Search Marketing 101: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at 2007's Hottest -- and Most Essential -- Internet Marketing Strategy!

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THE WINNING ADVANTAGE eZINE
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
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The Winning AdVantage eZine is dedicated to your Home-based Internet Marketing Business Success.

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Published by Earl Savage
ES World Marketing
http://wuww.esworldmarketing.com/blog/ezine/
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In This Issue:
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1. Message from the Editor

2. Feature Article -"Search Marketing 101: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at 2007's Hottest --
and Most Essential -- Internet Marketing Strategy!"
By Derek Gehl


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Dear Reader,

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As always, I hope you'll enjoy and profit from reading "The Winning AdVantage".
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Wishing you success,
Earl Savage, Publisher
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=>> Feature Article
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"Search Marketing 101: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at 2007's Hottest -- and Most Essential -- Internet Marketing Strategy!" By Derek Gehl How do you look for information these days? You search the Internet, right? You're not alone. More than 6 BILLION Internet searches are done every month in the U.S. alone! According to MarketingSherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. And of that number, 63% look ONLY at the first page of results -- at most! In fact, almost 25% of all American searchers look only at the first few listings then completely ignore the rest. That means if YOU'RE not listed in the first results page for your top-performing keywords, then 84 million people aren't going to have any idea that your business even exists! In this issue, I'm going to look at the family of strategies called "search marketing"… and show why it's more important than ever before to put solid search marketing techniques to use for your business. I've written in detail about a lot of these techniques in this newsletter. But from the questions my team and I get at seminars and in our forums, we notice that a lot of people aren't clear on how they all fit together. It's as if they've got the jigsaw puzzle pieces, but not the picture on the box. I'll put it into perspective by answering questions like... What are SEO and PPC? Do I need to do both? Will using search marketing strategies with my website cost me a ton of money? Why does search marketing work? What are the hottest techniques to focus on right now? Read on to get the big picture on search marketing and where it fits into your Internet marketing strategy. ====================================================== What IS search marketing, anyway? ====================================================== Search marketing is a catch-all term that refers to two major online marketing techniques: Search engine optimization (SEO) Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) But it's easy to get confused about which strategy is which. Let's break them both down. Search engine optimization -- how to rate HIGH in the free listings Search engine optimization is the umbrella term for all the different strategies website owners use to try to earn top rankings in the listings of the free search engines like Google and Yahoo. These are called "organic" or "natural" listings because the search engines set their own criteria for ranking websites. A website's position in the search results depends on how well the site meets those criteria. To make SEO work for you, it's important to pay close attention to how search engine spiders (www.MarketingTips.com/glossary/#searchenginespiders) index or list web sites, and then use that information to direct the way the search engine indexes YOUR web site. The goal is to "optimize" your site so the search engines will consider it relevant -- in other words, so your website shows up high in the results when people are searching online for your product or service. When you're just getting started with SEO, it can seem a little overwhelming to know where to begin. Here are some of the key strategies that we recommend to all our customers... Find the hottest keywords for your market/website: Choosing effective keywords MUST be the starting point for any SEO or PPC campaigns you work on with your website. To learn everything you need to know about researching and choosing keywords for your search marketing projects, check out Marketing Tips Issue #139 (www.MarketingTips.com/newsletters/?article=art_february07). Plug keywords into the right locations in your copy and code: Give the search engines the information they need in all the right places. Your website is full of "hotspots" the spiders check regularly for keywords. Make sure you check out that same keywords article (www.MarketingTips.com/newsletters/?article=art_february07) to get all the details on the prime locations for your keywords. Always ensure that your content relates to the keywords you're using: If you sprinkle keywords like "guaranteed weight loss" through your site but your site sells shoes, you definitely won't be helping yourself. Even if your keywords are all over the site, the search engines won't rank you for those words because the rest of the content on the site has nothing to do with the subject. If you offer a number of products, try creating different keyword-rich pages for specific items you have for sale. Keep the "spiders" coming back with frequent new or updated content: The more fresh, relevant content they find, the higher the spiders are likely to rank your site. How do you keep them interested? Keep all the copy on your pages current, including any changes or updates to your business or products. Make sure to archive any newsletters or bulletins you send out on your site. For even more "spider food", try starting a blog or forum on your website to keep traffic heading back for daily updates and discussion. For an article about how a blog can boost your ratings, see Marketing Tips Issue #120 (www.MarketingTips.com/newsletters/?article=art_march06). Fine-tune your keyword density: How often should you use your keywords in your copy and code? Finding the perfect balance is key. In your body copy, we recommend 4% to 8%. Make sure you integrate your keywords as naturally as possible into your copy... you won't keep your visitors' attention if all the text on your website is just a jumbled bunch of keywords! Collect links from other sites that are considered reputable and relevant: Natural, relevant inbound links are the exactly the kind search engines like. If you really want to improve your results, you'll want to avoid "link farms" and bought links, and instead focus your strategy on politely requesting one-way links from sites with high natural ranking in the search engines. Distributing free articles and press releases is also a great way of gaining quality inbound links to your site. We show you how in Marketing Tips Issue #129 (www.MarketingTips.com/newsletters/?article=art_august06b). And don't forget the power of social networking! By taking part in online communities or uploading your video to a site like YouTube (www.youtube.com), you can not only drive new traffic to your website, you can get new sites linking to yours. For more details on social networking tips and tricks, check out Marketing Tips issue #131 (www.MarketingTips.com/newsletters/?article=art_september06b). Use a sitemap to boost your ranking in Google, Yahoo, AND Windows Live Search: Sitemaps help the spiders find their way through all your pages. And with the new sitemaps (www.sitemaps.org) formatting protocol, these three search titans are giving website owners more clues than ever before how to help the spiders index their sites. SEO should be at the core of your overall Internet marketing strategy. It's one of the most inexpensive and effective approaches available to website owners. In fact, much of what you can do to optimize your web site for the organic search engines is totally FREE. However, it can be slow. When you're starting out, you'll probably have to wait a while before you show up on the search results. But you can drive traffic quickly with another search marketing strategy: pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click advertising -- how to spend a little and get a LOT of targeted traffic Do a search on Google or Yahoo, and you'll notice a different type of listings set around the organic results. These "sponsored results" are paid ads that appear when people search using the keywords in the ads. There are also special search engines, like Miva (www.miva.com), Enhance (www.enhance.com) , and GoClick (www.goclick.com), where all the listings are paid, rather than organic. As with SEO, PPC advertisers look for keywords that they believe their target market uses to search for them online. Then they bid on those keywords with PPC programs, like Google AdWords (http://adwords.google.com), Yahoo Search Marketing (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com), and MSN AdCenter (https://adcenter.microsoft.com). In many free search engines like Google and Yahoo, the position of the ad in the sponsored listings depends on two factors: The amount bid for the keyword The ad's relevance to the keyword searched (ads with more click-throughs are considered more relevant and rise in the listings) In others, and the paid search engines, the bid price alone determines the ranking in the listings. The pay structure is what makes PPC so effective for small businesses. With PPC you pay only for results. No matter how many times your ad is displayed, you pay only when someone clicks on it. And by watching your results carefully, you can determine how well each ad is converting and if it's worth continuing. PPC ads show up immediately, so you can drive traffic to your site right away, even if you haven't been indexed by the search engines yet. Test your keywords and use the best ones to boost your organic search results. PPC is a great testing tool because you can run several ads simultaneously. If you run identical ads for different keywords, you'll see very quickly which keywords work best. You can then use them to beef up your website for the organic search engines! In fact, you can use PPC to test everything from your product offerings and price points, to your ad headlines and salescopy... and find out exactly how to appeal to your target market. However, keyword bids have been rising every year because competition for the top continues to heat up, especially as more large businesses and corporations get into the game. In fact, according to DoubleClick, spending on PPC campaigns went up 37% between Q1 2005 and Q1 2006! That's why it's getting tougher every year to run an effective PPC campaign. But if you know the right strategies, you can still keep your costs down and your conversion rates UP! Keep PPC costs low by bidding smart: Know how much a single visitor is worth to you and keep that in mind when you're setting your bid Bid on lots of cheaper, highly targeted keywords and phrases, and don't forget misspellings! Go for second or third place instead of first. First place is often much more expensive. Test ads on the smaller search engines where the cost per click is lower. Some good engines to try include: LookSmart.com (http://search.looksmart.com), Kanoodle (www.kanoodle.com), Search123 (www.search123.com), and 7Search (www.payperranking.com) Check the specialty PPC search engines that cater to specific markets at www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com With a combination of PPC and SEO you can make sure your target market will find you. ====================================================== Why is search marketing suddenly so hot... and why will it have such a dramatic impact on your traffic? ====================================================== In a recent poll of online advertisers conducted by MarketingSherpa, 49% of the respondents indicated that PPC was their most successful Internet marketing strategy in 2006. In addition, 45% indicated that search engine optimization was one of their best internet marketing strategies. So why ARE online advertisers putting so much time and energy -- not to mention BIG bucks -- running extensive search marketing campaigns? Search marketing is right for EVERY business: It doesn't matter whether your business is