Search Engine Marketing allows you to meet prospective customers at the exact moment they’re interested in your product or service.
By Michael M. Murray Vice President Fathom SEO www.fathomseo.com 216.369.2220 866.RANK.YOU(726.5968) ©Copyright 2007 Fathom SEO
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 How PPC Works with SEO............................................................................................................................................. 4 Return on Investment (ROI) Trends.............................................................................................................................. 5 PPC Advice ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Search Engine Optimization Advice............................................................................................................................. 9 About Fathom SEO....................................................................................................................................................... 10
2
Executive Summary
Far too often, online marketers separate natural search engine optimization practices from pay-per-click (also known as PPC or paid search). Clearly, they both involve very distinct disciplines, but they may have a common landing page or potentially keyword and traffic data that can be shared to make initiatives more powerful and efficient. In this guide, we’ll take a look at how the two facets of search engine marketing can work together. In additionally, we’ll provide insights about how to make the most of SEO and PPC in their own right. Paid search involves the sponsored listings at the top and to the right of the natural results that dominate the top search engine results pages (also known as SERPs). Industry Trends Within five years, search engine marketing is expected to exceed $44 billion on a global level, largely because of the amount of money companies will continue to send to Google and Yahoo! In North America, between 2004 and 2006, the search engine marketing industry grew to $9.3 billion – a 126% increase over 2004, according to the “State of Search Engine Marketing 2006” – an annual survey by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. Paid search (also known as Pay-Per-Click) got an amazing 85.9% of that industry total in 2006 (with search media engines gobbling up a 76.7% share of paid advertising dollars). What about natural search engine optimization? The SEO portion of the $9.3 billion total was a paltry 11.8% or $1.1 billion. As with PPC, the vast majority of SEO spending went in-house. Just in terms of the workers – consultants or in-house staffs – the $1.1 billion associated with SEO activities outpaced the $887 million spent on PPC management fees, which typically range from 12% to 15% plus creative costs. Clearly, companies see the value in working with both PPC and SEO. “Although most of the SEM budget is allocated to paid search media, strategic SEO is a high priority,” according to the SEMPO annual survey. “To the extent that the search engines can support the legitimate efforts of marketers to get their sites found when relevant to searchers, there is both an opportunity to capture more revenue and to better service those business customers.” They key is to see how they can best work together. Let’s examine some potential synergies that result in coordination between paid search (PPC) and organic search (SEO) initiatives.
3
How Paid Search (also known as Pay-Per-Click or PPC) Works With SEO
Share keyword research, drawing from different databases. Sometimes people working on both PPC and SEO may use different databases to generate ideas for possible keywords and phrases. It’s important to draw from the best resources and share that data. It would be too shortsighted to stick with one or two sources when a few may offer a deeper and perspective (i.e. looking at the language people use in social communities and internal site search engines). Assess performance of paid ads, organic page titles (what is effective). Click date and web analytics can provide exceptional perspective. Natural search may be able to improve conversions by adapting an ad title that works well in PPC. Similarly, conversion date from natural search may shape future paid search ads. Review impact of ad copy/SEO keyword meta descriptions. Similar in purpose, the actual ad copy and meta descriptions are intended to offer a glimpse about the company, product, service or offer. PPC and SEO marketers should compare notes about what works and what doesn’t. Revise website architecture and landing pages - including calls to action. Everything has room for improvement and landing pages are the key. Traffic, page views and conversion trends can inspire changes to the content, including page headings and other marketing text. Share performance data so PPC and search engine optimization programs can benefit. Evaluate natural rankings to determine when PPC ads should stop – if at all. When you achieve a top three ranking for a competitive search term, it may be a good opportunity to pause the PPC ad and save some cash. Your company may have different trigger levels for any number of search terms (i.e. a number two or a top five ranking) before pausing an ad. It’s not imperative that a PPC ad be deleted. Natural rankings are great, but they fluctuate and it may be worthwhile to resume an ad. Additionally, depending on the cost and conversions, a business may want to keep a PPC ad live and benefit from both paid search and natural traffic. Or, the maximum bid amount could be lowered to preserve the ad but lower the cost-per-click (CPC). Maximize PPC spend to potentially influence natural rankings. It’s conceivable that buying PPC ads could have some impact on the natural rankings due to increased traffic to a website for a specific keyword. Even without a direct influence, extra traffic from a PPC ad linking to quality content (read: link bait) could inspire other websites to link to the information if they like what they see. Credible links are widely known to improve search engine rankings.
