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First Page Search Engine Listing Provides Brand Lift
According to new research conducted by Jupiter Research and sponsored by iProspect, 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and a full 90% of users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. These figures were just 48% and 81%, respectively, in 2002. (But even beyond the benefits of being found within the first three pages of results, the study reports that brand equity is bestowed upon those entities listed in the top results. Robert Murray, President, iProspect, said "... a percentage of search engine users ascribe industry leadership to those brands within top results, and believe them to be leaders in their fields given their placement in the results. Cleary, this brand lift is a critical element for brand marketers." The study revealed that 82% of search engine users re-launch an unsuccessful search using the same search engine as they used for their initial search, but add more keywords to refine the subsequent search. High-level findings include:
- 36% of search engine users believe that the companies whose websites are returned at the top of the search results are the top brands in their field. 41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they seek, will change engines or their search term if they don't find what they seek on the first page of search results. 88% will change engines or their search term if they don't find what they seek on the first three pages of search results. 82% of search engine users re-launch an unsuccessful search using the same search engine as they used for their initial search, but add more keywords to refine the subsequent search.
- In a 2005 Jupiter Research, quoted in the report, 87% of commercial clicks take place on the natural (not sponsored) search results.
Murray concludes that "Search engine users are demonstrating a preference to remain with a particular search engine and re-launch unsuccessful initial searches as longer keyword searches...marketers need to...target these longer keyword phrases so they can be readily found by searchers."
Google Adwords: Online marketing made affordable
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I'm not an online marketing expert, and am just now starting to get a grasp on it after years of being immersed in the development of printed marketing materials. But since the launch of my company's own online storefront, MarcomAndPOP.com, it's been vital to learn more about online marketing and concepts like “Cost-Per-Click” (CPC), “Cost-Per-Impression” (CPI) and “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO).
Calling in the experts
If you also have a Web storefront that needs a marketing boost, it pays to frequently attend seminars or webinars (http://www.MarketingProfs.com), read up on industry news (http://www.SearchEngineGuide.com), and pay an expert to analyze your site (http://www.RedwoodTech.org). Online marketing experts can offer strategies to improve your site's ranking on the Web, and work with you to implement them. You can find these experts locally, just visit the RTC's member roster or e-mail me for our printed Member Directory.
Recently, my company worked with a fellow RTC member company that specializes in this area. This team of experts assisted us with the understanding of SEO tactics; implemented certain rank-building strategies such as use of “Alt Tags,” “Page Titles” and “Meta Descriptions”, gave us background on “keyword” strategies, and provided an overview of online advertising options.
Adwords pays off
One advertising option was Google's Adwords program, which you've undoubtedly seen in action whenever you Google something. Every time you do a search, those unobtrusive but relevant text ads that appear to the right and top of your search results are not only how Google makes most of its money, but they're also one of the best ways that small business owners can experience Web advertising success.
The Adwords program is based on a “Cost Per Click” (CPC) concept. Each time someone searching Google clicks on your ad, you get charged a small fee. You pay only for the clicks you've received at a price that you've already set. You can choose a maximum CPC from 1 cent to $100, and a maximum daily amount that you're willing to spend. There are no monthly minimums, and just a relatively small fee to set up the account. What sets Google's program apart from other online advertising is that you are in total control of your campaign and what you spend.
For MarcomAndPOP.com, our Adwords campaign currently consists of two product categories. For each category, we've written multiple ads. Each ad links directly to a specific product that we want viewers to see if they click on the link. We can change the ads 24/7, and change the individual amounts that we're paying for each ad that gets clicked on. Google provides us with tools to find the best key words for
our ads, see how everything is performing, track who clicked on what ad, and who purchased what product. Without adding staff and by spending a fraction of what we would with other advertising tactics, we've experienced a noticeable sales increase directly related to our Adwords campaign.
