10 Tips for Search Marketing

by e-channel online

10 tips for Search Marketing

Search Marketing is an inbound and online form of direct marketing. The compelling advantage of Search Marketing is that customers are looking for your products, services or your company when they do a search.

Here are 10 tips that will improve your search marketing campaign.

1 Have clear website objectives

What is your website for? Set clear and measurable objectives so you know how your website is working for your business.

2 Specify calls-to-action

Clear calls-to-action ensure visitors use your site in the way in which it was designed.

Eg.

• Join a newsletter mailing list
• Download a Pdf
• Buy your product
• Request for catalogue
• Booking completed
• Trial version of software downloaded

3 Pre-screen your traffic

It is vital that you only target customers that you want and that you can service.

• Do not over promise
• Your webpage must deliver what customers are looking for

4 Not all customers are on broadband

Remember not all potential customers are on broadband – keep sites fast to download and easy to use. When you are paying to get people to your website, make sure they want to stay.

5 Run parallel on and off line campaigns

Search Marketing should be used to reinforce and support traditional off-line advertising.

When purchasing keywords consider not only buying brand related keywords but also those that feature in your advertising copy so that you have another way to be remembered

(Searched for and found) by customers.

6 Establish benchmarks

Search Marketing should be compared to the response rates for other marketing activity.

Benchmarks can include:

• Volume of traffic
• Which search engine delivers the best results?
• The number & combination of search phrases customers use
• The conversion rates of different calls-to-action

7 Establish what works in Search Marketing

For example, we have found that searches that contain the brand name, or some form of it, have a good chance of converting to a sale. This means that when you buy product related keywords the description must contain your brand name. It is also worthwhile buying brand related keywords as well as product related ones, as both can convert to a sale (or other conversion).

8 Measure the value of search marketing

Tracking software, can tell you what works and what doesn’t work. Tracking what works on

your website is vital to building a cost-effective Search Marketing strategy. You can measure:

• What keywords provide you with traffic?
• Which search engines, banner advertising, email campaigns provide these keywords
• What keywords deliver your call-to-action with results?
• What converts to a sale or other website usage?

9 Build your knowledge

Once you have tracked what works on your site, examine what causes changes such as:

• If you increase your spend on search marketing what happens to sales?
• Do you have seasonal factors that influence your choice of keywords?
• If you advertise off-line, what happens to online activity?

10 Experiment

There may be other ways to enhance your website performance. Some keywords may seem expensive but do they perform better than several less expensive ones? Armed with information about what works allows you to test Search Marketing unlike any other form of marketing.

This search engine optimisation article has been prepared by e-channel online.