purely online or your website supports your brick-and-mortar operation -- search marketing is right for you. A study by JupiterResearch indicated that 62% of Internet shoppers used general search engines to research products online -- whether they intended to buy on the Internet or not! Search marketing offers all the keys to connect you with people who want to know more about your product or service. Search marketing is the best way to get TARGETED traffic: People who find your site through the search engines are already looking for what you offer.... or at least information about what you offer. That's right... since they've found you using the keywords you've used for your SEO and PPC campaigns, it's no accident that they're there. You've got the solution or product they've been searching for! According to Enquiro Search solutions, about 55% of all purchases made over the Internet are a result of people finding products or services via the search engines. That's more than half of all online sales! If your traffic is effectively targeted through search marketing, you'll be able take advantage of this huge audience -- and watch your conversion rates and revenues going through the roof! Search marketing offers NEW opportunities to boost your search engine rankings all the time: Because search marketing is such a rapidly changing area of Internet marketing, there are always new strategies you can try out before the competition catches on. And you never know what might be the technique or trick that sends your traffic skyrocketing! They key is to stay on top of the latest strategies... what works AND what doesn't work anymore. That's right... the search engines make changes all the time, and techniques that used to work can suddenly turn useless. ====================================================== What should I be focusing on in search marketing right now? ====================================================== Search engines are constantly tweaking the way they rank sites. An Internet marketing strategy that worked like wildfire before can suddenly go cold as the search engines stomp it out. In fact, 2007 is shaping up to be one of the most dramatic years for search marketing yet. The changes promise to increase the importance of some strategies… and blow others away completely. Here are some new ideas to explore... Local search strategies: If you've got a brick-and-mortar business that you're looking to promote within your own community, don't think that you can get the job done without a website! SEO and PPC strategies involving sites like Google Local (http://local.google.com), Yahoo Local (http://local.yahoo.com), and Live Local (http://maps.live.com) -- not to mention old offline standby Yellow Pages (www.yellowpages.com) -- can help potential customers looking for businesses in your area connect directly with your business... and then print out directions to get there! The rise of mobile phone marketing technology is putting local search strategies on the map, too. And there's more happening every day! Social bookmarking and community websites: "Community" is the big buzzword in search marketing right now. People are hanging out and socializing online like never before! Sites like Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us), Digg (www.digg.com) YouTube (www.youtube.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com) -- not to mention the huge boom in blogging and podcasting -- are changing the way people connect online today. In fact, a study by Nielsen NetRatings in 2006 found that the top 10 social networking sites on the web had seen a 47% average increase in traffic in the space of only a year -- with a 367% increase for MySpace! You can generate tons of quality, targeted traffic with effective participation in community sites -- and build credibility and trust with your potential customers along the way. And it's practically free! New vertical search engines will give us new options for SEO and PPC and increase your ability to reach out to your ideal customer. Instead of spending all your time and effort trying to stand out in a field of 20 billion results, you can target quality traffic with niche-based search engines. Some of the up-and-coming vertical search sites include: Retrevo (www.retrevo.com): A consumer electronics search engine Wikia (www.wikia.com): A "community-based" search engine Kosmix (www.kosmix.com): Specialty engines for health, travel, and more ====================================================== Final thoughts ====================================================== There's no doubt that search marketing is one of the hottest areas in Internet marketing in 2007... and it's getting more exciting every day! No other set of strategies offers you the ability to dramatically improve your search engine rankings AND direct quality, targeted traffic to your website -- often without spending a single dime! The main thing to keep in mind is that the search engines are in the business of keeping searchers happy. When people go online to find something, they want to see choices that relate to what they asked for, and not have to wade through hundreds of irrelevant choices. People are impatient online, and if they have to work too hard they'll go to another search engine. Bad for business! So YOUR main objective in search marketing -- free or paid -- is to keep those spiders coming back and indexing your site so it will show up in the top results for your keywords. A lot of the techniques in this overview are basic to the way search engines do business. Just getting those right will give you a competitive advantage. But some techniques come and go. Discovering a great new search marketing trick could revolutionize how you run your SEO or PPC campaigns -- and seriously boost your bottom line! As we always tell our clients, one or two effective strategies can sometimes make the difference between an average-performing website and a major success story. It's just a matter of discovering what works for you. Do the basics, try out the new techniques and strategies, and you'll be where your market can find you -- front and center in the search results. ============================================= ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/811439 ==============================================

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