by MikeSchinkel [1]
*Search Engine Marketing - What It Is and How Your Business Can
Benefit From It*
Simply put, Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the fastest, most
powerful, highly-targeted, most dynamic, highly-measurable and most
cost-effective marketing strategy that can give your business the
power to reach potential customers anywhere in the world anytime for a
little as USD .05 cost per customer acquisition or even for free!
Search Engine Marketing or SEM is about making sure that your Web site
appears on the top 20 of search results every time potential customers
search for whatever products and/or services that you offer on any of
the major Search Engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN which
collectively accounts for over 90% of all Search Engine originating
traffic.
There are of course other smaller Search Engines that focus on niche
industries such as Kayak (www.kayak.com Travel Search Engine) and
country-specific Search Engines like Baidu (www.baidu.com) which is
very popular in China.
How Popular Are Search Engines?
A study last November 2005 finds that the number of people who use
Internet Search Engines to find information has jumped over the last
year, claiming a solid No. 2 spot behind e-mail as the most popular
activity online. In the year 2003, 250 million searches were made
daily on Google alone!
How Does It Work?
On the Internet, whenever somebody wants to find something, they use
Search Engines. As spam continues to lessen the effectiveness of email
as a marketing tool, Search Engine Marketing is fast becoming the
marketing strategy of choice for companies who want to reach a global
audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, either for free or for as
little as USD .05 per visitor. As the Internet becomes more and more a
part of our everyday lives, the greater their role becomes in helping
businesses connect with their customers at that crucial point in their
buying decision process (when they are searching for it).
Right now, there are probably people... potential customers who are
looking for whatever products or services you are offering on any or
all of the major Search Engines. When potential customers type in the
keywords that they are searching for and press that "Search" button,
do they find you or your competitors instead?
How can you get your business to appear on Search Engines?
Of course, you first must have a Web site. If you don't have one, get
one designed by someone who has a decent understanding of Search
Engine Optimization. I've come across business Web sites that are so
badly designed from an SEM perspective that you can't even find it
even if you search for the company name or business name itself! Even
worse, their sites are designed in a way that prevents instead of
facilitates their visitors to transact with them.
There are basically 2 ways for you to get your Web site to appear on
Search Engines. You either get it listed on the "organic" or natural
search results by doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or you launch
a Pay Per Click Campaign (PPC) for the keywords you want your Web site
to appear for. Ideally, you should be doing both because a PPC
campaign can start driving highly-qualified traffic to your Web site
almost instantly while you wait for your SEO campaign to gain momentum
and get your Web site within the top 20 of the SERPs (Search Engine
Results Page), otherwise known as "organic" or "natural" search
results, which can take months to happen.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
To get your Web site to appear on the SERPs you need to launch an SEO
campaign. The main problem with SEO is that it can be very difficult
and take anywhere from several months to over 1 year before you can
achieve good rankings and appear within the top 20 rankings or top 2
pages of the organic search results which is all the results that most
people are willing to see before they make a decision and choose what
Web site to ultimately visit and do business with. Getting your Web
site listed in the top 20 results is going to be a constant battle,
especially if you are in a highly competitive industry and your
competitors are also actively doing the same thing.
How your Web site is designed determines in great part how well its
Search Engine rankings will be. Do you adore that lovely Flash
animation on your home page? Loose it! Search Engines can't see that
Flash animation and they rely almost exclusively on text to determine
the relevance and consequently, the ranking of every Web page.
What Is A Pay Per Click Campaign?
Pay Per Click or PPC campaigns are basically ads (Sponsored Links)
that appear alongside the organic search results whenever someone uses
a Search Engine to search for anything that he's interested in. The
reason why it's called Pay Per Click is because you spend only when
somebody actually "clicks" on your PPC ad and not every time somebody
sees it. These ads are controlled and are made to appear only every
time specific "keywords" are searched for. The level of control an
advertiser has over his PPC campaign is so high that he can control
exactly how and who gets to see his PPC ads and most importantly, how
much he spends for it. For as little as USD .05 per click on Google
and USD .10 on Yahoo and MSN, you can start driving highly-qualified
visitors to your Web site.
What Are Its Advantages Over Traditional Marketing Mediums?
While you may get an increase in sales when you put out an ad on TV,
radio or print, it is almost impossible to track how well your sales
were influenced "directly" by your ads. With Search Engine Marketing,
you would know exactly how much you are spending and how much actual
revenue you are getting for each cent that you spend for it. You can
even know where your customers are coming from using Web Analytics
such as the popular and free Google Analytics.
The ability to control your marketing expenditure, track your
campaign's performance, identify and target your market, a truly
global reach, measurable results and being able to make changes to
your campaign on the fly makes Search Engine Marketing far superior to
traditional marketing medium.
How Effective Is Search Engine Marketing?
It is not impossible to convert 50% of your Search Engine originating
traffic. The real beauty of Search Engine Marketing is that it allows
your customers to find you instead of you trying to find them.
How much does it cost?
The cost of any Search Engine Marketing campaign depends greatly on
the scope and extent of it. The more keywords and the broader the
audience you want to target, the more it's going to cost but the
greater the benefit would be. Maybe the more important question is...
"How much is it costing your business by not doing Search Engine
Marketing?"
Jonathan Casuncad has over 6 years of experience as a Search Engine
Marketing consultant. He has worked for several American SEM
companies. Web site: www.sem-pros.com Mobile: +63915-4065427 Skype:
jonathan.casuncad Yahoo Messenger: jonathancasuncad
More Search Engine Marketing Articles [2]
Links:
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[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/13838874@N00/1702801572
[2] http://toponlinemarketingtool.com/?cat=7
http://toponlinemarketingtool.com/?p=334
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