B2B buying is not a rational process. That straightforward yet profound conclusion makes reading The BuyerSphere Project by Search Engine Land Just Behave columnist Gord Hotchkiss worthwhile. Other findings from the research multiply the return on time invested.

The BuyerShere Project concludes that B2B buying is a decision process driven by the emotions of the people involved. Fear is the principal emotion in play. B2B buyers are motivated principally to limit their personal risk—to keep their jobs or stature in the company by avoiding mistakes. Risk to their company’s well-being is also a factor, but a secondary consideration to their own reputation.

The “marketing funnel” is a flawed analogy that presumes B2B buying is emotion-free, BuyerShere concludes. The process is much more complex, involving both “doers” and “buyers” within the company, and the unique needs of each for information and emotional reassurance. “Doers” are frequently the individuals that initiate the purchase of a B2B product or service, but the responsibility for mitigating corporate risk is typically handed off to a “buyer” at some point. That handoff is the point at which many B2B sales efforts are derailed.

“Doers” and “buyers” need information in the B2B buying process, and that need can be satisfied online. B2B website design should consider the information needs of the “personas” who use the site and create unambiguous navigation paths leading to the information they seek.

In-person meetings are critical to fulfilling the emotional needs of prospects. Building trust through in-person meetings with both “doers” and “buyers” is necessary in the complex B2B sale.

Other conclusions from The BuyerSphere Project:

• E-mail is the favored communication channel for B2B buyers, yet inquires are frequently handled poorly and responses are inaccurate.
• Clear product and pricing information is the most useful website content for prospective B2B buyers.
• Sellers of B2B products and services should initiate contact with prospects before they are actively looking to buy. Doing so allows the seller to help define the requirements of the solution and procurement process, and establishes the seller as a trusted advisor to the prospect.
• Low risk and high risk purchases have different friction points for B2B vendors to overcome.
• Reducing friction is paramount in low-risk transactions (like ordering office supplies) and can be accomplished by making product and pricing information easy to find and ordering simple.
• High-risk, high-consideration purchases demand comprehensive online information about the product and company selling it, satisfying the information needs of doers and buyers, respectively. In-person meetings are frequently necessary to satisfy the emotional needs of both doers and buyers.

The conclusions of the BuyerSphere Project are richly supported by multiple sources from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including research on information foraging, brain function and technology adoption, as well as the groundbreaking eye tracking research performed by the author’s firm, Enquiro.

For all of the insight it provides, Hotchkiss concedes that The BuyerSphere is just the beginning of research into the complex topic of B2B buying.

The book attempts to cover the continuum of mundane repeat purchases of office supplies from a known entity in the B2B environment all the way to the adoption of a new technology from an unknown supplier. This proves an ambitious task and is fertile ground for future writings.

The book’s exploration of the impact of “digital natives” (those born after 1980) on the B2B buying process is another area for future exploration. Beyond saying these individuals will behave differently than prior generations, there’s little insight about how they will change the dynamics of B2B buying.

Many books have been written on mastering the art of the complex sale. Most were based on the experience of the author as a sales manager or consultant. The BuyerSphere Project is a valuable extension to that field of knowledge and a worthwhile read for anyone involved in B2B sales.

The BuyerSphere Project
by Gord Hotchkiss
ISBN-10: 1439261679
PDF: Free
Print: BookSurge Publishing, $39.99

A roundup of 2009’s best search advertising books

Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (2nd edition)
by Kevin Lee, with Catherine Seda
New Riders, $34.99
ISBN-10: 0-321-49599-3

This was one of the first books about search advertising ever published, making its debut way back in 2004. The first edition was entirely the brainchild of Cat Seda, one of the most experienced search marketing veterans around (here’s my review of the first edition). The recently published second edition is a complete remake and update, primarily the work of Kevin Lee, “with the guidance and blessing of Cat Seda” according to the book’s companion web site.

It’s an excellent overview and introduction to search advertising with the three major players: Google, Microsoft and Yahoo (still relevant until and when Microsoft takes over the search ad function for Yahoo). There’s also a chapter on additional traffic sources, but for most search marketers, a focus on the big three is usually sufficient.

The book is structured to provide a step-by-step approach to getting started with search advertising. The second edition offers a lot of new information not found in the first due to the rapid evolution of search advertising over the past five years. You’ll find excellent discussions of issues like campaign management, how to effectively use technology to support your campaigns, the advantages of working with agencies vs. doing the work in-house and more.

