Best Practices in Search Engine Marketing

It is a type of Internet marketing that promotes websites by increasing their visibility in the search engine. Once a site is listed above other sites, people interested in the category get drawn to that particular website. Since most of the search engines don't charge to be listed, the leads created through such listings are free; therefore this form of marketing offers the best return on investment. SEM has one goal, which is to deliver the target audience to the website.

SEM is not only a marketing medium, but is also the art of getting a website listed high in the search engine results, which in turn promotes the company's web presence. The biggest challenge is writing quality web pages with a significant amount of content so that it is listed well. This also requires daily monitoring of search engine positions and being updated with the latest techniques, tips and tricks to keep yourself at the top of the search engine results.

The SEM is called the Next Great Marketing Medium. The key benefits which this marketing medium offers are:

Measurable: One of the great benefits of search engine marketing is that it's more measurable than most other forms of advertising and marketing. Search marketers are able to see exactly how many conversions (online leads or sales) they've driven, along with revenue generated and ROI.

Brand awareness: Search engines impact brand awareness immensely. Customers are more likely to have a perception of "exceptional quality" for the brands featured in a search engine. The searchers don't even have to click to visit the advertised sites for this increase in brand equity to occur. High search engine rankings translate into perceptions of leadership and credibility. The searchers are introduced to brands they were previously unaware of. People using search engines are more likely to consider multiple brands. The positive impact that searches have on nearly every step in the buying cycle is increasingly being recognized and valued by marketers. Companies are now actually more likely to use search marketing for increasing brand awareness.

Cost effective: Since most of the search engines don't charge to be listed, leads created through such listings are free; therefore this form of marketing offers the best return on investment. Search has the lowest cost per customer acquisition. SEM connects potential buyers directly with your company, making it a highly effective form of marketing.

Quality Leads: Leads acquired through search engine listings are generally good leads. Online advertisements can be posted by anyone as long as they pay. But search engines look at the content of a web page and determine whether that particular web page deserves to be positioned higher or lower than other web pages with contents on the same subject. Search engines strive to provide their users with quality results. Someone who searches for a particular type of product on a search engine is definitely a better lead than someone who happens to see an advertisement for a particular product on the internet.

Search engine marketing is a powerful lead generation source, but it can also turn into a complete waste of money if a few basic things are not taken into account. Marketers often get less out of their SEM programs than possible by overlooking certain basic but critical steps. Here are some best practices to optimize the results from search marketing:

Budgeting: There are a number of factors that affect the budget of the SEM campaigns, like the number of key words: More key words mean a higher budget and display time: 24/7 campaigns require a higher budget than business-hours-only campaigns. Geographic display: global campaigns require a bigger budget than the ones which are for few countries. Generally, inexpensive products or services which have only one decision-maker and are impulse purchases benefit most from an aggressive search marketing campaign. Big budget products which involve multiple decision makers and are strategic or are infrequently purchased benefit less, although there are always exceptions. The best approach is to start with a campaign which is moderately budgeted and then track results to understand if more aggressive spending is justified. Most importantly, the goal- how many leads you expect from search marketing- should be well defined. Higher goals require a larger budget.

Key Words: Key words play the most significant role in the search listing. It's advisable to look at multiple sources like the existing content, competitors' websites, trade publications, blogs, and the key word suggestion tools to develop the list of key words and phrases to use for the SEM campaign. Key words and phrases that get few impressions or a low conversion rate should be culled. Divide your keywords / phrases into logical groups and Keep the number of groups manageable to get the best results.

Verbiage: The search engines don't like the use of abbreviations, excessive punctuation or superlatives. The verbiage should be simple, easy to understand, but compelling.

Campaign parameters: The parameters are geography, time and day, search and content. The search engines provide campaign settings pages where you specify these parameters for your campaign. So, first determine your geographic coverage. Second, set the time and day criteria for the ad display. For global campaigns, time is set for 24-hours. For localized campaigns, it may be limited to a few hours. Third, decide if you want your ads to display only on the search engines or across their content partner networks as well. Content partner sites tend to deliver lower click-through rates than searches, but can still be a valuable part of your campaign. For aggressive campaigns, content sites should definitely be included; for more limited or test campaigns, search alone may be the better setting. If you're uncertain, start your campaign with both search and content; you can always change these settings once you've run the campaign for a time and have results to analyze.

Good landing pages: The search engine ads simply redirect the clickers to a site's home page. Unless the home page is extremely well-designed, visitors don't understand what to do next. It is ideal to send them to the landing page which explains to them the product and then gives them a clear call to action.

Track conversions: The search engines provide conversion tracking code for the landing pages and instructions to implement this. The ultimate goal of a SEM campaign is to produce leads and not just clicks, so conversion tracking is a critical component of your search marketing campaigns.

Campaign analysis: Analyze results weekly for the program. In the analysis, look for both the keywords which are generating the highest number of clicks as well as the highest conversion rate.

Two ad copies: Keep two different ads that point to the same landing page. In search engines, turn on ad optimization so that your more effective ads are being shown more frequently. After few weeks, check the performance; if one ad is clearly generating higher click through rates than the other, replace the lower-performing ad with a new one.

Two Landing pages: Once the ads are performing equally well, point each to a different landing page with different types of copy, amounts of copy, contact form / no contact form, and different offers. Test until you have one that clearly outperforms all other alternatives at converting visitors to leads.

Follow-up programs: leads and visitors should be followed up with emails and phone calls until they close.