If you want to try it, be sure to take advantage of Google's “Jumpstart” program for new advertisers. For $299 Google's team will analyze your website, put together a number of suggested ads and keywords to get you started, and even give you $299 in credit toward your clicks fees. Just be sure to review your campaign to gain an understanding of how to mange it prior to starting your ads.
Do your keyword homework
With Adwords, I've noticed that there are those who tried it and love it, and those who tried and say it was a big waste of money. Yes, it can be a money pit if you don't do your homework. Don't start until you learn what key words people are looking for when they search for your products. Words we often use to describe our products are just industry speak, and nothing like what people use when they search online. Try the online service www.WordTracker.com for ideas. WordTracker is practically free, and offers a selection of subscription rates that start at around $8 for a one day use. Finally, there is a growing risk of “click fraud” and you should know what to look for to make sure it doesn't happen to you (”How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet,” by Charles C. Mann, Wired Magazine, January 2006.)
RTC members: your neighborhood experts
The SEO firm we hired has paid off nicely. Adwords has been the best marketing strategy we've implemented for our site, and the only one that has shown immediate return on our investment. If you have a storefront or just want to drive traffic to your site, you too can boost your online sales today by going to the RTC's website and contacting a local online marketing expert to help you get started.
Rene Agredano is a RTC member and co-owner of Agreda Communications, a one-stop shop for total marketing communications and point-of-purchase graphic solutions available online at www.MarcomAndPOP.com. She can be reached at rene@agreda.com. |
Google Adwords - How Does It work For You?
There are a few guidelines on how to optimize Google Adwords to work profitably for you.
Google, in the present internet world, is one of the most successful and fastest growing companies. This is also in part due to the particular service which Google offers to its users – that of a search engine. Thus, people turn towards it as a reliable source of information. So, Google found itself in a unique position of bringing marketers and consumers closer to each other. The result of this was the creation of the Google Adwords advertising process. This service is Google’s own improvement on the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising model.
We all know how a Google search works. You type in your query and Google displays the top ten results on the page. Google Adwords takes the advantage of this fact of a captive audience – the researcher – and displays a list of unobtrusive advertisements on the right side of the web page. These ads link directly to your website, immediately guaranteeing a focused audience. Also, Google offers the same facility for many of its partner sites like AOL and Earthlink etc. Recently, Google has started another service – Adsense. This service enables you to display your advertisements on a website relating to the product or service you are selling.
There are a few guidelines on how to optimize Google Adwords to work profitably for you. While choosing keywords (on whose searches your advertisement will appear) be very careful, otherwise you will just be wasting your money on some very general keywords. Also, since Google allows you to bid for the keywords you want, decide beforehand how much you are able to pay for a link. One of the crucial advantages of Google Adwords is that this is a Pay-Per-Click model. This means that you only need to pay money to Google when a searcher actually clicks on the link to your website and ends up visiting it.
Also, Google offers you a number of customization tools to help you reach your favored section of the consumer population. For example, you can choose the countries to which you want your advertisement to reach. Google offers a list of more than 250 countries for you to choose from. Along with this, you can decide from over 14 languages in which your advertisement would be displayed. Google also has a novel Discounter program. This software automatically calculates the lowest you need to offer to stay ahead of the competition and immediately informs you of the same.
Search Engine Marketing
Two or three years ago, who would have thought Search Engine Marketing will dominate almost all marketing conferences.
My suggestion to you is this: don't do any search engine optimization. I do not mean that you stop search engine marketing. Forget about search engine optimization like coding, spamming and all other methods that will eventually get you in trouble. Don't try to fool search engines. It won't work. Read Google Guide carefully and follow every word of it. Here it is :
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Read Yahoo Guide or Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Keep everything normal and natural. Google and Yahoo will find you and if you have something of value, Google will eventually recognize your value. Keep everything simple.
MAKE YOUR KEWORDS TEXT CLICKABLE! AND THEN PROVIDE USEFUL CONTENT FOR THAT KEYWORD!