Throughout the book, there’s always a sharp focus on competition. It’s simply not possible to ignore your competitors in a paid search campaign, though many new advertisers scarcely give this a thought—until they are blindsided by competitors who know exactly what they’re doing.

Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (2nd edition) is a worthwhile read for just about anyone interested in search advertising, whether you’re just getting started with a pay-per-click campaign, or a seasoned advertiser looking for some fresh tactical thinking on the subject.

The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising
by Kevin Lee
FT Press, $18.99
ISBN-10: 0-7897-3832-5

The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising is another in the Financial Times series of “truth about” books. Like Rebecca Lieb’s The Truth About Search Engine Optimization that I reviewed in my Roundup Of 2009’s Best SEO Books, Kevin Lee has structured this book around the idea of 55 “truths” about paid search advertising.

In this case, though, the structure is a bit forced, because in reality you’ll find hundreds of valuable truths in the book. Lee has been writing about paid search virtually since it was invented more than a decade ago, and has also led the way in developing strategies and tactics to maximize returns for his clients. And he shares many of the insights he’s gained from years of experience designing and running search advertising campaigns. The book is packed with useful, practical nuggets of information—including many advanced approaches to different parts of paid search campaigns.

This makes the book more appropriate for search marketers who’ve run their own campaigns and can realize the full benefit of Lee’s observations. Lee’s style is accessible and conversational, but if you’re looking for an introduction to search advertising, Search Engine Advertising (reviewed above) is probably a better choice.

The Clickable Guru’s Guide To Better Search Engine Marketing
by Andrew Bernero, Ehren Reilly, Hanny Hindi, Tony Soric and Trace Johnson
Lulu.com On Demand, $10.98
ISBN-10: 0-557-08040-3

Most search marketing agencies, tool vendors and service providers have blogs that they use as marketing vehicles. The best of these go far beyond simple pitches for products or services—they seek to educate and engage the search marketing community. Clickable is a company that offers a suite of search marketing tools, and its blog is maintained by a group of employees called the Clickable gurus, who’ve assembled a collection of “best of” posts into a short book.

It’s extremely rare for me to review something like this, which is fundamentally a marketing tool. I’m making an exception because this book virtually never mentions Clickable or its tool suite. Rather, it’s a collection of expert tips that are platform-neutral and can be put to work by any search advertiser. In many cases, these tips are responses to pain-points expressed in the Clickable gurus forums, helping resolve tricky or difficult paid search issues.

You don’t need to buy the physical on-demand book—The Clickable Guru’s Guide To Better Search Engine Marketing is also available as a free 167 page PDF (this is a direct download link—no need to register for access).

Advertising 2.0 – Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
by Tracy L. Tuten
Praeger Publishers, $24.95
ISBN-10: 0-313-35296-8

Social media marketing has become one of the key avenues that search marketers use to extend and complement their organic or paid search campaigns. Even though social media isn’t “pure” search, it belongs in any discussion of online marketing.

Advertising 2.0 – Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World looks at social media in a much broader sense than most search marketers typically consider. In addition to familiar names like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, Tuten includes a wide array of other online social gathering spots. You’ll find chapters on engaging with customers in virtual worlds, games, on opinion and social fiction sites and others.

Tuten is associate professor of marketing at Longwood University, and while this book is strongly supported by research, it’s also loaded with practical tips about how to market effectively using social media. There are a lot of really useful insights into the psychology of people who engage with social media, examining their needs and motivations, and what it takes for marketers to successfully connect with these people without alienating them.

This is a great overview of social media marketing if you’re new to the field. It’s also thought-provoking and informative if you’re an experienced social media denizen.

Honest Seduction
by Scott Brinker, Anna Talerico and Justin Talerico
BookSurge Publishing, $17.99
ISBN-10: 1-4392-2185-5

Honest Seduction is an extended compilation of blog posts and articles from the folks at i-on interactive. The focus here is on what happens after people click on a search ad. Research from Enquiro and others has shown that searchers literally decide in seconds after reaching a landing page whether to continue reading (and eventually, converting) or to click back to search results and look for something else.

This makes the design of landing pages absolutely crucial to paid search success. Yet many advertisers do little or no testing to determine whether their campaigns are as effective and compelling as they can be.

