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What Marketers Should Put on Their "Search" To-Do List in 2008
Direct Marketing News
It's no secret that media has splintered into multiple directions and it is getting more and more difficult for marketers to decide exactly how to spend their acquisition dollars. With the New Year upon us we thought it would be a good time to review some of the exciting new (and some not so new) options in search marketing.
Search isn't new. We know that. However there is a lot of misunderstanding about exactly what tools are available for marketers within the world of search engine marketing. Most marketers know paid search and are either running or planning pay per click (PPC) campaigns on Google, Yahoo and MSN. There's a whole lot more on offer than just PPC. Here's a sample:
Site and Placement Targeting on Google
Google has a massive network of web sites that have agreed to receive advertising delivered through the Google back-end. Most marketers who have used AdWords have either taken advantage of, or are aware of the content network to deliver AdSense ads. For the most part marketers are serving essentially the same text ads that appear on search engine results pages only through AdSense they appear beside articles or content which are considered contextually relevant.Site targeting takes that one step further by allowing marketers to select which sites they want to appear and provide banner or video ads in a variety of sizes. The selection process takes some time because you need to weed through a lot of sites. However, Google offers tools that help you find and target the best sites by dividing the sites in their network into categories and allowing you to search them by keywords related to your products and services. To make everything even more appealing, the entire process allows you to set a daily budget rather than committing to a major spend of 100K or a million impressions. Ads are delivered on a cost per impression so you can set your budget where you want - say $100 a day - measure the performance results of each web site, and then add or drop sites as required. In November of this year, Site Targeting morphed into Placement Targeting. That means that rather than just having the option to pay per impression, marketers can now opt to pay per click. This is a significant boon for marketers who use traditional direct response media because it allows a careful ROI measurement.
MSN AdCenter Targeting
Direct marketers understand the need to segment. Direct mail and email targeting always involve some additional targeting by whatever demographics a list offers. In the search world, MSN allows you to set up PPC campaigns and boost your visibility by gender and age. This is not a perfect science but no segmentation system gives you 100% accuracy. And, the segmentation seems to work. We see some very promising response rates on MSN campaigns.Optimizing Your Web Site
Search engine optimization (SEO) is still fairly new to most marketers. In a nutshell, SEO is the blending of content, architecture and public relations to make your web site as relevant as possible so that search engines such Google can understand them and list them on search engine results pages when people search for related and relevant terms. While not immediately thought of as an acquisition strategy, having a website that allows your most likely prospects to find you make even more sense as we see the overwhelming statistics of where people are gathering their information before making a buying decision.Search optimization can be a long process which makes many marketers put it off. However there are always some quick things that can be done that can help improve your rank. The first is having keyword research done. It makes absolute sense that the word or phrases that most people use to find whatever product or service you are offering actually exist on your web site. This allows search engines to "match" the searcher with you. The second is that you use those phrases in the right way and in the right places. Don't put off optimizing your web site if you are planning on a re-write of your site any longer than 6 months out. Get it done now, as much of the research that will be done for a new site will likely still be usable as your major themes will probably stay the same.
Local Search Optimization
Local search engine optimization refers to the process of optimizing your website's presence on local search engines such as Google Maps, Yahoo Local and MSN/Live Local as well as online yellow pages. This is getting more important as search engines incorporate their local search results into their regular search results for phrases that contain a geographical identifier.Take for example Google Maps, the most popular local search engine on the Internet. On this service visitors can type in an exact location or company name to find the information they want.
Research suggests that internet users are increasingly relying on search to find local service businesses. Shoppers and information seekers are turning to the web over traditional yellow page print and classified advertising.
It is estimated that 70% of internet users had used the web to search for a local business. With that in mind, local search offers a great opportunity for businesses to reach new customers over the internet. Local search has grown significantly over the last 2 years.
Local results on Google search pages and the increasing popularity of Google maps indicate that it will keep growing. Businesses that take advantage of this opportunity now will be much better off in the end.
You need to take special steps to get listed on local search engines. Your listing can include photos, links to your web site and regionalized copy.
Google Internal Search
It is vital that your web site have good internal search engine so that your prospects can navigate around them easily. A show of hands for everyone that thinks Google has the best search technology in the world. And yet, why do so many web sites invest scads of dollars buying internal search software to search their own site? Google allows you to take advantage of their search technology to provide your site visitors with the ability to search your site or whatever combination of sites you would like to include. For example, if you have several related sites such as large publishing groups or not-for-profit organizations with separate chapters or Event sites.Custom search engines let you customize the style of your search result pages. You can change the background color and the colors for all the text elements in your search results pages. Your search results can also show up on your very own website, keeping the look and feel of your custom search engine consistent with your website's look and feel.
And it has a feature called refinements. Refinements let you "tag" the websites or web pages in your search engine with labels that help users narrow down their search. The labels appear as links at the top of your search result pages. When a user clicks a label, sites that are tagged with this label are either given priority or shown exclusively in the results (you choose).
Perhaps the most important feature of Google Internal search is the price. It's free.
Google Website Optimizer
It's Google again. This time it's all about testing landing pages to measure response. Google has introduced a tool called Website Optimizer that allows marketers to set up A/B or multivariate testing on their landing pages. This is a great and easy tool to measure such variables as Headlines, Offer, Colour, Images and more. The reporting tools look at multiple combinations giving such data as variable combinations and the probabilities each combination has that it will beat your original (or control) web page. The metric is up to you - could be a sale, a form being filled in, or just traffic.Test, Test, Test
Marketers have no shortage of unique concepts to test in 2008. Search has proven to be both an effective and innovative platform for marketers who have the absolute need for measurable media. If you are not there already, then in 2008, you need to look at search as a much more serious line item on your acquisition budget.
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