Search Engine Marketing

Posted by Silvia Azmitia on November 23rd, 2007 at 2:54pm

It’s a fact! Major companies and growing industries are including online advertising in their marketing budgets. Marketers should assure the most effective use of these expenditures, saving part of the investment to search engine optimisation processes.

Online advertising has grown to more than $15 billion US dollars in 2006 increasing by almost 60% as compared to the $9 billion US dollars in 2004.

In the 90s, online advertising was almost considered as synonymous with banners, but these days it is well known that there are at least 5 forms of online advertising leveraged by marketers:

• Paid Search: Firms pay to list and link their company site domain name to a specific search of words or phrases.
  

• Display: Companies pay for a space to display a banner or logo.
  

• Classified: Firms pay online companies to list specific products or services.
  

• Rich media: the use of online ads that integrate components such as streaming video, audio and interactivity.
  

• Sponsorship: Advertisers may sponsor a targeted website.
  

All 5 forms may get lost in the overload of information contained by the Internet, and here is where the search engines come to play.

Why search engine marketing [SEM]?

Research has found that that 50% to 80% of the Web site traffic comes from search engines, and over 56% of Internet users will employ a search engine one or more times in a day.

Within a B2B context, the importance of search engines is even higher. Research has found that almost 64% of customers first visit search engines when seeking a company, a product or a service.

When searching a specific website, 90% of Internet users hardly ever go beyond the first 3 pages of search results, so it’s recommended that companies should ensure visibility within the first 30 search results.

Research has found that when considering the top 30 listings, Internet users are more likely to click on natural or organic listings over paid listings. Indeed, 69% click on organic rather than paid listings.

Regarding the different search engines, the most commonly used worldwide are Google and Yahoo!.  Google leads the share with 47% of search engine users going directly to google.com, followed by Yahoo! at 21% and MSN at 13%. Within the users who search to make B2B purchase decisions, Google maintains a larger portion with 82% of the market share, followed by Yahoo! at 7.5%.

The increase of expenditure in online advertising, and the growing importance of search engines, highlights a significant opportunity for marketers to reach their target by using search engines as part of the online marketing strategy.

How does search engine marketing work?

There are 2 forms of search engine marketing:

• Paid search: Pay per click advertising, in which companies define specific words or phrases to achieve prominent placement in search engines
  

• Search Engine Optimisation [SEO]: Configure a website to naturally improve its position within the search engine results.
  

While objectives and terms of paid search may be determined depending on negotiation with the search engines, companies may have to decide directly on SEO campaigns by configuring their website in order to have a better position within search results. The main components of a successful SEO campaign include:

• Keyword selection: determining which words the audience may use to search for the site. Experts recommend to use as many words as possible and to take in to consideration phrases as well, given the fact that a large portion of searchers enter 3 or more word phrases to search a website.
  

• Keyword optimisation: The Enquiro Eye Tracking Study assures that people look to the search results from the top left down. In addition, Google gives more weight to keywords placed in the top left of the site. That’s why marketers should optimise the first 200 words on their websites.
  

• Rank checking:  Companies should check if the Website ranks well for its keywords. If it’s not good enough, marketers should redetermine keywords and explore other factors that may influence search engine rankings.
  

• Website infrastructure: To improve a website rating from Google, marketers should link the page from other highly ranked pages – they may consult the PageRank rating in the Google Toolbar. Also, they may improve the Website structure by: checking for broken links and correct HTML, use redirect sparingly, use short URLs, and minimize the use of flash and graphics, between others.
  

Paid Search or Search Engine Optimisation?

Even though users are more likely to click on organic listings rather than paid lists, there are several factors to take in to consideration when deciding how to use the expenditure in search engines:

• It can take up to 120 days after Website submission before the initial result of an optimisation campaign becomes visible, contrasting with the immediate results when using paid search.
  

• Experts assert that most of the time, it costs less to purchase paid placements for thousands of keywords than to implement search engine optimisation with a few hundred words.
  

• Each search engine utilizes different algorithms, so success in optimising one search engine, does not necessarily mean success in another search engine.
  

These factors show that marketers should look for a combination of both to maximize the results of the online investment. There is no unique right percentage to reach the optimal balance between both types of search, so companies may determine the best for them by constantly measuring the effectiveness of SEM efforts by ROI indicators.

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