SearchFest 07: Using Search in Your Marketing Mix
 By Chris Wain, marketing consultant
Search marketing has become a critical ingredient of the marketing mix. It’s highly targeted, measurable and cost effective.
Search marketing can drive sales by generating leads through lead generation, trial offers and product downloads, and it can extend the reach of existing campaigns. As Kent Lewis of AnvilMedia explains, “We’re not operating in a vacuum here. You can’t build a brand from scratch using search, but search can help maintain a brand.”
The leading search engines are drawing more eyeballs than primetime television. And search marketing is cost effective: $8.50 to generate a response, compared to $50 per response for banner ads, $60 for e-mail marketing, and $70 for direct mail.
Such insights abounded at SearchFest 07, organized by SEMpdx, the local search marketing organization. SAO was an event sponsor.
There are two interrelated strategies for using search as a marketing medium.
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Organic search or search engine optimization (SEO) is the strategy and process for getting your site to appear prominently in search results on Google, Yahoo and other major engines.
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Paid search, frequently known as pay-per-click (PPC), entails purchasing search keywords to generate clicks to your site.
Organic search: optimizing your site for search engines
Successful organic search requires a two-pronged approach – on-site and off site – according to Stan Davis, a search and Internet consultant.
On your site, there are several steps to optimize for search engines:
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Plan for SEO from the outset. It is important to design a Web site from the ground up with search engines in mind. For example, a Flash-intensive site will be difficult to optimize for search engines.
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Develop valuable content that is rich with keywords. Authoritative sources of information and useful tools on your site are magnets for other sites, and therefore for search engines. Also, keywords should be appropriate and relevant to your audience (for example, “pre-owned vehicles” might reflect how car dealers classify their product, but customers are 200 times more likely to search on “used cars”).
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Optimize your code. For example, make sure the <title> tags are descriptive and unique for each page on your site. And, there are numerous search-friendly tricks like using dashes instead of underscores in page names (“Used-cars.htm”, rather than “Used_cars.htm”)
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Test and continually improve. Continually check for new competitors and new search algorithms that might change your search results.
An off-site strategy involves obtaining inbound links from other sites to boost your site’s ranking on the search engines. Here again, content is key. Content with intrinsic value is a magnet that other sites will want to link to. Blogs are another good source of inbound links. “Bloggers love a good fight,” and will link to controversial content, says Scott Fish of FishSEO.
On the other hand, there’s little value in listing your site on link farms, which are designed to artificially boost a link’s popularity. Most search engines penalize sites associated with link farms.
The payoff of a well-executed organic search strategy is huge. If your site lands in the top three positions on Google, Yahoo or MSN search, 100 percent of searchers notice your link!
Paid search: using keywords to draw visits
“If you can’t optimize your way in, you can buy your way in,” Lewis says. The key elements of paid search (often referred to as “pay-per-click”) are the choice of keywords on the search site, the promotional copy associated with the keyword, and the “landing page.”
Start developing a paid campaign by researching the appropriate keywords to purchase. Look at keywords in Web logs and use tools. WordTracker is a widely used tool for determining the most frequently used keywords, and Google, MSN and Yahoo have similar tools for their clients. In addition, be sure to review competitors’ sites, especially the use of keywords in their title tags and metatags. Finally, as you select keywords to buy, be sure to consider plural and misspelling variations.
After choosing a set of keywords, start evaluating alongside the other elements of the campaign. You can set up a trial account with one of the search engines for a few hundred dollars to see which combinations of keywords, copy and landing pages will generate the best ROI. There are a wealth of best practices regarding copy and landing pages. For example, in the copy associated with your keywords, be sure to highlight the offer and call to action (“Free white paper” or “Free shipping”). And, when designing a landing page, as Hallie Janssen of AnvilMedia puts it, “Think TV commercial. Keep it brief and include a photo of the product.”
When evaluating the success metrics for the campaign, carefully consider what success means. Many principles of search marketing apply equally well to business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) campaigns. However, success metrics will vary with the campaign. B2B campaigns may seek to entice a prospective customer to download a white paper or software development tool. B2C campaigns, however, are more likely to measure success by products sold.
For all kinds of campaigns, reporting tools for evaluation are available from the search engines and from analytics vendors such as WebTrends. The SearchFest presenters listed here also can help you get your next campaign underway.
For more information
Presenters in the Search Fundamentals Track at SearchFest
About the author
Chris Wain, a local writer and marketing consultant, is a 10-year veteran of e-business and Internet marketing. His e-business experience encompasses Web-site management, communications, training, managing a user experience team, and, most recently, transition and change management. The common thread is a passion for understanding customers and end users and ensuring the quality and value of the solutions being delivered to them. He can be reached at chris.wain@comcast.net.
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