Search engine marketing can be a complex and scary topic. Endless opportunities to advertise and market, constantly changing trends and technologies, and overly complex solutions all come with the territory. So, what you don’t need when you’re evaluating or creating your search engine marketing strategy is lengthy explanations about how different techniques work. Instead, seek out advisors who can guide you with simple explanations and techniques based on real results. That’s exactly what the following article is about. Here’s a simple list of four things business owners can use in creating or evaluating their search engine marketing strategy.
1. Establish Your Internet Marketing Strategy Goal
Many consultants will tell you to set goals about what you want to achieve with your website. Forget it. These are distractions from the real question you need to ask yourself, which is
“What is THE purpose of my website?”
Once you answer that question, all other aspects of search engine marketing strategy can be leveraged to help you achieve that purpose.
Typically, people use their website for many different purposes. Regardless, you still need to answer this question. The focus you will get from it will help you create a more effective strategy.
Here are the top three most common answers to the question “What is THE purpose of my website?”
- To sell things
- To generate leads for my sales team
- To educate my target audience
It can be this simple! Just decide which of the three answers above suits you best (or create your own) and then move on to step 2.
2. Establish a Search Engine Marketing Plan
There’s a reason why search engine marketing is so hot. It works. It consistently generates leads, sales, etc. at a lower cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale than traditional mediums like TV or direct mail advertising. It makes sense when you think about it: when people want to find something online, they go to Google, Bing, Yahoo! etc. and search for it. Once the results come in, they click on what they consider relevant to their search objective.
Search engine marketing is all about SHOWING UP when people search for what you sell, offer, or have on your website. There is a growing body of knowledge (books, articles, etc.) on how to do this. And like anything else, it has become over analyzed and too complex. To further complicate things, some search engine marketing techniques are ethical and legitimate, while some are not. The best approach is to create a search engine marketing plan that focuses on two aspects:
- Search engine optimization – showing up in the “free” area of the search engine’s results
- Pay-per-click advertising – showing up in the “paid” area of the search engine’s results
For search engine optimization, first realize there is no “silver bullet.” There just isn’t a way to easily get ranked consistently high in search engines. It is a combination of factors that always come down to one underlying truth: build your website according to web standards, with a focus on accessibility for all.
Just like search engine optimization, there is no “silver bullet” for pay-per-click advertising, either.
Instead, the formula for PPC success is in well-placed bids (what you will pay to have your ad show up) combined with meaningful landing pages (where people go when they click on your ad).
3. Conduct Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The goal of search engine optimization is to make changes to your website to get higher rankings in search engines. Yet, search engine optimization is a confusing sector. On one hand, there are “snake oil salesmen” ready to get you a #1 ranking with their latest trick. On the other hand, the things that do work are very simple, and frankly, just not very “sexy.”
The best strategy to take is a common-sense approach to SEO: develop standards for your website that ALL pages must adhere to. If you do this, and enforce it, you can then branch out into some of the other “niche” aspects of SEO.
Here’s a sample list of SEO standards to enforce on your website:
- Write descriptive HTML page titles that really describe the page it is on (in 255 characters or less)
- Write a summary sentence that really describes the page it is on (in 255 characters or less)
- Write page content that is focused on
- Write descriptive ALT text for all images that describe the concept the image illustrates and never use images for text
- Build all pages to comply with current web standards
Once your web pages comply with the above standards should you start more advanced SEO techniques, including keyword targeting, 301 redirects, link building (getting more links to your site), RSS news feeds, blogs, and SEO-specific metrics and tracking.
4. Leverage Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising helps you get more traffic from search engines through advertising in search results. You pick terms that people search on. You bid a price per click on the ad that you are willing to pay. Your ad shows up when someone searches on that term, and, if you have selected the ideal set of words to catch the attention, chances are they will click on your ad and visit your website.
Pay-per-click advertising really boils down to 3 components:
- Defining keywords to advertise on (i.e. target keywords)
- Determining what to bid for those target keywords
- Writing copy for the ads that show up when people search
Picking keywords is all about knowing what terms your customers, clients, etc. would use when searching for your product or service. There are several tools to help you generate ideas. The best tools also check to see how many searches-per-month your target keywords receive. You typically want to find keywords that generate a lot of searches every month, but are focused enough for your business. In some cases, long tail keywords with less volume, but more prone to secure a sale are also a good option.
For example, a company that sells Keen high-performance outdoor sandals would probably be best served bidding on “keen sandals” versus “sandals” which could include searches for the all-inclusive resort, Sandals.
Determining what to bid for your keywords can be a highly-scientific process, sometimes managed by complex software and several key metrics. To keep it simple, let a tool like Google Adwords recommend to you what to bid on first. Start there, and start small. Your best bet is to lock-in a low daily budget limit until you are comfortable with the impressions your ads are getting, the flow of traffic from the ads to your website, and what those people do once they get to your website.
Writing ad copy comes down to writing a headline that people will click on, and creating compelling copy below that headline/link that will get people to click.
Headlines are best created by following what magazine covers do: focus on getting attention through eye-catching, short phrases. Using words like best (i.e. “Best Tips for a Summer Barbeque”), ultimate (i.e. “Ultimate National Park Vacations”)
and number-based lists (i.e. “Top 5 Hybrid Cars for 2006”) have all been proven to work. Writing effective ad copy below the title/link is really about reinforcing the term(s) to search for. This means using the keywords in the ad copy, and starting the copy with an action verb.
By following the approach above, you can create or evaluate your search engine marketing strategy, focus on what matters most when executing your plans, and more effectively achieve your goals.
