Using Search Engines to Your Advantage – Part 2

It’s All About Quality

SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC – the list of acronyms is seemingly endless. An entire sub-industry has formed to serve businesses who want to use search engines to drive traffic to their websites with the hopes of increasing their profits.

Google is the undisputed king. Google currently commands about 80% of the market share because of one simple fact:

Google returns the highest quality websites back for any search conducted.

Google has a definite cult-like following much like Apple does, but loyalty formed after Google clearly outperformed its competitors for years on end. It is false to assume that people are loyal to a free service for any other reason. Regardless of what any Search Engine Marketing business tells you, Google’s business and the success they have achieved are due to their quality. Preserving the quality of their results is the cornerstone of their business. If your site does not meet their established criteria, you will not rank higher naturally than one that does – despite what any quick-talking salesperson tells you.

Any company that employs tricks to get your website to gain ranking is not looking out for your business’ best interests. By cheating the system, they are damaging Google’s business and it is only a matter of time before Google catches on. Remember, Google has infinitely more resources than you do and will continually refine their algorithm to account for sites using gimmicks to attain a higher ranking. Their business demands that they continually produce the best quality for every inquiry coming their way. Always keep that in mind. That’s what this all comes down to.

Natural Ranking Vs. Sponsored Ranking

There are 2 different ways your site can be ranked in any major search engine:

Naturally and Sponsored.

Natural ranking or Organic ranking is just like it sounds. Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, MSN, whoever, has listed your site based on its determination of your website’s quality. The more valuable your site is the closer to the top it will be. As discussed in Part 1 of this series, this is equivalent to the NY Times writing about your business on their own as opposed to paying to be included through advertisements. The power of ranking naturally is immense. Just as most people will visit a restaurant after reading a two page spread about it in a newspaper, the same is true online.

The investment in time and resources required to rank well naturally fluctuates depending on the competitiveness of your industry and more specifically on the keywords/phrases you want to rank for. The heavier the competition, the harder it is going to be to move above them. But the value derived from ranking in the top 5 for effective key terms is incredible and can continue to pay dividends even as your PPC advertising budget dries up. Imagine if the article written about your business in the NY Times lasted day after day, month after month. Imagine if it appeared every time someone searched for the type of food you served or the type of products you sell. This is what it means to rank well naturally.

I always explain to my clients the value of ranking well naturally because it is something I strongly believe in, however it is not always the most effective way to close sales. From a conversion or ROI standpoint, you want to aim for the most relevance to what a user is looking for. If a prospect searches for “Santa Monica Surf Lessons” and finds your website in the natural rankings, but then discovers that your business is located in Santa Cruz, that prospect is most likely going to start their search over. In other words, you may get substantial traffic, but if there is discrepancy between what a user is looking for and what you actually offer, your conversion rate is going to be low.

Either way, you’ve increased the awareness of your business and made an impression on that visitor, but you might not have sold anything.

The Importance of Sponsored Ads

While Google’s natural rankings are not specifically set-up to help you close a sale, their paid advertising campaigns are. A Pay Per Click or Cost Per Click campaign puts (almost all) of the controls in your hands, so that you can dictate the keyword phrases you want to target, the regions you want to cover, the time of day you want your campaign to run, the verbiage on your ad, the web-page a user will be taken to when they click on your ad, and to some extent, the placement of your ad.

Implementing a CPC campaign enables you to quickly launch yourself to the top of a search engine. This can be critical if you have a time-sensitive product or service. For example, if you have a product or discount you want to offer for the Christmas Holiday, time is of the essence and relevance is key. You can use a CPC campaign to begin ranking for key terms that match what your demographic is searching for (but your site is not ranking for naturally) and then send visitors to the web-page of your choice.

