Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Search Marketing

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Search marketing describes the marketing techniques available to promote your website to ensure it is visible when people are looking for your product or service on search engines.

The term search marketing means quite literally using search engines services to market your company – both via paid and editorial results.  Both these tools can work for your business, giving you a good return on investment, quickly and simply. Basically search marketing is improving the placement of a certain website in search engine results pages.

Search Engine Marketing goes beyond simply acquiring the prospect at the search engines, as it goes into detailed analysis of how to convert that prospect into a sales suspect and therefore create a ‘conversion’ – a sale, newsletter sign-up etc.

The two major aspects of search engine marketing – paid results and natural ‘editorial’ results. The idea is to cover as much of an SERP (search engine results page) – especially ‘above the fold’ results at the top of each browser window – with pages ultimately leading to your points of conversion.

Search Marketing also cuts out the competing results or results showing negative views about your brand/company. The power of social media enables even individuals to completely wreck a company’s reputation – apart from keeping customers happy, engineering your search marketing to keep the good stuff in and the rubbish out.

Typically, this kind of strategy should be sought for high-converting keywords and also brand management. But you have to be realistic; you’re not going to win entire results pages at every single point of a users search. Not even the best of us can do that, and why would we? Freedom to choose is important – but having a little bit more ‘real estate’ at Google (which is high up) can make all the difference to your overall bottom line. For example the likes of Apple Inc, completely dominate the first page of Google for their own branded items.

The fist strategic method used in order to increase placement in SERPs is Pay per click advertising (PPC), also known as cost-per-click or pay-for-performance. Pay-per-click is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for each click of their ads. This Click-Through Rate-based payment structure is considered by some advertisers to be more cost-effective than the Cost-Per-Thousand payment structure, but it has at times led to Click Fraud. No matter what your budget is you can advertise on PPC, but it depends on which keywords you chose. Some keywords can be less than a pound per click, but some keywords can cost into the hundreds per click and that adding up over a long period can become a lot of money! And therefore it would seem more cost efficient to opt for Search Engine Optimisation.  It all depend s on which keywords you are wanting to be found for.

The second method used is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Search engine optimisation is the modification of a website for the purpose of improving its natural Rank on Search Engine Results Pages. This is done through a combination of SEO strategies such as directory and search engine Submission, website optimisation, content writing and improved Link quality. The best way to optimise your website is via natural SEO. Also known as natural optimisation, organic search engine optimisation or white hat SEO, natural search engine optimisation is the use of keyword-focused copy and tags, Crawler-friendly site architecture, Search Engine Submissions and a quality Backlinks network to improve a site’s Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate. Because about 80% of web users look at Natural Listings first, natural SEO offers a much greater chance of long-term business success than Paid Listings or Pay-Per-Click ad campaigns.

For more information on what the Search Marketing Group can do for your company whether it is a pay per click campaign or an SEO campaign, contact us on the contact details below.

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Seo small business. Tips for success

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

The first tip for seo small business is to figure out what you want to achieve. Small business websites can serve a number of purposes. The most obvious is probably as an ecommerce site. However, sites that provide information or access to a sign up page can also be valuable. A good example of an information page for a small business is for an electrician. The service cannot be sold online however; the contact details can be provided to the customer. A sign up site is a very valuable asset and can be integrated on both ecommerce and information site. A sign up page’s purpose is to create a mailing list of people who are already interested in your product or service. This means you can develop a more focused email marketing campaign, to accompany your seo for small business.

This affects tip two, which is selecting the right keywords. Seo small business varies in this respect from the campaigns for larger companies. This is because the use of long tail opportunities opens less competitive markets. Going back to the electrician example, the term “electrician” generated 823,000 searches on www.google.co.uk. However, if you lengthen the keyword it dramatically reduces the searches. For example “electrician uk” only produces 8100 searches and even more localised ie “electrician ulverston” produces even less competition. The less competition there is equals a more cost effective way to a page one ranking. However, if there isn’t any traffic in the first place, then no one will see your site. This is why the careful selection of keywords is of vital importance for seo small business campaigns.

