Technology - January 2006

Get Your Motor Running Online

With Search Engine Marketing

by Andreas Roell

Many Nevada companies have Web sites to drive online sales, promote products and services and attract potential new customers and clients. They advertise online, which is a key component to a company’s overall sales and marketing plan. However, consider Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the hottest trend in making businesses shine online.

Among online marketing activities, search engine marketing is one of the fastest-growing facets of the Web. Paid searches currently account for 40 percent of total online ad spending and are expected to surpass online display advertising spending by 2010 (Jupiter Research).

We have become a society of searchers turning to the Web to find everything from vacation packages to local movie listings. For that reason, many companies large and small are shifting their advertising dollars to SEM.

Once a company decides to incorporate SEM into its marketing and advertising campaign, a mix of options is available: organic search, paid search (also called sponsored search) and contextual search.

Before you start, it’s important to set campaign goals and benchmarks, identifying what you desire the search campaign to accomplish: online sales, offline sales, leads, signups or Web site traffic. Ensure that you develop acceptable goal levels and attach tracking/analytics mechanisms to your Web site that allow you to measure all search engine activities properly.

Here are some of the variables that must constantly be evaluated:

Search Engine: Each search engine drives different volume, and offers different costs and competition dynamics that drive varying results. Google and Yahoo are the big players, but they may not necessarily be the right ones for your company. Sometimes, engaging with a smaller search engine can drive better sales results.

Keywords: These are words advertisers list themselves under. Develop multiple keyword categories that encompass everything from your product/services to audience behavior and niche terminology.

Click bidding price: As each paid search listing is based on click-through cost, a company must decide how much it’s willing to pay for each click on a respective keyword.

Text Description: Search engine listings can inform users through a two-line description about their product/service. It’s proven that an attractive, relevant text description can prompt users to click over your ad versus a competitor’s search listing. Search engines provide the ability to rotate multiple text ads to measure the most appealing ads.

Header: Develop a rotation of headers to identify which work better than others.

Web site: The way a Web site is built has a tremendous impact on the success of a search engine campaign. Test multiple versions of your site against various keyword categories. Develop lead-in pages that have different URLs to jump users to your homepage.

Provide relevancy throughout a user’s search process by repeating a user’s search terms at each step of the Web site visit and displaying the search terms in the header or text description and on the landing page after a user clicks on the text ad.

Use geo-targeting paid search efforts even if your company is nationwide. Local targeting helps keep your budget spending in line and increases your ability to identify success rates.

Monitor your company’s site performance. A minimum of 1 percent of your total Web site traffic should convert to your desired goals (leads, signups, sales, etc.) Test and refine until you have identified all optimal campaign variables, and don’t forget to change with the market as consumer behaviors and click costs change.

Andreas Roell
Andreas Roell is president of Geary Interactive, an online advertising agency in Las Vegas with services in online marketing, design and programming