Anyone selling online should consider search engine
marketing (SEM) as a way of generating potential customers
to their website. But what does this unique kind of
marketing involve? In this article, I'll explain a few
search engine basics...
For most Internet users it's virtually second nature to use
a search engine to look for information, products or
services. As expected, when they search on a particular
word or combinations of words, the search engines come up
with a host of results. Each result represents a website
that supposedly has the information, products or services
the Internet user looking for. They can click on the link
and ta-da! the website does or does not give them what they
want.
It's important to note that the search engines don't rank
websites as a whole; they rank specific webpages. In any
case, the higher that your webpages appear in the SERPs,
the more people who are likely to see your description and
click on your link. However, SEM experts tend to vary in
their view on whether it's better to have the top position
in both or either the free and paid results. While most
believe that having the top rank in the free results
attracts the most clicks and traffic; some SEM experts
believe that it's more cost-effective to have the second,
third or lower listing in the paid results. Nevertheless,
most agree that you want your free and/or paid results to
be on the first page.
The two main strands of search marketing are search engine
optimization (SEO) and paid search. Search engine
optimization is about optimizing your website (i.e. each
page on the site) - known as "on-page optimization" - as
well as undertaking a range of "off-page" activities
designed to achieve a high ranking in the SERPs. Getting a
high ranking in the SERPs of a given search engine is a
function of how that search engine's mathematical algorithm
(i.e. for determining rankings) works. Often this takes a
degree of study, trial and error, and hard work.
Alternatively, to achieve a high place in the paid search
results, it's largely a matter of how much you're willing
to pay. Depending on the search engine, you can pay per
click - known literally as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- or pay based on the number of impressions or views the ad
receives. Having said that, the priority of your placing
may also be impacted by how effective your ad is, based on
the number of clicks it receives or click through rate
(CTR). Google, in particular, takes the CTR into account,
as well as the bid price per click, when determining the
order of the paid results.
It can be a good idea to dip your toe into search marketing
by starting with paid advertising - particularly PPC. Not
only can you begin promoting your offer to your target
market without delay, but you can also test keywords. You
might decide that particularly high performing keywords
should be incorporated into your webpages for SEO purposes.
So there you have a quick run-down of search engine
marketing. It's definitely worth delving into further if
you like the idea of building a consistent traffic stream
to your web business.
----------------------------------------------------
Steve Renner is a well known Internet Marketing Expert,
author, consultant and speaker. Get Professional Internet
Marketing Training and resources at http://www.imtrain.com
No comments:
Post a Comment