Search Engine Marketing and Web Site Optimization

1. Search Engine Marketing and Web Site Optimization Nicole Howatt Instructor of Marketing

2. SuperBowl Ads Biggest advertiser on SuperBowl? Anheuser Busch, Pepsi Cost for 30 seconds $2.5 million, 1986 was $550,000

3. Topics • Some stats • Why should businesses have an online presence? • Online behavior • Web content • Some tips web design • Blogging • Email Marketing • Search Marketing

4. Think About It….. • Small businesses that use Internet grow 46% faster • Online retail predicated to grow at average of 21% between 2002 and 2007 • Brick and mortars need to better the buying process to keep customers from going to ecommerce • In 2005, customers will be using Internet information to make most decisions • Business Week

5. First….. • If I asked you right now what your company stands for and what is unique about your company, would be able to answer?

6. Keys to Remember • Work with your present strategy • Understand your target market • Nanomarket? • Levels of ebusiness • Consistency • Pricing • Upkeep- build and that’s it? • Customer support- just for site?

7. Benefits of eCommerce for Small Business? • 24 hour ordering or learning of company and product • Reduced customer support $ • More manageable ordering processes • Extends business to untapped market because of global reach • Potential increased in sales • Dynamic pricing • Relatively low cost

8. Identify Your Web Site Goals • Web sales • Offline sales • Leads-Affiliates • Market awareness • Information and entertainment • Persuasion

10. Measure Success • Impressions • Conversions • Visitors • Dollars • Offline-special phone number, call them, bring this printout, request for quote

11. Online Behavior

12. Top Languages Online English 34.7% Chinese 13.8% Japanese 8.3% Spanish 6.8% German 6.5% French 4.5% Korean 3.9% Italian 3.5% Portuguese 2.7% Dutch 1.7% All other languages 13.6% • In Orlando • Your customers do not always want to do business with you in English! • Customers are four times more likely to buy if sold to in their native language. • Languages in USA • Spanish 38,101,052 • Chinese 2,022,143 • French 2,096,000 • German 1,383,442 • US census data

13. Hispanic market • 49% of online Hispanic consumers want more web sites in Spanish. (AOL Roper survey, 2004) • Nearly two-thirds (63%) consider the Internet the best information source to start learning about products and services they want to buy, and more than half (59%) say it's the best place to learn about available brands. (AOL Roper survey, 2004) • http://babelfish.altavista.com/ Source: Common Sense Advisory

15. Online Behavior • Moms- 80% use internet to save time • Ethnic backgrounds • Asians-43% of users earn over $75,000 year • Teens • Females spend 15% more than males, more likely to share info • Gays and Lesbians • Higher income and education, spend more time • Boomers and Seniors- stage of life?

17. Your Site • Presentation-cost, convenience, speed, quality • Content-outline first! • Grab attention and pull them in • Product details • Clear and clean home page Check the links • Keep it fresh, give them a reason to come back

18. Stickiness • Engaging & interactive, FAQ’s • Promotions • Web site lovers love freebies, online contest with free gifts=exposure • Free games or postcards • If subscription=offer free trials • New product releases, business news • Virtual tours • Chats, Discussions • An "About Us" page • Personal interaction • Easy to Buy • "CLICK HERE NOW to order your six-month supply of Product X." • A Strong Opt-In Offer • Testimonials

19. Web Design • The 4 second rule • What is the purpose of each page? Problems solved? Why go to a Web Site? • They want/need information • They want/need to make a purchase / donation. • They want/need to be entertained. Questions for your web site: • How do we increase revenue? • How do we reduce expenses? • How do we bring in more customers? • How do we get more business out of each existing customer?

20. Web Design Tips • MAKE WORDING SIMPLE! • For small businesses-logo and contact • Feedback tool • Avoid heavy pictures • Keep fonts similar and at least a 12 • Verdana is most web friendly • Different in various browsers • Private policy and security • Other labeling • Create a favicon • Free Search

21. Promote You and Your Site • Viral Marketing • Newsletters- you are the expert! • Research- survey your audience • Web address on everything • Join a mall • Shopping search • Eopinions, Pricegrabber.com • Write articles for others

22. “Blogging, I firmly believe, is the premier emergent marketing-brandbuilding-lovemarkcreating tool of our times! It is the premier way to have intimate-engaging-informative-WOWing "conversations" with Clients and prospects!” – Tom Peters Blogs • Short for weblogs • Invented as an online journal or diary format in 1997 • The term “blog” came about in 1999 • Has recently (re)-become a hot topic in the last 18 months • Often considered an “add-on” to an existing website • Easy platform for people to publish information in a chronological fashion • Extremely search engine friendly • Gives visitors a way to keep informed without having to keep coming to your website (via syndication) • Relationship building

23. Why Should You Have a Blog? • One more tool in your toolbox • Google Loves Blogs! SEO/SEM • Creating conversations * With your customers * With your competitors * With your partners/investors * With the media • Industry Insight • Reputation capital Caveat: do not blog only for the sake of marketing & sales Inbound links are votes for your site that Google takes seriously

