Advanced Steps to Effective Search Marketing
Search marketing refers to the process of driving visitors to your website from search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. It encompasses both organic search marketing, which involves strategically using words and phrases your visitors will likely search for, and paid placement, which involves purchasing ads that appear along with organic search listings. Advanced strategies can help you maximize the effectiveness of your search marketing efforts and prevent you from wasting time and money spent putting your pages in front of people who will not likely purchase your products or services.
Other People Are Reading
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Direct Paid Placement Ads to Subpages
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Search engines typically charge for each visitor who clicks on a paid placement ad to visit your website. If your website's home page contains introductory or general information, the visitor may not have the knowledge or interest in taking the next step -- ordering your products or services. Increase the efficiency of your paid placement ads by directing visitors to a subpage that contains the specific information your visitors need to complete a purchase. Target specific ads to specific subpages. For example, if your website offers both laptop power adapters and external modems, craft a paid placement ad for each, and direct each ad to the appropriate product.
Write Content for Human Readers
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Website owners commonly fill pages with keywords, or search phrases, visitors will likely use when conducting an online search. Although keywords are important for gaining organic search engine visibility and high rankings, relying heavily on keywords in your pages can make your content seem robotic and difficult to read. Repeating a keyword several times on a page does not necessarily translate to higher organic search engine rankings; however, it may frustrate your visitors and cause them to quickly leave your site. Write for human readers, using a particular keyword no more than once per 100 words of text, and focusing on no more than two keywords per page.
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Split-Test Paid Placement Ads
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The specific words used in paid placement ads can dramatically affect how many people click on the ad and how many people a page converts into paying customers. Writing and launching a single ad can deprive your online business of conversions, which translates to lower profits. Write multiple paid placement ads for a target page, and keep track of the click-through rates and conversion rates for each ad. Over time, you may discontinue underperforming ads and redirect your marketing budget to higher performing ads.
Split-Test Target Pages
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Just as split-testing is important for paid placement ad copy, it is essential for target pages. The content, design, color and fonts used in your target pages can all dramatically affect conversions. Create multiple target pages on your website, and use identical ad copy to direct to each of the pages. It is important not to split-test ads and target pages concurrently -- this makes it difficult to attribute conversion changes to either landing page or ad variables.
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