Search Engine Marketing_4_

Search Engine Marketing What every e-Marketer needs to know Stephan Spencer Managing Director, Netcooncepts sspencer@netconcepts.com www.netconcepts.com Search Engine Marketing • 6 times more effective than a banner ad • Delivers qualified leads • 80% of Internet user sessions begin at the search engines (Source: Internetstats.com) • 55% of online purchases are made on sites found through search engine listings (Source: Internetstats.com) • How much? Not doing SEM? You’re Leaving Money on the Table – # of people searching for your keywords x expected clickthrough rate (10% is achievable) x avg. conversion rate x avg. $ you make per conversion • Example: top-selling Christmas toy “Harry Potter game” had no big retailers in Google‟s top search results. Opportunity cost to Kmart, Target, etc. = millions!! Search Engines and Directories • The search engines periodically explore and “index” your web site • Directories are lists of sites organized by topic, usually editorially reviewed (e.g. Yahoo!, Open Directory, LookSmart) Most Important Search Engines • Google (also powers Yahoo!, AOL Search, Netscape.com) • Inktomi (powers MSN Search, LookSmart‟s secondary results) • Overture (supplies paid results to Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AltaVista, etc.) • FAST (powers AlltheWeb.com and Lycos) Most Important Directories • Yahoo! • Open Directory (dmoz.org) (also powers AOL, Lycos, Netscape, Hotbot, AltaVista, Google) • LookSmart (also powers MSN Search, AltaVista) Do search engines know you exist? • Are ALL the pages in your site in Google, Inktomi, FAST, AltaVista, etc.? • On Google, type the following www.yourdomain.com site:www.yourdomain.com • http://www.audit-it.com/urlcheck Comparative Search Visibility Report Search engine Google (& AOL, Yahoo) FAST (Alltheweb, Lycos) Inktomi (MSN, Hotbot) AltaVista WiseNut Estee Lauder.com Loreal.com 34 90 24 26 4 1590 1650 ~500 557 6 Announcing Your Site? • Search engines won‟t include you if they don‟t know your site exists • Don’t submit if already in their index or if the search engine will likely find your site on its own (e.g. Google, FAST) • Submit only once and only your home page • Definitely submit to Open Directory, JoeAnt. Possibly also Yahoo! $299/year, LookSmart ($0.15/click) • When submitting your site to directories, include relevant keywords in your site name & description Paid Inclusion? • If all else fails • Inktomi $39 for first page, then $25/page (12mos) • AltaVista $39 for first page, then $29/page for next 9 pages, then $19/page for next 490 (6mos) • FAST $34 for first page, then $16/page (12 mos) • Teoma $30 for first page, then then $18/page (12 mos.) Keywords • Identify keywords that are popular and relevant – Overture (inventory.overture.com) and Wordtracker.com will give you relative search popularity – Ex: hair color 16000, hair coloring 4100, colorant 150 – Google has a limited keyword research tool too: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSand box • Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2 tags), and high up in the page (where they‟re given more “weight”) Optimizing Your Site For High Rankings • • • • • • • Every page of your site has a “song” Title tag is the most important part of the page H1 tags, hyperlink text, and alt tags are also important Meta tags are not a magic bullet Home page is the most important page of a site Have text navigation and a site map Custom 404 error page The antithesis of search engine friendiness (and usability) Link Building • “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings • Check your link popularity at www.marketleap.com/publinkpop • Google PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more impact on your Google rankings • Check your “PageRank™” with the Google Toolbar (download it from toolbar.google.com) • Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink Link Building • Google Directory listings are ranked in order of PageRank • Sites with higher PageRank get crawled earlier, faster, and deeper by Googlebot • Your home page‟s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure • Don‟t link to “bad neighborhoods” • Read Eric Ward‟s ClickZ column on Building Links at www.clickz.com/column/bl.html Worst Practices • • • • • • Frames, orphan pages Dynamic pages w/ “?” or “&” or “cgi-bin” in the URL Navigation in Flash, Java, Javascript, or pulldown boxes Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros Title tags the same across the site Error pages in the search results (“Session expired” etc.) Worst Practices • “Click here” links • Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of title tags • Auto-redirects • Pop-ups • Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing) • Content too many levels deep Spamming Practices • • • • • • • Hidden or small text Keyword stuffing Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting Competitor names in meta tags Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes Spamglish Spamming Practices Machine generated pages Pagejacking Doorway pages Cloaking Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) links pages & link farms • Buying expired domains with high PageRanks to use as link targets • • • • • Pay Per Click Search Engines • Buy your way to the top • Overture, Google‟s AdWords Select, FindWhat, Sprinks (About.com), etc. • Top 3 Overture bids get syndicated to Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, etc. • Google AdWords Select ads get syndicated to AOL Search • Bidding frenzy (“light bulbs” = $1.30/click?, “web hosting” = $7.99/click?) Google Secrets • Googlebot spidering schedule & the “Google Dance” • Constantly updated pages get indexed daily by Google • The power of hyperlink text – “Google bombing” – Breadcrumb navigation • Identify linking targets – Search Google for links to your competitors – Best linking targets revealed w/ PageRank meter Google Secrets • Power searching tips – inurl, intitle, filetype, site, etc. • Dynamic page workarounds – – – – – Googlebot stops one dynamic level deep Recode your scripts to use „path‟ instead of „query string‟ URL rewriting plug-ins Move session IDs from URL to cookies Static pages Pay Per Click Search Engines • Buy your way to the top • Overture, Google‟s AdWords Select, , FindWhat, Sprinks (About.com), etc. • Top 3 Overture bids get syndicated to Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, etc. • Google AdWords Select ads get syndicated to AOL Search • Bidding frenzy (“light bulbs” = $US1.30/click?, “web hosting” = $US7.99/click?) Tracking Return on Investment • Measure what‟s important to your bottom line – – – – – Not “hits” or even unique visitors Number of orders delivered by search engines Sales volume delivered by search engines Profit delivered by search engines Cost per conversion } } Sales volume attributed to each keyword buy on Overture Sales volume delivered by each search engine A nonecommerce example. Number of booking requests delivered by each search engine and directory Number of pages in each search engine Google PageRank™ & Link popularity Alexa Ranking Positions in the search results for important keywords What keywords are they targeting? (check their meta tags) • Monitor over time, as they will change – Do it manually after hours (U.S. time), and don‟t use WebPosition to check or you may get your IP banned • • • • • Benchmarking / Competitive Intelligence Picking the Right SEM Agency 3 Step Process 1. Check their site‟s and clients‟ sites‟ PageRanks with the Google Toolbar 2. Ask them for a list of keywords that they‟ve targeted for their site and their clients‟ sites. Check Google for their positions and then Overture/WordTracker for their popularities. 3. Check references In Summary Google is the king Focus on the right keywords Have great keyword-rich content Build links, and thus your PageRank™ Measure your ROI of SEM in terms relevant to your bottom line • Continually monitor and benchmark • • • • • Further Reading • State of Search Engine Cataloging (published by Catalog Age and authored by yours truly!) • SearchEngineWatch.com • Spider-food.net • SearchEngineForums.com • SearchEngineWorld.com • PromotionBase.com • Webmasterworld.com Questions? • Feel free to email me at sspencer@netconcepts.com • Thank you!