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5 Tips for Successful Search Engine Marketing
If
you are new to the Search category, you're probably
familiar with the term "Search
Engine Optimization" (SEO)
and have seen or heard the term "Search Engine Marketing" (SEM),
but are not exactly sure what Search Engine Marketing
really means. More than likely, you've heard the
two terms used interchangeably and may think that
they mean the same thing. Though they are similar,
there is a dramatic difference between the two practices.
Knowing and understanding the difference between
these two terms, and more importantly, knowing how
to take advantage of the differences is the key to
overall success in marketing via search engines.
There has been a dramatic but subtle change over
the past few years with regards to promoting websites
via search engines. Rather than being two interchangeable
terms, Search Engine Optimization is actually an
element of Search Engine Marketing, with the other
element being "Paid Search Media." It is those
site owners and managers that truly understand this, and utilize
it on their site along with all of the elements involved in
each, that are achieving success on the search engines at a
reasonable cost.
Let's define the terms before continuing.
- Search
Engine Marketing: The act of marketing a web site
via search engines, whether this is improving rank
in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a
combination thereof, along with other search engine
related activities. (Source: SEMPO.org)
Search Engine Optimization: The act of altering
a web site so that is does well in the organic, crawler-
based listings of search engines. Also called "SEO." (Source:
SEMPO.org)
- Paid
Search Media: Advertising programs where listings
are guaranteed to appear in response to particular
search terms, with higher ranking typically obtained
by paying more than other advertisers. Also called "Paid
Placement," "Pay Per Click" and "Cost per Click." (Source:
SEMPO.org)
It is important to understand that there is no less value in
performing Search Engine Optimization because of the rise in
popularity of Paid Search Media and Pay Per Click (PPC) programs
offered by companies such as Overture and Google (Adwords.)
If anything, it has increased the importance of optimizing
your web site, namely due to the fluctuating costs of PPC programs.
The following tips will enable you to take full advantage of
Search Engine Marketing. They will also assist you in achieving
your online goals as rapidly as possible, and at a very reasonable
cost.
1. Understand
your online business
There are a lot of business owners that believe their offline
business is the same as their online business; that the two
mimic each other. Usually, this is only partially correct.
This is especially true when it comes to competitor analysis.
Many times the companies you compete with offline are markedly
different from the ones you compete with online and visa versa.
To begin understanding your online business, simply write a
description of your company. Have your colleagues, family and
friends do the same. If you own a brick and mortar business,
ask your customers to describe your business for you. Most
will be happy to provide feedback. You may find that many of
the descriptions are similar, yet different.
Next, go online. Search for your competitors' sites and pay
careful attention to how they are promoting and positioning
themselves in the marketplace. Use the information you've already
gathered about YOUR company and refine it to ensure you are
properly differentiating yourself. Take the time to integrate
your own identity, as you now understand it, and based upon
feedback from others.
2. Understanding
your online customer
Frequently, your online customer's profile WILL be similar
to your offline customer. You should use this information when
performing optimization to your website and when buying pay-per-click
keywords.
It is important to understand that much like traditional, brick
and mortar customers, there are different types of online customers.
These customers will search very differently and can sometimes
be segmented by gender, race, and income level. It has been
proven that men search differently than women and further,
older men and women search differently than younger men and
women do.
Two excellent studies have been produced recently that discuss
the different types of searchers. Those studies are:
- Enquiro's Inside the Mind
of the Searcher (free download registration required)
is a first of its kind study covering the types of
searchers using search engines, what search results
caught their attention and what enticed them to click
on results.
- iProspect's Search
Engine User's Attitudes (free download) is an in
depth study that reveals the relationship between profession,
age, education, race and sex and how that influence
a persons' searches.
These studies will provide you with valuable insight to help
you understand your customer base better. Once you have a thorough
understanding of how your customers search, you will be better
positioned to apply that knowledge to choosing the right keywords.
3. Determining
a successful conversion
If you were to ask most web site owners what they want from
their web site they'd say "to make money". That generally rings
true even if they don't sell anything on or through the web
site. Understanding what the true purpose of your web site
is the first step to determining what to deem a successful
conversion. After all, conversions will determine the success
or failure of your website as a business tool.
