Tami Dower goes back to basics with this dummies' guide to search engine marketing.
Tami Dower writes for the Marketing Magazine. You can subscribe to this monthly magazine by going to www.marketingmag.com.au
In October last year, the number of websites on the Internet cracked the 100 million mark. For that month alone, 3.5 million found their way onto the World Wide Web. And, in the time you this read this article, around 1000 more will have been added.
With the number of websites proliferating at such a phenomenal rate, it's no longer enough to simply build a site and hope people see it. If your site is not attracting the attention of the major search engines, chances are you're missing out on a huge number of potential customers.
According to a study conducted by Kelsey Group last year, search is fast closing in on email as the primary daily online activity (77 percent email and 63 percent search). Recent research by Sensis also indicates that 59 percent of Australians who search online are looking for products and services. Add to this the fact that search is a highly targeted and completely measurable marketing channel - that costs a smidgeon of its traditional counterparts - and it's not hard to see why it is among the fastest marketing channels. Search engine marketing (SEM) is about maximising traffic to your website. Broadly speaking, this can be done in two ways: by optimising your site so that search engines naturally index it, or by paying for a listing alongside natural or 'organic' search results. For reasons we’ll look at shortly, many sites use a combination of both.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION Typically, a search engine works by sending out an automated ‘spider’ to scan data across the web. The spider's loot is then brought back to a central depository where it is indexed. When a user enters a query, the search engine applies an algorithm to sort through information in its index and determine its relevance to the query.
One of the elements that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency of keywords on a web page. Those with higher frequency of the search term are generally considered more relevant. Another common element that algorithms analyse is the way pages link to other pages on the web. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is about designing websites in a way that maximises their appeal to search engine algorithms. Ideally, SEO should be factored in from the outset. If SEO is considered at the start, it can be done correctly the first time and thus avoid extra costs.
There are a number of pointers to keep in mind when constructing your site for optimal search engine visibility.
FOCUS ON QUALITY OF CONTENT
“The single most important thing to do is provide high quality content on your pages," advises Julian Sonego, marketing manager, Google Australia and New Zealand. "If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice other webmasters to link to it your site.”
The number of inbound links to your site is taken to be an indication of the site's popularity and therefore helps it rank higher in search engines results. If a site has good quality content then it is more likely to get good quality links from other sites. Each of these links is viewed as a ‘vote’ for the site, which is given a high weighting by the search engines.
However, it's not as simple as having a large volume of links – search engines also have clever ways of determining and weighting the ‘quality’ of a link, including mechanisms to ascertain the popularity of the sites linking to your site.
USE RELEVENT KEYWORDS IN YOUR COPY
Particular attention should be paid to keywords when writing copy for the web. As the frequency of keywords is a key determinant of relevancy, the wording should generously incorporate 'trigger words'. These are essentially words and phrases that your target audience would type into a search engine. You should, however, try to avoid gross overuse of keywords as this may compromise the readability of the text. "Just repeating the same keyword over and over provides little value," says Tim Giles, general manager, Enedia. "The key is to provide context, not rubbish. Read it aloud and if it sounds clumsy rewrite it."
As the user digs deeper into your site, pages should start to have a more specific 'theme' or concentration of keywords. "Every page on a website is an opportunity to target increasingly granular themes and keywords," adds Giles. "Many sites use a universal approach to page titles and descriptions and try and make them suit everyone and everything, but the result is that they are attractive to no one".
Placement of keywords on the page is another critical factor. "Search engines prefer web pages where keywords appear high up on the page," says Craig Wax, regional managing director of Yahoo! Search Marketing for Australia, India and South East Asia. Wax recommends using target keywords for your page headline, as well as in the first paragraphs of your web page.
GIVE YOUR SITE A LOGICAL STRUCTURE
Make all areas of your site as easily accessible as possible. This will not only help users navigate their way around the site, but it will also make it more inviting to search engines. One way to achieve this is to make sure every page is reachable from at least one static text link. Employing a directory page or 'site map' will also help search engines - and users -locate your pages. It's one thing to get traffic to your site, but it's another thing to keep them there long enough to take the desired action. "There is no point in having a high ranking website, then losing your prospects when they hit your landing page. For this purpose, it is important to ensure your customers clicks through to a relevant landing page that suer friendly, clean and clearly directs the consumer to the next step that you want them to take.
STEER CLEAR OF UNREADABLE FORMATS
Search engine spiders are simple text-based browsers, so its important to ensure that key content on the site is in html format and all pages on the sire are linked in some way via html text. Avoided embedding key content in formats that are unreadable to search engines or difficult for them to interpret. This includes features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, dhtml and Macromedia Flash, ensure that you offer an html alternative. And if you are going to utilise JavaScript, be aware that there are techniques to externally host this so that it does not impede a spider reading the relevant content. One way is to assess whether content on your site is visible to a search engine is to examine it with a text browser, such as Lynx, advises Goggle’s Julian Sonego.
As Gavin Appel, SVP - product development for Hitwise, points out, another stumbling block for search engines is the use of usernames and passwords. If the user is required to enter these details to access content on your site, this content is not going to be accessible to a search engine.
DON'T TRY TO'TRICK THE SYSTEM
In the early days of search, website creators conjured up all sorts of ways to 'trick' search engines into giving their sites a higher ranking in search results. These days, however, most search engines have implemented sophisticated systems to detect manipulation of search results and the consequences of ‘search engine spam' really aren't worth the risk.
"Google is able to detect the majority of manipulation attempts and discourage such behaviour by taking appropriate action - up to and including removing sites from our index when they violate our webmaster guidelines," says Sonego. And, not only are the search engines on the lookout for spammers, you can bet that your competitors will also be quick to report such practices.