The next tip is focused on content, specifically in relation to your keywords. Google assesses thousands of sites every day, including both new and old sites. Understandably, this requires a large amount of time and to optimise this process, google allocates sites a crawl depth allowance. A large crawl depth is best as it caches sites more quickly and thoroughly. To this end google like to see new and relevant content. For example, if our electrician has only one page which features a logo, a address and a telephone number, it is less likely to rank compared to a site with all the above detail but with a detailed description of the services offered.  In this description the keyword that is being optimised would have to be present as much as possible, without compromising the validity of the text. At heart google just wants to produce the most accurate search results for the user. So creating content that is illegible from “keyword stuffing” will ultimately not produce positive results for your seo small business campaign. The catch here is that good content takes time to write, time which many small business cannot afford. Many companies small and large say that they can produce their own content, focusing on the short term saving. However, they then generally fail to maintain the content creation rate, undermining the whole seo campaign. It is arguably a better long-term plan to invest in good quality content from a specialist provider from the onset. Good content is invaluable for achieving higher positions in search engines. Better positions in the search engines, unquestionably lead to increased sales. Therefore, the return of investment is higher for professionally written content.  The issue of content is no less important when considering Seo for small business.

The next step in seo small business is link building into your website. Google is looking for a positive role in the link building community. This means having links not just going in but also well placed outbound links. For example, if our electrician linked to the Electrical safety council (ESC) it would show that he is in the same community as the well-established and relevant site. This should not be overplayed, as linking to too many sites (however, well established) will lead to page rank being leaked from your site. Creating links to your site can be difficult for small businesses, as they don’t have access to a very large Internet community. Professional search marketing companies spend time developing contacts and as such have access to vast online communities from which to create links.

In conclusion, seo small business is as valuable as seo for large companies. Especially in the current economic climate, where people generally turn to the Internet to gather information on most purchases.

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Long tail solutions for small businesses.

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

For small businesses the benefits of optimising long tail key terms can be vast. Firstly, it helps to understand that the long tail of search gets its name from a graphical express of an area of search. At the start of the curve, there are fewer terms that produce higher traffic, but lower conversions. As the terms in a keyword group continue, this is where the tail comes in – there are hundreds of terms that get less traffic per term, but contain more targeted purchase-minded prospects.
So if the general short tail term is “football”, the long tail terms would be those that contain the word “football”. In general, the longer the phrase, the farther it is into the long tail, and the more likely it is to bring you buying traffic.
You see, the term “football” might have had 30,000 visitors per day searching for it, but it is inadvisable to optimise it. This is because it is too broad as a term; it will pick up competition from a wide range of sites including the multinational corporations. A long Tail could be “football equipment”, this would begin to limit the traffic to those interested in football products rather than the sport itself. However, this would still be a very competitive term and have many large businesses optimising for it. For a small sports outlet in Keswick, a good long tail term could be “football equipment Keswick” as this will be less competitive but is highly specific.
Terms such as this are less difficult to obtain, more likely to convert leads, and harder for your competition to discover. Although they are difficult to predict and target, they can exponentially increase your ROI if you find them.
Whereas a very competitive (short tail) term might generate 10,000 visitors with low conversion, a long tail term may generate only 2,000 visitors yet offer much higher conversion rates. People searching in the long tail know what they want and are much closer in their buying process. As a result, marketers are better off targeting these types of terms for keyword phrases. Long tail terms are fast becoming the preference for experienced search marketing professionals.
In short, Long tail is potentially the most cost effective route for creating conversion driven traffic onto a small business site. As opposed to spending more money on generating large amounts of traffic, that is more likely to result in a higher bounce rate for the site.
For an example of a page optimised with a long tail term for a small business visit Restaurant in ulverston. At the time of publishing this Search Trafficker was ranked number 6 on google.co.uk for the term Restaurant in ulverston. The business advertising is Naaz, a local Indian restaurant in the small town of Ulverston, Cumbria, which demonstrates the potential of long tail terms for small businesses. While the term may not have a massive traffic volume, it is more than likely to be what someone would type to find somewhere to eat in Ulverston.