I strongly suggest Google Adwords Select, Yahoo or Overture. Get to know your keywords. Do lots of keyword analysis. Find out which keywords have the highest impressions. Try to advertise your website locally using Google Local Adwords.
You need to invite people to visit your site and examine what you have to start with. Show off your keywords and make them clickable as text anchor. Then as search engines collect more information about your website through Toolbars, your site standing in the organic section will improve. In summary, use the Google Adwords to start your campaign.
I also suggest Google News or Google Alerts ( http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en ) on "Search Engine Marketing" and "Search Engine Optimization" terms. I have been receiving Google News through email on these terms and it is unbelievable how much value you can receive from Google News Alert by email. Some very knowledgeable people write valuable tips. Here is an example: http://www.marketingprofs.com/4/wehr1.asp
Creating value
Iconocast does not do formal search engine optimization. We believe in creating value rather than code or Meta Tag optimization.
When it comes to search engine optimization, Google has one of the best guides. Here it is:
http://www.google.com/about.html
We believe, the only and the only way to have a high Google ranking is by creating value through your web pages. A good website that provides good information, advice, guides, and tips might deserve to be on the first page or on the second page of Google. Take an important keyword such as "mortgage". If you do a Google search for this keyword, you find companies such as BankRate.com (with more than 400 employees), Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, MBAA,.....and companies which produce good output everyday.
Creating value is the only way; there is no other way. We believe our mission is defined by creating value.
Here is what Google says in her email:
Please review Google's webmaster quality
guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#quality). While we've included the following excerpts from these guidelines, we recommend that you take the time to review them in their entirety.
Publishers that adhere to these guidelines and our program policies should not be penalized.
* Make pages for users, not for search engines.
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially
duplicate content.
* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's
ranking or PageRank.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie
cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original
content.
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
* If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a
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How do you create value?
You can create value by explaining the technology behind the product you sell, by interviewing the right people, talking about books on a subject, developing communities that can post valuable comments on message board or forums.... A good example is www.blueear.com
We will be glad to help you install match making software provided by AE Dating Software. This software is capable of searches based on zip code. The bottom line is to create value by software or other means. You can not cut corners.
Creating Value for other websites
You need to go an extra mile and also think how you can create value for other websites. Only when you can create value for other websites, you could benefit from the links pointing to your website from other benefiting websites. A good example is opencontent.org. They provided licenses for other websites to use free content of other websites. Since you had to point to the license, you naturally pointed to opencontent.org.
Here is why search engine marketing is important
Most knowledgeable eMarketers involved with Internet Marketing believe Search Engine Marketing is the most effective and the most valued way to market your Website. We believe an effective Internet Marketing is in reality the art of Search Engine Marketing. Search Engine Marketing is not just search engine optimization. Search Engine Marketing is the combination of the Right Content, Search Engine Optimization and the Link Popularity concept. For an effective Internet Marketing not only your site has to be optimized with the right content, it also has to be effectively linked with other websites in your field.
Search Engine Marketing is Internet Marketing because it's a challenge to be found in search engines these days. The challenge is to be optimized and to have good content that can be recognized by major search engines such as Yahoo and Google. We can not emphasize the power of content more.
In today's Internet Marketing, Branding and eMarketing are really equal to Search Engine Marketing. Soon Spam will be eliminated and Marketers still have to spend that advertising money somewhere. The money will go into Search Engine Marketing or even Pay Per Click Marketing. As the demand for Pay Per Click Marketing increases, the bids will be even higher. Being found on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and other search engines is vital to any Internet Marketing efforts. That is why Branding is Search Engine Marketing.
55 Billion Searches were done on Google last year
We measure your Branding success with Google Ranking of your site
85% of all Internet surfers are directed by search engines
Search Engines are the super powerful traffic solution on the Internet
Source : Touchpoints Effective Marketing Sequences in the Interactive Media Age : www. doubleclick.net
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