Search Engine Marketing

1
Search (Engine) Marketing

• An overview of search engines and their role in
  an effective internet marketing campaign.
• Jon Payne
• President Owner - Ephricon Web Marketing

2
What I Do

• increase the exposure / effectiveness of a
  website
• more traffic
• more sales
• more leads
• more subscribers
• utilize search engines as a primary means of
  traffic
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• "optimize web pages for search engines
• build link popularity for websites
• AKA search engine marketing (SEM)

3
Internet Marketing Breakdown

• search engines
• Regular aka Organic
• PPC aka Sponsored
• affiliate programs
• hyperlinks
• natural
• paid text ads
• email
• opt-in (CRM, newsletters)
• SPAM (unsolicited)
• banner ads

4
Major Search Engines

• Volume
• Google 47
• Yahoo 21
• MSN 13
• Primary Engine
• Google 47
• Yahoo 26
• MSN 7
• AOL 5

• Google has more users and its users generally
  search more frequently.

5
Who Owns Who? Who Feeds Who?

• http//www.bruceclay.com/searchenginerelationshipc
  hart.htm

6
Anatomy of a Search Engine
Paid Ads
Search Box
Organic Results
7
Search Engine Usage Stats

• 84 of internet users have used search engines
• Second most popular online activity (email is 1)
• Drives more traffic than email advertising,
  banner ads and affiliate programs combined
• 92 of search engine users are confident about
  their searching abilities
• 68 say search engines are a fair and unbiased
  source of information
• Only 38 of users are aware of the distinction
  between paid and unpaid results

8
SEM Basic Assumption

• High Rankings in Search Engines
• More Traffic to Website
• More Sales or Leads
• Assumes steady conversion rate

9
More Traffic! Better Traffic?
http//www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/search_tools/a
rticle.php/3469361table1
10
Why High Rankings Matter

• 80-85 of web traffic stems from search engines
• Most users dont look past first 1 or 2 pages
• Search engines continue growing in popularity
• Conclusion Best way to get more traffic to your
  website is via search engine marketing.

11
Why Search Engines Are So Great for Marketing (1)

• large volume of traffic high upside
• highly targeted traffic
• receptive to message they are looking for you
  now
• implied intent can show stage in buying cycle
• bestow more credibility than email or banner ads

12
Why Search Engines Are So Great for Marketing (2)

• very measurable accurate ROI
• only practical means of organizing the internet
• local search replacing yellow pages?
• Most cost-effective best ROI advertising in
  many cases

13
How Search Engines Work (1)

• different ranking algorithms
• completely automated
• not in real time 2 day lag or so
• can only read text, cant see images
• relevancy is the chief focus for search engines
• sell advertising and related products/services
  for income

14
How Search Engines Work (2)

• spider, indexer, database and algorithm
• spider finds new sites pages
• indexer reads and saves them
• database stores them
• algorithm ranks them for relevancy
• look for matching words in documents in their
  database
• frequency, context, how words appear on page,
• independent citation (aka links) for trust,
  credibility

15
What a Search Engine Sees
16
So How Do I Get to 1?

• gets harder every day
• more competition
• more awareness of the medium
• smarter search engines
• clean, optimized, SE-friendly HTML code
• great site with lots of great content
• get linked to from other quality, related sites
• black hat tricks tactics poor long term
  strategy, risky

17
Optimization Process

• Define your objective for users (what do you
  want?)
• Keyword research identify what people are
  searching for
• http//www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
• http//www.wordtracker.com
• Build a site with lots of great content
• Get other sites to link to your site
• Revise your HTML code for spiderability and
  effective use of on-page ranking criteria
• http//www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
  (NEW!)
• Monitor, analyze and repeat

18
Get Other Sites to Link to Us? Why Does this
Matter?

• Many matching results, which ones are quality
  and trusted
• Links human vote of confidence
• Independent Citation
• PageRank, TrustRank, Link Popularity
• Google-Bombing
• Miserable failure
• http//www.google.com/search?sourceidnavclientie
  UTF-8rlsGGLD,GGLD2005-09,GGLDenqmiserablef
  ailure
• French military victories (homepage Im
  feeling lucky)
• Coolest guy on the planet
• http//www.google.com/search?hlenlrrlsGGLD2C
  GGLD3A2005-092CGGLD3Aenqcoolestguyonthepl
  anet

19
Google Bombing Googles Weakness

• Miserable failure
• http//www.google.com/search?sourceidnavclientie
  UTF-8rlsGGLD,GGLD2005-09,GGLDenqmiserablef
  ailure
• French military victories (homepage Im
  feeling lucky)
• Coolest guy on the planet
• http//www.google.com/search?hlenlrrlsGGLD2C
  GGLD3A2005-092CGGLD3Aenqcoolestguyonthepl
  anet

20
Pay-Per-Click

• Optimization refers to just the organic
  listings
• Build great site
• Get lots of inbound links
• Takes time, hard work
• Free
• Pay Per Click (PPC) is another option
• Bid on keywords, pay for literally every visit to
  your site
• Anywhere from 10 cents to 10 dollars per click
• Quick and easy to setup, get started
• A science to run effectively in competitive
  markets
• Clear ROI
• Can be very expensive
• Usually better as a short-term solution

21
Case Study - Cisco

• custom sports uniforms
• Nov 04 753 unique visitors, 17 leads
• Mar 05 4,440 unique visitors, 125 leads
• same look, cleaned optimized code, established
  relevant inbound links

22
Case Study - EHA Consulting

• training, risk management, expert consulting re
  food safety, foodborne illnesses, etc.
• July 04 148 uniques, 0 leads
• Apr 05 2,098 uniques, 11 leads
• complete redesign, added quality content, inbound
  links, call to action, better site

23
Resources

• ClickZ
• http//www.clickz.com
• Nielsen//NetRatings
• http//www.netratings.com
• eMarketer
• http//www.emarketer.com
• Search Engine Watch
• http//searchenginewatch.com
• PEW Internet American Life Project
• http//www.pewinternet.org
• Bruce Clay, Inc.
• http//www.bruceclay.com

24
Contact Information

• This presentation was created by Jon Payne for
  Kathy Paals Graduate Marketing classes at Johns
  Hopkins University. Please feel free to contact
  Jon Payne with any questions or comments.
• Jon Payne
• President Owner
• Ephricon Web Marketing LLC
• www.ephricon.com
• [phone] (mobile)
• jon_at_ephricon.com