4
Return on Investment (ROI) Trends
Natural search engine optimization and PPC both get credit for achieving high ROI and conversions, so it makes sense to devote serious attention to each. For example, SEO gets high marks for ROI in MarketingSherpa’s “Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007.” In the “Search Marketing Benchmark Survey” marketers gave natural search engine optimization the highest ROI ratings among diverse marketing strategies for product websites (68.7%) and lead generation websites (69.7%). Company-managed email marketing came in second -- 56.4% for products and 64.2% for lead generation. Paid search rounded out the top three – 52.5% for products and 64.1% for lead generation. Unlike PPC, rankings achieved through SEO efforts continue to drive traffic even after a program ends. It’s a nice reality when you’re talking ROI. With paid advertising, if your account or well runs dry, the ads don’t appear. But PPC can be effective to get the traffic started and for search terms you can afford. With conversions, the SEO/PPC victory debate goes back and forth with individual case studies. Two national reports in 2006 essentially put both neck-and-neck with PPC as a slight leader. WebSideStory, Inc. says PPC has an edge over natural search engine optimization (based on more than 57 million search engine visits). Paid advertising had a median order conversion rate of 3.40 percent at B2C e-commerce sites compared to an organic conversion rate of 3.13 percent. Ali Behnam, senior digital marketing consultant for WebSideStory, indicated on their website that paid search marketers have “better control over the environment, including the message, the landing page and the ability to eliminate lowconverting keywords.” But conversion opportunities – whether PPC or SEO – vary with product types, time of year, site architecture, product descriptions, purchase incentives, prices, brand and countless other factors. The WebSideStory numbers are related only to e-commerce. And within those transactions there will be diverse conversion trends that favor either PPC or SEO. So it would be short-sighted to make strategic decisions around one or two conversion studies. In fact, Behnam added the conversion rates are higher than overall e-commerce site conversion rates because “our clients are steeped in web analytics best practices.” In addition to its overall ROI data, MarketingSherpa looked at conversions in its 2006 survey. PPC nudged out SEO (4.19% to 3.92%). Among the top ¼ of respondents (those who had the highest conversions), the PPC average was 10.34% and the SEO average was 10.13% - both double the top 5.11% average for all website visitors. A widely cited JupiterResearch study in 2004 found that nearly six of seven commercial sales related to search engines actually came from organic search results.
5
A 2007 Internet Retailer survey has tons of great data about how web retailers regard search marketing (paid and organic). But the stats are somewhat perplexing. Retailers will spend more on PPC, but they say search engine optimization provides a better value (higher conversions). Paid search has an easier entry point. Google’s hype about its ad option is true. You can be up and running in no time. The problem is, you need to know what you’re doing. Throwing money out the window is not considered an art form. Mistakes can happen with keyword selection, writing ads, developing landing pages and even understanding click trends. You use PPC as a supplement to SEO when you need to get traffic. And you use both when the numbers make sense. If you get the sales and the margins and you can afford to pay for both, then do so (for some keyword phrases). The survey says merchants spend more on paid search (39.2%) than SEO compared to 34.7% who say they devote more cash to SEO than PPC. In terms of conversion rates, SEO wins – 46.1% vs. 37.3% for PPC. In “MarketingSherpa's 4th Annual ad:tech attendee study,” 49% of those surveyed pointed to PPC as the best source of ROI followed by email marketing/house list (47%) and search engine optimization (45%). Actually, PPC fell a bit from 52% last year and e-mail remained flat. The biggest gain was SEO, which jumped from 33% to 45%. Why the big bump in SEO? The study simply suggests that SEO is under-budgeted given that SEO can produce a favorable ROI. Some marketers may be catching on to SEO, but they could do even better by leveraging both PPC and SEO.