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Articles of Interest

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Search engines are shown how to see by gamers.

Google Censors China’s search results.

Search Engines help out the housing market

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Local Search Marketing brings Customers to you

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

How often do you search for businesses within the nearest town or surrounding area?

The importance of locality still plays a huge part in people’s searching habits. Local search marketing is all about optimising your online visibility for a specific location. This location is usually where the business is based or where the target market is located.

Local search marketing is part of a wider blended search marketing strategy; however it does offer the unique opportunity to focus in on your surrounding community. Despite the rise of the global village and the increasing ability to source our products and services from anywhere in the world, many still look locally. This is why many small businesses are turning to local search marketing for their local advertising needs. Many people in the United Kingdom, and globally, own hand-held devices which can search the World Wide Web, and can therefore look for a local service wherever.

What do I Stand to Gain from Local Search Marketing?

•Increased visibility in the search engines

•Improved visitor numbers from targeted locations

•Raised local profile

•Promote brand identity

•Boost conversions!

Strangely, local search engine marketing still remains a much underused resource. With focus often placed elsewhere, perhaps Pay-Per-Click or standard search marketing; don’t let your site miss out on promoting your geographical identity online. Geographic and regional focus for search marketing is becoming essential for small businesses to be found on the web.

Local search marketing takes many guises. Fundamentally it can be as simple as including your service with a location within HTML and visible copy (for example: search marketing Ulverston). This will then show search engines exactly what you do and where you are. Listings in Google Maps and Yahoo Local will also help your local search marketing campaign.

Boost Your Local Search Rankings

Of course, to get to the top of the rankings and achieve the very best results, it takes a far more structured and intensive approach. At the Search Marketing Group we can help your campaign to target specific customers in the right locations so that your local advertising is as efficient as can be.

If local search is something that you’d like to know more about or are interested in, get in contact. We can offer impartial advice and help you find a search engine marketing package that will suit your needs.

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‘Keywords’ Important for Local Search Marketing

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Companies who use search marketing should choose their keywords carefully. This is the advice from a leading ethical search marketing firm, the Search Marketing Group. When the campaign is focused on local search terms, hence local search marketing; the company needs to be especially careful.

It is also important to index a website for local search engines. This could include optimising the website for local search phrases. This will increase traffic to the site through the search engines for that particular phrase, with a higher hit rate, as the traffic will be more specific for the search phrase. This is one method of local search marketing. Others include adding the site to mapping directories and business directories so it will appear in mapping search software such as Google Maps. This type of software is becoming more and more popular as the hand-held search market expands.

Industry experts know that the people who work for search engines are given advice on keywords and local search marketing. An example of this type of local advertising is optimising for ‘beef butchers’ versus optimising for ‘beef butchers Blackpool.’

Search algorithms are based on competitive chaos; we set a rule for one keyword and that rule changes based on the competiveness of that keyword. However, for most local search marketing phrases (ones which include the location of the business or the market) the phrases tend to be more long-tail focused. This means that they are less competitive and are less likely to have complicated rules attached to them. This is explained by a leading expert who said:

“That explains why long tail, less competitive keywords are easier to rank – less chaos,”

 Also, search engines are not translators so they should target their keywords for each market. Websites are categorised into sections and markets so they can be placed into the correct searches. The search engines will also search for websites who have deliberately targeted phrases not associated with the search phrase and rank them lower. This is what local search marketing techniques try to beat in order to get the site towards the top of the organic search results. Local search marketing tends to work better in comparison to standard search marketing, due to the long-tail aspect we discussed earlier.

Small to medium sized businesses need to implement a local search marketing aspect to their marketing strategies in order to maximise the potential from their firm. This is done in a variety of ways; one of these includes choosing the correct and relevant keywords to optimise.

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