Internet and Technology

Unless you have your own business it is unlikely you have any knowledge of the difference between home broadband and business broadband. Why would you need that information? It doesn’t affect you either way. On the other hand if you own your own business or are in a position with your employer that you make decisions regarding the computer usage, you will perhaps be interested in the differences between the two of them.One of the differences that most people note is price. In most cases a business broadband account will cost more than a home broadband account. One of the reasons that may be is because of the need for quick response from service technicians. In the effect that there is a problem with the connection, it is essential for a technician to respond quickly to address the problem. Although some home broadband users may be operating a business from home, unless they have a business account they will not receive the same level of service they would if they were paying for a business broadband account.Another difference between home broadband and business broadband is the speed of the connection. Of course, this is also affected by the speed of the system that is being used, so if you have a slower processor, you are not going to connect at the same speed as you would otherwise. In addition, the amount of available RAM will affect your connection speed as well.The major difference that exists between home broadband and business broadband is the number of users that exist on the same server at the same time. For example, on a home network there may be as many as 50 connections on the server at one time while business broadband may only accommodate 20 on the same server. The fact that a business broadband server has fewer computers on the same server simultaneously gives it a faster connection. With a business connection speed is of greater importance than a home connection in most cases.It’s essential to remember if you are operating a business at home and need a faster connection speed, you may need to upgrade to business broadband. Whether the cost factor is worthwhile depends upon what kind of business you have and whether your current speed has a detrimental effect on your business needs. If you work with both online services and offline software you may not need to increase your speed, but if you have an eCommerce site that depends on you being able to access things quickly, it may be in your best interest to upgrade to business broadband.You have to understand the differences between home broadband and business broadband in order to choose what is right for a home-based business. We have addressed some of the major differences that exist, but you need to contact your broadband provider in order to address any additional differences that may exist based on offerings of your broadband provider and the area where you live or operate a business.

So you are interested in advertising on Google, MSN and/or Yahoo but don’t know if there are any real differences. Take it from me, there are very big differences and being aware of them can save you a lot of money.Back-story

Recently, I was charged with the task of promoting a new piece of software that is geared towards the small business market. I felt this was a good opportunity to run a test to see which search engine is most effective to advertise on. What I found was some startling differences between Google Adwords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and MSN AdCenter and how effective each one was at promoting my product.Test Setup

Over two months run the same advertisements with the same keywords on Google Adwords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and MSN AdCenter to see how each of them performs. Though the daily budgets were the same, the cost per click had to vary in order to keep consistent with other bids for each search engine. The goal was to bid just enough to appear in an average search position of 2-3. Test in progress

While the test was taking place I noticed that Google had by far the most impressions to offer and had very little trouble filling my entire budget each day. Yahoo, though they said they didn’t have many impressions to offer for those keywords also maxed out my budget each day, sometimes even exceeding my daily maximum. MSN on the other hand never came close to filling my budget; sometimes it only drove a handful of people to the site over a week’s time.

Another thing I noticed is that the cost per click varied slightly for the same position in their results. Google was the most expensive at just over $3 dollars per click, Yahoo was $2.67 and MSN was $2.39. I realize that the costs are a bit arbitrary without the keywords but this article is for comparison’s sake and not specifics.The Conclusion

In the end the only thing that really matters is how many clicks were converted. For those of you new to the term “conversion”: A conversion is any signup, purchase or traceable action that you wish a user to perform. For us, a conversion meant a sign up.

After two months we had 60% of our signups from Google, 50% from MSN and a dismal 10% from Yahoo. The biggest surprise is that Google cost 50% of our total money spent, Yahoo cost 35% and MSN cost only 15% of our total budget. In the end MSN ended up being much cheaper per conversion and even though they didn’t send a ton of traffic to our site it seemed that they were well qualified people that they were sending.

Yahoo was the biggest disappointment, costing over 3x’s per conversion than Google and over 6x’s more than MSN. There can be a host of reasons this is so, one of the possibilities is that Yahoo’s users are not interested in the type of software we were promoting. Another possibility is that Yahoo’s ads get clicked on by their users at a much higher rate which also causes the quality of the leads to be lower.

In the end, running campaigns on the major three search engines can be a great help, but monitoring them can save you a lot of money in the long run. What works on one search engine many not work on another, and keeping an eye on it will help you determine this. Don’t be afraid to pull the plug if one is not working, sometimes you just need to go with what works and not force something that isn’t showing you results.