If your web site is just brochure-ware, or used primarily as
a promotion tool, a successful conversion may simply be traffic.
Conversion may be measured as getting a user to browse through
your web site, then filling out a contact form, placing a phone
call or downloading a PDF.
If you sell something through your web site then a successful
conversion will more than likely be defined as a completed
transaction, or "selling something." Remember, your web site
may even have multiple types of conversions.
It is impossible to determine the true success or failure of
your search engine marketing efforts without first knowing
what success is, as defined by setting standards of conversion
for your site. Once you know what a success is, you can begin
to track that success. Tracking is covered more thoroughly
in Tip 5.
4. Researching,
Choosing and Implementing Keywords
Researching, choosing, and implementing keywords can be one
of the most daunting aspects of Search Engine Marketing. It
is also one of the most important.
Researching Keywords
Now that you have a better understanding of your customer, your online business,
and what constitutes a successful conversion, you can begin to develop the
best keywords to meet your goals.
Fortunately, there are many well written tutorials and
tools to help you succeed in researching, and choosing
the right keywords. The August edition of Market Position
has an excellent article on Choosing
the Best Keywords.
This article provides you with the following keyword techniques:
1. Put yourself in the
shoes of your target audience.
2. Target Niches.
3. Brainstorm for keywords in your category.
4. Choose only relevant keywords.
5. Understand that keywords can have multiple meanings
WordTracker is an excellent tool to conduct keyword research. It provides you
with the ability to determine exactly what words are being used in search engines
to find the products and services that you may offer. If you haven't tried
WordTracker yet simply download
the free trial of WebPosition Gold 3 and click on the WordTracker icon.
Choosing Keywords
Once you've compiled a thorough list of keywords using
WordTracker you must decide the ways in which you are going
to use those keywords.
Unfortunately most web sites do not have enough content,
or aren't large enough to support all of the good, quality
keywords you have found using these tools. Therefore, you
should narrow your list. How?
You need to consider the following for each keyword on
your list:
- Does this keyword
support my online goals?
Do I have the content to support this keyword? If yes, then is my page
optimized for it?
Do I have to create content to support this keyword? If yes, then is it
worth the creation effort or should I buy it through PPC?
- Is it a seasonal word?
If yes, then should I buy it through PPC or Optimize for it?
Pay Per Click keywords should be words that are seasonal, marginally related
to your web site, or cannot be ranked for in a reasonable amount of time. PPC
words will cost you more over a long period of time, so great caution needs
to be exercised when participating in PPC programs. For an excellent PPC tutorial,
see the WebPosition Gold 3 Page Critic.
Once you have created your final keyword list and have
determined how those words are to be used through either
PPC or SEO, then you can begin implementation.
If you have to build optimized web pages to take advantage
of some of your selected keywords simply download
the free trial of WebPosition Gold 3 and click on the
Page Builder icon. With WebPosition Gold 3, you can build
and upload your optimized content all with one easy to
use tool.
5. Tracking your rankings,
website traffic and conversions
Now that you've completed the process of creating and launching
your Search Engine Marketing program, you need to be able to
determine if your efforts are succeeding. Of course, more online
sales are an easy way to determine if your efforts are succeeding;
however, there are many more metrics to analyze in order to
get the most out of your efforts and money.
It is imperative that you be able to assess how your web site
is ranking for the words you've targeted. You need to know,
for sure, if those words are successful and are converting.
You also need to know whether your SEO or PPC efforts are bringing
you the most traffic and conversions.
Fortunately, WebPosition Gold 3 and WebTrends Analytics work
together to provide you all the reports and answers. You can
check your rankings across search engines and keywords, compare
rankings to your actual traffic from those search engines and
track conversions from your SEO and PPC efforts.