6
PPC Advice
1. With Google AdWords, target some keywords to a specific campaign and AdGroup. Don’t throw all of the keywords into one pile. Group keywords into themes. 2. Set your daily budget real high in some cases – much more than you would think. Monitor it closely, but you may not go through the money as fast as you think. A high daily budget could influence how many impressions you get. 3. Learn the rules associated with bid management software so you can adjust your bids based on competitive bidding and when your customers are most likely to click. 4. Make sure your ads titles correspond to the search term. If the search term is longer than the title, get a portion in the title and make sure it is represented in the ad copy. 5. Test your ad copy (including A/B testing at times); see what works best. 6. Make sure your landing page ties in nicely with the original keyword and the paid ad. 7. Pay attention to your bid gaps. You don’t want to pay too much for the second or third position among the ads. 8. Monitor your ads manually – often. Don’t just set your bid management software and hope for the best. 9. Plan on a large keyword set for your PPC program. Many lower cost keywords can work to your advantage. Collectively, they can bring a high volume at a lower cost – over time. 10. Test out different search engines with various keywords and phrases. Sometimes Yahoo! is less expensive than Google for the same phrase. But you need to use your website and the analytics to determine which search engine your customers prefer. In other words, which one brings the best leads? Don’t overlook smaller search engines. 11. Don’t forget to include tracking codes with your PPC ads. Big and small companies have neglected to put the basics in place and it affects their ability to assess SEO and PPC in the long run. 12. You don’t need to be #1 for all of your keywords in the PPC world. Sometimes it’s nice to be that high if it’s a term you can afford. But a #2 or #3 position can work effectively as well. After that, however, it’s much less likely that someone will spot your ad. 13. Make sure you understand all of the search engine rules for your keywords, including not using quotes, the impact of using quotes around the term and brackets that can lock in that specific phrase. 14. Keep an open mind toward negative keywords. If critics question your product or service, you may want to use PPC (and those same negative expressions) yourself to draw attention to a page that puts any criticism in the best light. 15. Watch the settings that allow your ads to appear on non-search engine web sites as a content match. You’ll want to regulate where there appear and separate your analysis. A poor showing with matched content ads could affect your overall PPC performance. In other words, sometimes the click-thru-rate may be lower when the ads appear somewhere other than the main search engine.
7
Additional PPC Ideas Ad Copy Testing • • • Ad copy testing can improve ad quality to drive more qualified clicks and conversions. Implementing techniques such as keyword insertion helps drive stronger click-through-rates (CTR) and reduce overall cost-per-click (CPC). Ad copy can be tailored to each geographic location by various methods including city, state and zip code. Data Trending & Analytics • • • Data trending provides the insight needed to determine bid prices and adjust campaign budgets accordingly. Bid management allows you to create rules that will identify gaps in bid prices, increase ROI, and improve overall PPC campaign performance. Click fraud reporting identifies and logs competitive clicks, repetitive clicks from the same IP address and unusual click increases. Geo-targeting • • • Geo-targeting provides an excellent opportunity to target broad terms to targeted geographic location for a lower cost. PPC generates larger volumes of qualified targeted clicks for regionalized sites as opposed to standard online marketing approaches. Geo-targeted PPC ads drive stronger CTR and can lead to a lower overall CPC.
8
Search Engine Optimization Advice
Ask yourself key questions about your online activity even if the only connection is a phone number or a one-field response form. Here are some examples: 1. Study your industry and competitors, but avoid picking up their broad or impractical keywords. 2. Develop a diverse keyword set. Take note of the many ways people search and figure out how to use their language in your website. 3. Make sure your search engine sitemaps are up to date. 4. Try many scenarios with your page titles – add the marketing flavor after you land the ranking. 5. Don’t spend much time on meta keywords. 6. Make sure your navigation is text and includes keyword (search engine seem to like linked text). 7. Bolster text headers (not graphics) with keywords. 8. Create visible text content in sections for the search engines and usability (use lists/bullets because they’re userfriendly). 9. Include a keyword in your domain name (if you’re just starting). 10. Add keywords to your page names and folder names. 11. Don’t jeopardize a high ranking on Google chasing after a high ranking for MSN for the same page. 12. Leverage your home page for high rankings (include a clear call to action). 13. Optimize pages like the contact page (it’s usually filled with phone numbers, a form, etc.). Make it easy for someone to connect with you if they find your website. 14. Note how you’re ranking for permutations of your root keyword phrases. 15. Develop an aggressive and relevant links campaign.
9
About Fathom SEO
Fathom SEO is a leader in ethical search engine marketing and placement, including search engine optimization, online PR/link popularity building, pay-per-click and related analysis. We also offer integrated permission-based email marketing programs. We turn web sites into sales machines. Our diverse team of SEO specialists has expertise in business management, marketing, programming, copywriting, website design and other disciplines. Fathom SEO has more than 125 clients, including Eaton Corp., FedEx Custom Critical, Bissell, Sauder and Cleveland Clinic. Fathom SEO is a member of the Search Engine Professional Organization and the Cleveland chapter of the Better Business Bureau. We’re also included in the 2007 “MarketingSherpa Buyer’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization Firms.” We have produced a series of popular industry guides and special reports, including white papers on search engine marketing and studies on how health care companies and manufacturers use SEO. Michael Murray, our vice president and an online marketer since 1997, writes extensively about the industry and speaks at local and national events, including the prestigious Search Engine Strategies conferences. He also is a regular contributor at ReveNews and iMedia Connection. Visit us at www.fathomseo.com or call 216.369.2220 or 866.RANK.YOU (726.5968).
Fathom SEO Named Among Top 20 Search Engine Agencies by:
10