One of the advantages of a PPC campaign is that you can link your ad to the web-page of your choice, meaning you can send a user directly to the order page of the product they searched for rather than the page Google has deemed the best and most relevant. In addition, a PPC campaign offers you the flexibility to design highly relevant, effective pages that relate specifically to the term that brought the user there. These specialized pages are commonly referred to as Landing Pages and their sole purpose is to convert your traffic into paying customers. All of the images, verbiage, functionality, prices, etc. can be tailored to the exact product or service you are offering. You can implement a PPC campaign with corresponding landing pages at strategic times during the year, or you can run multiple campaigns simultaneously that appeal to different demographics. You can run different campaigns consecutively or only use them during down times in the year. The options are obviously numerous, which is why we recommend working with a professional to help you develop the right overall strategy, one that is tailored specifically to your business, budget and goals.

Pay Per Click AND Natural Ranking

More often than not, the answer for most businesses is to use both tactics in conjunction with one another. A PPC campaign can bring you instant, highly targeted traffic and will allow you to refine your ad in real time so you can maximize the results you are getting. Ranking naturally will bring you a constant stream of traffic that you do not need to subsidize by paying monthly for them and is a long term, but less specific solution. The right mix of both SEO and PPC will help generate sales. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses and subtleties.

We advise you work with an expert in the field of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). In a later article, we’ll outline how to find a good SEM company and what to be careful of, but in the meantime, please feel free to contact us with any questions or sends us the names of companies you have worked with in the past. We would love to make that information known to our readers.

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Quick Tips: Improving Conversion Rates – Tip 3

Marketing consistency.

The rate at which people find your site and take the leap of faith of contacting or buying from you is based highly on the trust they place in your company. Since you are not standing before them, pleading your case, the vibe your site gives off coupled with your marketing consistency is one of your biggest assets in building trust.

By marketing consistency I mean maintaining continuity between what you are advertising and the actual product or service you are selling. While misleading visitors with deceptive verbiage in an ad might cause a spike in traffic, it is ultimately ineffective because you have failed to deliver on the promises that initially piqued your visitor’s interest. Although they have come to your site, they are likely leaving with a negative impression and future sales could be jeopardized.

Choose the words in your ad carefully, being mindful of their context and implications and the impression the imagery your advertising creates. Every aspect of your ad should be in line with what you are actually selling. Apple’s stock fell 5% the other day because of a rumor claiming that their new laptops would be sold at $800, a lower price point than any of their other models thus far. When CEO Steve Jobs corrected the rumor at the unveiling of the laptops and announced that prices would start at almost $500 more, the reaction was less than enthusiastic. Even though Apple did not deceive anyone in any way, the situation reveals the importance consumers place on expectations, regardless of how they are created.

Advertising something remarkable and then being able to deliver it is a proven way to generate sales and increase the effectiveness of your site, build customer loyalty and create consumer-driven buzz.

For more on this subject, I recommend reading The Anonymous Ad Guy’s insightful article that covers this principle and many others in more detail.

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Effective Online Advertising Options Other Than Google

The shift away from traditional print advertising to the Internet has been decisive, rapid and with good reason. We recently spoke to our friend over at Anonymous Ad Guy, a top executive in the advertising industry regarding the change and he said, “Put yourself in the shoes of the typical Marketing Director who has to justify every dollar spent. With online [advertising], he or she can track the results of each placement, and optimize on the fly. You can’t do that with any other media. And with the economy tanking, it’s more important than ever to show you’re getting your money’s worth.”