Google Introduces
Desktop Search The
hot topic in the world of search this month is certainly
the announcement on October 14th of Google's Desktop
Search release. Google beat competitors like Microsoft
and AOL to market with the release of its Google Desktop
Search tool, which seamlessly integrates traditional Google
web search with the ability to search the user's PC hard
drive to find needed files and information. Google Desktop
Search enables users to retrieve email from Microsoft Outlook
and Outlook Express. It also searchs files in Excel,
Powerpoint, Word and text files, and looks for information
in chat logs from AOL and AOL Instant Messenger. It even
provides quick search of cached web pages, offering a historical
archive of useful information. With its Desktop release,
Google is stepping squarely into Microsoft's turf by
attempting to make Google the "central portal" for any
type of web or PC search.
So, how does it work? The process is simple. Google
Desktop is installed on your PC, and at initial set
up, it scans your hard drive and indexes text folders
and files, emails and chats and cached web pages. And
to minimize disruption, the software waits until your
PC is idle for 30 seconds or longer to do the scans.
After that, new documents are scanned in real time.
So, when you need to find information about your vacation
to "Hawaii", you are presented with a choice
of web and/or desktop results, all in the familiar Google
interface. You might find a Hawaiian travel web page, a text
itinerary to Hawaii, an MP3 file of Hawaiian music or an
email chat with your significant other about your upcoming
trip. Results can be ranked by date or "rank" as determined
by Google's algorithms.
As you can imagine, Google's motivation is to "own" the
customer's search experience, regardless of the sources
searched. This presents the opportunity for Google to
become the default home page for more and more computers
worldwide. While Google will not collect personally identifiable
information, there will still be privacy concerns, as
the user's entire web browsing activity, online chats,
emails, etc., can be accessed at the click of a mouse.
Those who never lock their desktops or who share PC's
will certainly want to pay attention to which items to
hide or turn off in their preferences to avoid any uncomfortable
situations.
The golden nugget for Google over time is that they can
collect advertising revenues for both public web search
and private PC search. For now, Google plans only to
serve up ads next to the search results, as is currently
done on Google.com, and to benefit from increased traffic.
In the future, though, you can imagine being served up
ads each time you search for your Outlook contacts or
for your personal files on your hard drive. Somehow,
having Google so much "closer to home" may
feel a little "too close for comfort".
WebPosition
Gold 3 Reviews: What the experts have to say...
Since the launch of
WebPosition Gold version 3 in August, the response has
been overwhelming. Existing customers are emailing us to
let us know how much they like the new, simpler user interface.
New customers are calling to let us know that they are
integrating SEO into their search marketing strategy. And
thanks to WebPosition Gold 3, customers can access all
of the tools required in the SEO process, from researching
keywords to analyzing conversion on search activities,
in one place.
But don't take our word for it, see what search experts
had to say….
In the September edition of Search Engine News,
industry thought leader, Stephen Mahaney of Planet Ocean
Communications, calls WebPosition "… probably the most useful
SE tool ever invented. There's no doubt the tracking and
reporting function of WebPosition is absolutely indispensable." (Search
Engine News, September, 2004).
Check out Stephen Mahaney's review of WebPosition Gold 3
at:
http://www.searchengine-news.com/webposition3/
And Robin Nobles, well-known SEO author and Co-Director of
Training for Search Engine
Workshops, says WebPosition Gold 3 is "… definitely worth
the wait! WebPosition Gold has once again proven to be the
leader in search engine marketing software. This exciting
new software program deserves a long look by anyone in the
SEO industry..." (Search Engine Workshops, September, 2004).
Be sure to read Robin's review of WebPosition Gold 3 at:
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/gold3.html
Last
Month:
Last month
we talked about several important topics including:
- How
do you know what a search engine is really looking for? Search
Engine Marketing & Branding 101 from iProspect
- AskJeeves adds localized search, My Jeeves, and more!
If you
missed these or other key discussions, you can find the
back issues at: http://www.marketposition.com/newsletters.htm Other
Resources:WebTrends, a business unit of NetIQ Corporation,
produces several products, including WebPosition, the first
software program to report your search positions on the
major search engines and to help you improve those positions.You
may download a FREE trial of WebPosition Gold 3 at:
http://www.webposition.com/You
can download a FREE trial of WebTrends 7 at:
http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/products/webtrends/trial.asp?origin=MP_1004
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