Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Basics
Search Engine Marketing October 24th. 2007, 2:18am
Scott Daughtry*, a SEO and SEM specialist, contributes his best tips and tricks.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization (Results show up in the free/organic listings - the green highlighted section below)
SEM = Search Engine Marketing (Results show up in the paid listings - the red highlighted section below)
Question: For someone new to this, which should they start with?
Answer: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - it will produce faster results; plus you can test what works with SEM first and translate that over to a SEO strategy later. SEO takes a lot of time and energy; if you start with SEM you will know the best things to focus on with your SEO efforts later. Question: What is the best search engine to focus on first?
Answer: It depends on your business, but I would say Google in most cases - they hold a majority of the market share at the moment. Google Adwords is the tool you would use for Search Engine Marketing on Google. Tips for using Google AdWords (Google’s SEM tool):
- Choose the right keywords - Keywords are words and phrases that relate to your business. People type these into a search engine when looking for something. Don’t try to guess at this; find out the exact words that people are searching for by doing diligent keyword research ahead of time (Google will help you generate keywords in their Keyword Tools section). These will be the words you bid on.
- Create targeted ads - This is what people will see in the Google results page (the red highlighted section above). Your keywords should be in the title and description sections if possible. You only have 35 characters to get your message across in your ad so it must be compelling and concise. Use split-testing to get the most out of your ads.
- Create targeted landing pages - Landing pages are the pages that people go to when they click on your ad. Make sure the page relates exactly to the keyword you are bidding on and the ad you are running; don’t simply send the visitor to your homepage. A visitor won’t stay on your site long if they can’t immediately find the information they searched for. Track your results - using Google conversion code tracking. Split testing can also be used for landing pages - check out Google’s website optimizer
What determines your rank in Google Adwords?
Rank = bid price x quality score (are the keywords you are bidding on in your ad and on the landing page?) x ad performance (how often your ad is clicked)
Google Keyword Tool - Great for keyword research
Google Trends - compare the search volume of multiple keywords over time. This can also be used for search-based copywriting (link to future section on this topic).
October 25th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Thanks to Scott for this super useful info! And thank you, Andrea, for posting it in such a easy to reference manner. I will be coming back to this post often while I work to SEO/SEM my websites!
November 7th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
[…] For those of you with limited budgets, you may be asking yourself – why spend money on a PPC engine like Google Adwords before taking advantage of every possible opportunity to get free listings? My best answer to this question is that doing so will save you weeks or possibly months of frustration. How? When you begin optimizing your website, you have no idea what will drive potential customers to your site, let alone what will prompt them to buy. Sure, you hopefully will do some keyword research ahead of time, but you still won’t know which keywords will ultimately bring you the targeted, motivated traffic you are looking for. Aside from that, you have no idea if Google or other search engines will even list your pages anywhere near the top (check out the chart below to see why being above the fold on page 1 is essential in a competitive b2b environment). In the end you may end up spending a lot of time and effort waiting to gain that first page result only to be disappointed because you show up on page 10. Alternately you may show up on page 1, but end up getting the wrong type of traffic resulting in few or no leads/sales.Google eye tracking study: Areas of the page searchers focus on Now let’s consider that you do the same keyword research, but set up a Google Adwords account first and wait to optimize your site. With Adwords you can be up and running ads in minutes instead of waiting days or weeks to get indexed by Google in the organic (free) listings. You can also guarantee visibility within the eye tracking sweet spot from the chart above. Now you can begin testing. You can test which keywords are getting the most conversions, which ad copy resonates best with your target market, and which landing page copy convinces people to fill out their information. Once you begin gathering this data, you can begin transitioning the things that work to your website; you can now be confident that your optimization efforts will not be a waste of time. It’s like having the ultimate focus group; people from all over are telling you which keywords they are interested in when looking for products or services you sell. You will now know exactly which web copy to add to your pages to get the most conversions - it is no longer a guessing game. Authors and publishing companies test book titles with Adwords before going to print. Entrepreneurs use adwords to test product ideas before manufacturing the product. Adwords is the ultimate market research tool; if you look at it this way, it is well worth the money spent. Of course this all depends on whether you use Adwords to its full potential and testing capabilities.If you have any questions for Scott, please leave a comment or visit his profile on LinkedIn. For more articles related to SEO, click here. […]
November 12th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
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December 7th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
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