So what exactly is search engine spam? "There are many different practices that are deemed spam by the search engines," says John Matthew, client services director, dgmAustralia. "Essentially, as a rule of thumb, it is anything that is done to trick the search engine into thinking it is seeing something that is actually not there for the user." If in doubt, all of the major search engines publish guidelines on what constitutes spam, but here are some of the more common examples:
• link farming: creating a group of web pages that all link to one another to artificially increase link popularity
• keyword stuffing: using hidden text that is only visible to the search engine spider and not to the user (e.g. white text on a white background or use of very small text so the human eye cannot detect it), and
• cloaking: presenting content to a search engine spider that is different to that presented to a user in their browser.
PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING
Paid search advertising or 'pay per click' (PPC) involves paying for your website to have a prominent listing alongside natural search results on relevant keywords. (Some search engines will also distribute ads beyond search results pages and into other relevant websites in their network.)
For each visitor who clicks on your link, you are charged at specific rate. You can control the maximum amount you're willing to click for each keyword. In many search engines, your precise rank paid search listing depends on how much you bid for a particular word as well as the click-through rate of the ad (which is taken to be an indication of the ad's relevance to the search term).
IS IT REALLY NECESSARY TO PAY FOR SEARCH?
So you've taken all the necessary steps to properly optimise your site – why would you want to pay for search results? Well, there are a number of reasons.
Firstly, SEO is not an exact science. As hard as you try to give your site the best possible ranking in a natural search query, there's chance your competitors will be doing the same thing. If your competitors have larger sites with more content and more links, you're have quite a battle on your hands to maintain a high ranking regardless of how well-optimised your site is, you're unlikely to have top rankings for every keyword you want.
A recent study of search behaviour by Jupiter Research indicated that a mere 10 percent of users are prepared to drill down as far as the third page of search results. In fact, if your site is not in the first four to five listings, you're potentially missing out, no matter how good your product.
If you have a new site or are running a seasonal promotion, paid search is also a good way to 'jump the queue'. The organic search indexing system is often slow," explains Enedia's Tim Giles. "It can take up to three months for any site changes to get picked up; therefore play is often the only way to legitimately get quick results."
This is especially true if the keyword you are targeting is very popular. "For keywords that have more than one million searches a month it can take a long time before your website is prominently displayed among the search engine results," adds Yahoo.''s Craig Wax. Another advantage of paid search is that it allows for greater online business intelligence. Paid search allows you to collect real-world data about consumer demands. It allows you to test new website designs and find the best conversion paths.
Used in combination, SEO and paid search can be complementary strategies, each reinforcing the other. Ultimately, however, whether or not you choose to use paid search will come down to your budget and your specific objectives.
BIDDING FOR KEYWORDS
If you've decided to go ahead with paid search, the next step is selecting appropriate keywords to bid for. Finding the right combination of keywords is a process of continual testing and assessment. To determine your initial keyword selection, Google's Julian Sonego recommends a three-step approach, focusing firstly on generic keywords, secondly on brand keywords and finally on brand attribute keywords. "For a credit card company, for example, generic keyword phrases would be 'credit card', 'debit card' or maybe 'EFTPOS card'. Branded keyword phrases, for Amex for example, would be 'Amex blue' or 'Amex platinum'. Brand attribute keywords, or phrases that the marketer wants their product to be associated with might be something like 'low interest credit', 'fast approval credit', 'credit card rewards', 'fixed rate credit' and so forth."
If your brand name or any relevant terms are commonly misspelt it may be worth selecting these misspellings as possible keywords. For those on a limited budget, it is advisable to concentrate on more specific keywords. Advertisers need to be mindful that the more generic keywords are generally more expensive, and may yield lower conversion rates; advertisers need to for quality not quantity. There may well be thousands of people searching for your key terms in the US, but if you cannot sell to them, what is the point of targeting them? You are better qualifying your keyword campaigns around geographical identifiers e.g. Australia, Sydney etc, rather than trying to be too generic. In addition, negative keywords need to be considered. These are words that when used in conjunction with your search term that you want to avoid your website appearing. For example, if you were a credit card provider, you probably do not want your site appearing when someone searches a keyword like 'credit card fraud'; therefore 'fraud' should be added as a keyword.
In terms of working out how much to pay for your chosen keywords, it’s warned to not get involved in getting caught up in a bidding war. "The higher your listing in the paid results the more you will have to pay for clicks. Often the top couple of advertisers can be caught up in a bidding war and drive up the price for the top two listings but number three can be effective if you have a good ad and it's often much cheaper.
MEASURING SUCCESS
There are a wide variety of tools available to help you determine the success of your paid search strategy, some of which are provided by the search engines free of charge. At the most basic level, you should be monitoring the click-through rates of your keywords and consider revising your keyword selection and bids according to performance. It can also be useful to analyse traffic according to the time of day of the week in order to maximise exposure at key times.
In the travel sector trends have formed that demonstrate people will do their offline research over the weekend, either in the high street or in the weekend papers, yet go online on Mondays and Tuesdays to get the best offers. When trends like this are identified you modify your paid search campaigns accordingly.
While it is important to measure the traffic generated by each keyword, it is also critical to determine which ones are actually leading to conversions. This may be in the form of a sale, a request for more information, signing up to a newsletter or any other action you deem desired outcome of visits to your site. As well as tracking click-through rates, many of the major search engines are also able to provide tools for conversion tracking. These tools, combined with the innumerable analytics tracking software packages on the market, make the scope for refining your search marketing strategy virtually limitless. |
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