatest things about the Google Page Rank system is that you don't have to stop by trying to find your Page Rank.  When I'm done trying to find my Page Rank, I can always look at my competitors' websites and see whether they're doing as well as I am.  If I find that my competitors are having a very fast uptick in their Page Rank numbers, this is a good sign that I need to become more aggressive in my marketing strategy.

If you find your Page Rank is significantly lower than that of your competitors, make sure that you try to build your inbound link profile slowly.  Google regards it as suspicious when websites with relatively low amounts of traffic suddenly build huge numbers of inbound links all at once.  Artificial linking patterns also tend to show large “spikes” of inbound links being built on some days (weekdays!) while other days show no links were built.  To make your linking patterns look as natural as possible, keep your links building as consistently as you can.

How Can I Find My Page Rank Predictions?

Okay, so Google hasn't updated for a while.  Is there any way to find your page rank before the toolbar updates for you?  Absolutely.  Search for “page rank prediction.”  When you use a prediction tool, you'll find your page rank based on many different Google data centers.  The different data centers update your Page Rank at different times, which means that you can sometimes essentially predict the future using one of these tools.

Don't expect to see predictions that extend far into the future—no one can see what the future will hold for your link building!  However, you can use this to understand whether you can expect your Page Rank to increase within the next few months.

Beyond Finding Page Rank: Analyzing Your Data

Once you find your Page Rank, you need to actually take a look at the trends you're seeing and do something about them.  In general, if you're seeing a steady increase in your Page Rank, you don't need to change your ways unless you want a sudden boost.  However, if your Page Rank is slowly declining, this is usually a sign that your link building efforts have been slowing down.  You should work on building more backlinks.

Sudden decreases in Page Rank are usually the result of violating some aspect of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.  If you are building links artificially instead of organically, your website could be penalized (also known as “sandboxed”) by Google with the result that your Page Rank drops precipitously.  You will need to look in your webmaster email to see if Google has notified you about what the problem is and how to correct it.

The days of being limited to mobile text advertising with SMS are over.  Today’s statistics show that most users spend more time in apps than browsing or checking texts, and mobile advertising trends are showing a huge increase in the types of advertising currently being done.  From using mobile advertising networks to creating mobile video advertising, the new mobile world can seem a bit confusing if you’re not used to it.  Keep reading this guide, where we’ve identified the six biggest mobile advertising trends that your business needs to be aware of.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #1: Mergers of Mobile Advertising Networks

The explosive growth of mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising has given rise to thousands of relatively small mobile advertising networks.  One of the mobile advertising trends you can expect in the next few years is that these companies will start to fuse together.

When mergers begin to pick up steam among these mobile advertising networks, you may have more choices for one stop solutions for mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising.  Because mergers can sometimes result in changes to user interfaces, you’ll want to keep on top of any merger or acquisition news that could affect your mobile advertisements.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #2: Mobile Video Advertising

Mobile advertising networks weren’t able to fully take advantage of video ads when they first came out.  This wasn’t because mobile video advertising didn’t work well, but rather because the capabilities of wireless providers hadn’t yet caught up to mobile advertising trends.

With the proliferation of 3G and 4G networks across the United States, it has become more and more feasible to replace mobile text advertising with video.  Mobile video advertising has been shown to be significantly more effective than advertising with text and images alone.  These ads now represent one of the biggest mobile advertising trends.

To take advantage of the new mobile video advertising market, you can start by using similar videos to your traditional web ads.  Today’s mobile advertising networks may also let you make a video interactive, which can make its conversion rates even higher.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #3: Location, Location, Location

As mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising have become more sophisticated, so, too, have the targeting systems from mobile advertising networks.  More than any other factor, mobile advertising networks have latched on to geolocation services as the next big mobile advertising trends.

Unlike a traditional laptop or desktop, mobile phones contain GPS technology that can pinpoint exactly where a potential client is at the time when they see your ad.  Mobile advertising networks can now target so accurately that it’s possible to make sure your mobile text advertising or mobile video advertising is seen exclusively by people within a few blocks of where you are sitting right now.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #4: The End of the Desktop-Ported Mobile Site

If your firm started using mobile text advertising some time ago, you may have simply directed ad viewers to your normal website.  Mobile advertising trends show so much traffic being funneled through smartphones that you’d be foolish to continue directing potential clients to a website that isn’t optimized for mobile.

When you use mobile advertising networks, you should also make a mobile optimized website that still contains all the major information from your old website but in a shorter, easier to read format.  Then, you can direct all your current mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising to this version of your site instead of the old one.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #5: Marketing With Apps

In summer 2010, mobile consumers spent an average of 43 minutes using apps and 64 minutes using the web every day.  By December 2011, consumers were spending more time on both activities, but apps had eclipsed browsing: people now spent 94 minutes on apps and 72 minutes browsing the web.

Consumers of mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising are now more likely to be looking at an app than at the web as a whole.  What does that mean for mobile advertising trends?  Well, for one thing, it means that your firm may want to consider focusing on mobile advertising networks that advertise in apps rather than on the web.  These mobile advertising networks are better situated for current trends than web-focused networks are.

It may also be time to consider supplementing your mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising with building your own apps.  Mobile advertising networks can help you develop your first app.  The interactivity of apps makes people substantially more likely to take further action (like calling your firm) than if you had used traditional mobile text advertising or mobile video advertising.

The kinds of apps you can build are limited only by your imagination.  You can make an app that is informative, entertaining, or both.  Like great mobile video advertising, a really amazing app also has the potential to go viral, spreading out on the internet even without direct marketing efforts.

Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch #6: Better Analytics

So far, it’s been much harder to track the results of mobile text advertising and mobile video advertising than other types of web ads.  Why?  It’s not because the analytics are actually more difficult, but rather because mobile advertising networks have been slow to build the same kinds of analytics tools that other web advertisers have developed.  Now that there’s big money in mobile advertisements, analytics companies have begun to see the potential in developing analytics software exclusively for the mobile market.

As mobile advertising continues to evolve, and especially as networks merge their information and tools, you’ll start to see better analytics leading to better lists of best practices. If you want to stay on top of your mobile ad campaigns, keeping an eye on analytics is crucial.  New analytics software may let you perform a number of geotargeted split tests, as well as figure out which landing pages help your conversion rate most.