24. "It's a new way of communicating, rather than marketing" - Charlene Lee, Forrester Research How to Get Started • Choose your categories – Technorati (www.technorati.com) • Subscribe to & read other blogs • Plan your content choices • Set some guidelines • Monitor the blogosphere - PubSub (www.pubsub.com), Feedster (www.feedster.com)

26. Lead GenerationEmail and Other Tips • Lists (example:InfoUSA) • Right time of day? • Capture visitor email addresses and request permission to send updates • Send offers • Promote site in mail lists • Announce contest • Ask visitors to bookmark the site

27. Why and What is Search Marketing? • If not in first few search results= not in the consideration set • 81% • ____web site traffic is from search engines • Even if not selling=learn about your company • Field is more equal • Average cost per lead is $0.45, direct mail is $9.94 • Definition-taking action to attract visitors to your site from search engines • Not to interrupt but to be there when needed

28. Full Service Performance Marketing • Organic-SEO (no cost per click) • Paid-SEM (cost per click)

29. SEO What is SEO? SEO is the act of modifying a website to increase its ranking in organic (vs paid), crawler-based listings of search engines How do organic search listings work? • A spider or crawler which is a component of a SE gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the web • The spider follows links to web pages, makes copies of the pages and stores them in the SE’s index • Based on this data, the SE then indexesthe pages and ranks the websites • Major SEs that index pages using spiders: Google, Altavista, MSN • Get site indexed • www.google.com/addurl • http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ • http://www.marketleap.com/

30. 3 Main SEO Strategies SEO Strategies • Domain name strategiesdomain names are traffic magnets • Choose domain name that will increase your search engine ranking. - simple & short - use keywords, common words, advertising terms, product names- choose a keyword that is important for your business

31. SEO 2. Linking strategies- More inbound links, the higher the SE ranking - If site linking to you is already indexed, spiders will also receive your site- Quality of inbound links is critical • Target a list of sites from which you can request inbound links • Links for the sake of links can damage your search rankings “A small number of inbound links from high-quality, relevant sites is more valuable than many links from low-traffic, irrelevant sites.”

32. SEO 3. Keywords- Important in optimizing rankings- Keywords are words that appear the most in a page- The spider chooses the appropriate keywords for each page, then sends them back to its SE - Your web site will then be indexed based on your keywords- Can be key phrases or a single keyword Do not use common words (‘the’ ‘and’ ‘of’: spiders ignore them)- Always have text in your page: at least 7-10 of keyword for each 100 words http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/srch_pr.php?o=USPX06

33. SEM What is search engine marketing (SEM)?* SEM is the act of marketing a website via search engines by purchasing paid listings What are paid listings? * These are listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs. In contrast, organic listings are not sold.

34. SEM Paid listings: • Paid inclusions- Advertising programs where pages are guaranteed to be included in a search engine's index in exchange for payment - No guaranteed ranking - Payment made on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis

35. Search engine optimizationHow SEO elements affect organic listings Title tag Meta description tag (or first para. of text if no meta has has been added) Keywords

36. SEM 2. Paid placements- Advertising programs where listings are guaranteed to appear in organic listings- the higher the fee, the higher the ranking -Sponsored links and Google’s Adwords- Can be purchased from a portal or a search network - Search networks are often set up in an auction environment where keywords and phrases are associated with a cost-per-click (CPC) fee. - Google and Yahoo are the largest networks -Banners http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/srch_pr.php?o=USPX06

38. http://www.addesigner.com

39. Google-Adwords • Adsense-earn revenue on your site • Google Local • Google Froogle

40. Aligning incentives • Google sells ad impressions (views) • Seller generally wants clicks and ultimately conversions (purchases) • - Rank ads by how much advertisers are willing to bid for impressions • - Value/click * clicks/impr = value/impr

41. Search engine marketingPaid placements - Google Paid placements

42. Yahoo-one of most visited sites but a portal • Remember misspelled words • High bidder gets first position, 2nd highest bidder second position, and so on, with exact match first.

43. Search engine marketingPaid placements - Yahoo Paid placements

44. Search Engines Stats and Links • Local Search • orlando.citysearch.com • OrlandoCityBeat.com • Shopping search engines • Nextag.com • Shop.com • Shopzilla.com • Content sites • YSahoo.com • MN.com • Ivillage.com • Niche search engines • Business.com • GamePen.com • disinfo.com • This niche search engine covers counterculture

45. Examples banner ad Content ads

46. Search ads Promoted ad RHS ads Search results

47. Other Things to Remember • Click fraud

48. Helpful Links • EMarketer http://www.emarketer.com/ • SEMPOwww.sempo.org/ • SEMListwww.semlist.com/ • SEO Consultantshttp://www.seoconsultants.com/seo-resources/ • Search Engine Watch Forumsforums.searchenginewatch.com • Webmaster Worldwww.webmasterworld.com • Clickz • www.clickz.com • Blogs worth? http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/

49. www.Templatemonster.com

50. Questions