Advantages to Advertising Online:

• The reach of an online advertisement is comparable to if not greater than a print ad. Journalism.org estimated that almost 70% of Americans were online in 2005

• Online advertisements can be targeted to users based on their age, gender, interests, political affiliation, geographic location, socioeconomic status, level of education and more.
• The recipients of online ads are often more qualified because they are being exposed to advertisements that are relevant to them. And ad relevance increases an ad’s effectiveness by maximizing conversion rates and advertiser’s ROI.
• Adjustments to online advertisements can usually be made in real-time, allowing advertisers to tweak their ad to further its effectiveness.
• Detailed reports about the type and frequency of interaction with an online ad and the profile of the people who engaged it are delivered to advertisers, often as it happens. This type of data is not typically available in a traditional ad campaign and therefore is often estimated.
• Advertising online is usually far less expensive. There are no raw materials being consumed and the space being used by the ad is virtual, reducing the cost to the advertiser.
• Advertisers can elect to pay for their ad only when it is seen and / or clicked on. They also have more control over the amount they are willing to pay per click and can end their campaign when their budget for that month has been spent.
• Advertisers have control over where consumers are directed after clicking on the ad, reducing the distance between the advertisement and the actual product or service being sold.

An Emerging Community

The abundance of people online and the seemingly impersonal nature of the Internet has created a social dynamic much like we are seeing in the “real world.” People are gravitating away from companies and towards other like-minded people to provide them with their news, entertainment and consumer advice in an effort to seek genuine value. This dynamic has contributed to the success of blogs, YouTube, and all of the social sites that let people network based on similarities and voice their unedited opinions to their network and / or the entire internet.

Social Networks

Yesterday, MySpace.com, the #1 social network with an estimated 180 million registered users launched a new platform that allows small businesses to easily advertise to the users on their site. The platform titled, MyAds, lets business owners create or upload their ads directly to MySpace and specify the age, gender and geographic location of the users their ad will be displayed to. Advertisers do not have to have a MySpace page, can have users directed to any location online after clicking the ad and can start a campaign with a minimum of $25. Like Google’s AdWords model, advertisers are unable to decide on the exact placement of their ad, but can increase their ad’s longevity by increasing the cost-per-click.

Facebook boasts over 100 million registered users of its own and also offers a similar tool to business owners that allows them to target ads based on political affiliation, interests and level of education in addition to the user’s age, location and gender.

Public Opinion Sites

CitySearch.com and Yelp.com command a strong following. Both sites have been embraced for their effectiveness in providing every day people with an outlet to rate and detail their experience with a business. People online are increasingly relying on the opinions of others to help them decide where to spend their money and are shying away from previously established authorities on such matters. The quality-rating of a company has been democratized.

Advertising on a search engine result page has been so successful for advertisers because users are actively seeking information about the same topic being advertised to them. In their search, they are more receptive to relevant ads because it is viewed as a source of information rather than an advertisement. Advertising on a public opinion site takes advantage of the open mindset of the user searching for information and then reinforces the ad with the public’s unbiased opinion (provided they are in agreement).

For an example of this, let’s look at CitySearch’s page for Fronteras Mexican Grill & Cantina in Alhambra, California. The restaurant is receiving 4 1/2 out of 5 stars from 8 users and directly below the rating is a high-quality video ad produced for the restaurant. The video is engaging, provides a quick idea of the feel of the restaurant and most importantly, the claims of quality are confirmed by people unaffiliated with the restaurant but have rated it favorably.

Both Yelp and CitySearch let you list your business for free and Yelp allows registered business owners to feature a review at the top of all the reviews, helping you create a positive impression of your company. Advertising options on Yelp include listing your business at the top of a search for similar businesses and appearing on competitor’s pages. CitySearch offers similar services as well as videos like the one on Fronteras’ page to give your audience a more dynamic idea of what your company is about.

Do you need Google’s AdWords?

Google’s AdWords advertising campaign is a viable solution for most businesses but understanding your demographic and their online tendencies will help you craft an effective, often multi-pronged approach to reach them. AdWords is extremely effective in terms of the immediacy and quality of its results and ROI, but Google’s pricing and targeting model has now been replicated by other companies. It is in your best interest to consult with your marketing expert to determine whether AdWords is the most effective solution for your business or whether it is better replaced or used in conjunction with a comparable one.

We are always interested in hearing what is working for you and welcome any questions you may have. Please reply to this article or contact us directly.

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