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Issue 45 Gentlemen, Start Your Search Engine Marketing By now you’ve heard lots of hype about Search Engine Marketing (and if you haven’t, where have you been?). Also known as Search Marketing, an estimated $5.1 billion was spent in this category of online promotion in 2005, and its future growth is expected to outpace any other advertising category, with $6.5 billion in spending projected for 2006 and more than $10 billion by 2009. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to the paid listings appearing next to organic search listings on Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and other search engines. It shouldn’t be confused with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which has to do with optimizing the content and programming of your website so that it appears further up on organic search engine listings. Nearly 5 billion searches were conducted in the United States in 2005, making it the number two Internet application behind email.
Pay-per-Click ModelThe SEM business model revolves around an arrangement whereby the advertiser only pays for an appearance of a listing when someone clicks on a sponsored link during a keyword search. The cost is determined by how much the advertiser is willing to bid on a keyword that a searcher might use to locate the advertiser’s product or service. Advertisers who are willing to outbid their competitors for a keyword will appear at the top of the sponsored link listings, although cost is not the only factor in determining placement. Since search engines need to be concerned about the quality of their “product” and the experiences of their consumers, they go to great lengths to make sure an advertiser’s offering is relevant to search results. As a consequence, search engines use very complex selection criteria and factor in such things as the relevance of a site’s content to the keywords purchased and the amount of traffic a site is receiving, in addition to how much the advertiser is willing to pay for placement. In addition to generating clicks to your site, it’s been proven that top-position keyword placements can boost brand awareness by as much as 27 percent.
The Sinister Side of SEMA byproduct of SEM is click fraud, which is best described as clicking for the sake of clicking with no intention of purchase. Believe it or not, there are people on the Internet who have concocted elaborate automated methods of link clicking (probably the same folks who send you the daily Viagra emails and other unwanted spam). The fruits of their dubious labor are higher costs for keyword bids. (If we only knew where they lived.) Rest assured, the major search engines are spending a lot of time and resources to combat click fraud, since it is costing them a great deal of angst and money. Google, for example, recently agreed to settle a class-action suit by offering $90 million worth of credits to its SEM customers who believed they were the victims of click fraud.
Clicking with Your CustomersIf you’ve decided to make the leap into SEM, the first thing you’ll want to consider is how your customer thinks when conducting an online search, in order to come up with a productive set of keywords for both you and prospective buyers of your offering. Far too often a keyword list is derived from corporate jargon or other internally focused terms, rather than how a person thinks when conducting a search. Of course, your brand names should be included in the keywords you are buying, but don’t stop there. A recent DoubleClick study found that searches on brand names account for just a small portion of the keywords being used. Most pre-purchase searches use generic terms. When the research phase is completed and a purchase is about to be made is most likely when brand names are entered into the search field. A good way to start a list of SEM keywords is to check your website tracking logs for the terms used by searchers to find your site through organic search results, which is generally available data.
SEM: How to Jumpstart the EngineIn addition to understanding how your customers think when searching, you should establish a budget that will support your objectives. For example, do you want to first dabble with a small-scale pilot designed to provide insight and learning, or would you like to make a noticeable impact on sales with SEM? No matter your objectives, you are in full control of the budget by establishing daily spending limits and a campaign ceiling. There are other factors you’ll need to take into consideration, too, such as determining a testing strategy, defining success by establishing measurable objectives, and setting up an ongoing method of monitoring the campaigns. Two excellent starting points for general SEM information and how-to tips are Marketing Sherpa (www.marketingsherpa.com) and Search Engine Watch (www.searchenginewatch.com). Email this newsletter link to a friend.
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