Other books, such as Tim Ash’s excellent Landing Page Optimization, focus largely on the mechanics of designing tests, running and interpreting the results. Honest Seduction takes a different approach that’s simultaneously intriguing and a tad aggravating: As collection of blog posts it pulls together some really intriguing thinking about what’s going on post-click in the mind of the searcher. But it also lacks the coherent structure of a more formal book (even though the posts are loosely organized into “chapters”).

Nonetheless, it’s still a provocative look at how to maximize the effectiveness of any search advertising campaign, and well worth the time spent reading.

For more search marketing book reviews, see A Roundup Of 2009’s Best SEO Books.

FTC 16 CFR Part 255 Disclosure: The publishers of most of the books reviewed here provided Search Engine Land with complimentary review copies, but had no editorial influence and did not provide any compensation to be included in this roundup.

This year we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of search marketing books being issued in dead-tree format. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I’ll be doing a roundup of the best that I’ve seen.

• A Roundup Of 2009’s Best SEO Books (this article)
• A Roundup Of 2009’s Best Search Advertising Books

A roundup of 2009’s best SEO books

The Art of SEO
by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin & Jessie Stricchiola
O’Reilly Media, $44.99
ISBN-10: 0596518862

If you could assemble a dream team of highly respected SEOs, with years of collective experience practicing the art of SEO and constantly pushing the envelope to develop new strategies and tactics to gain competitive advantage—the four authors of this book would be at the top of any list of candidates.

The Art of SEO is a deep dive into virtually all aspects of search engine optimization, from basic blocking and tackling to highly complex techniques that address thorny challenges for website owners. The authors are all not only skilled practitioners of what they rightly describe as an “art,” but are also adept communicators who can explain sometimes arcane topics clearly and with insightful examples drawn from experience.

All four authors are longtime speaking veterans at Search Marketing Expo and two are columnists for Search Engine Land—Eric Enge for Industrial Strength and Stephan Spencer for 100% Organic.

Of all the books on SEO I’ve seen this year, this one is most likely to wear out from frequent use as you return to it again and again for practical advice.

When Search Meets Web Usability
by Shari Thurow & Nick Musica
New Riders, $29.99
ISBN-10: 0-321-60589-6

“Usability” is one of those words that many SEOs have heard, but don’t really use as part of their working vocabulary. And that’s a shame, because website usability is an increasingly important factor in how search engines determine relevance, and thus, rankings.

Unlike other books on SEO, When Search Meets Web Usability doesn’t focus on page or site-level optimization tactics and techniques. Instead, the focus is squarely on the user—specifically, on searcher needs and behavior, and how you can design your website to satisfy those needs and accommodate the behavior in a way that leads to fulfillment of your ultimate goal: conversion.

The authors offer some great insights into searcher behavior and how good usability makes sites more search engine friendly. There are some excellent checklists and questions to ask yourself that go a long way toward improving both the user and search engine experience of virtually any website.

And if you (or your boss/client) is skeptical that paying attention to search usability can really have an impact on the bottom line, there are some great worksheets and examples that clearly map out costs and returns of both neglecting and including usability as part of your SEO efforts—without taking anything away from the rest of the book, these alone are worth more than the price of the book.

SEO Warrior
by John I. Jerkovic
O’Reilly Media, $44.99
ISBN-10: 059615707X

Like The Art of SEO, SEO Warrior serves as a comprehensive overview of current SEO best practices, and offers some good insights into some of the tools available to make life easier for the practitioner.

SEO Warrior would be a good choice if you want to get up to speed quickly on current search engine optimization techniques. Although John Jerkovic writes in the preface that he wrote the book with a diverse audience in mind, the book is really most appropriate for practitioners who have to get their fingers dirty with the daily routines of SEO rather than managers or executives.

Jerkovic comes from a programming and computer networking background, and there are numerous examples throughout the book that make liberal use of code. This is great if you’re programming-literate (especially since in most cases you’re free to use the code in your own SEO efforts). But it can be a bit intimidating for readers who aren’t familiar with JavaScript, PHP or PERL.

The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
by Rebecca Lieb
FT Press, $18.99
ISBN-10: 0-7897-3831-7

Anyone who attends search marketing conferences knows that some of the best learning and insights into what’s currently happening with SEO takes place outside of the session rooms, in informal conversations in hallways, restaurants and bars.

Reading The Truth About Search Engine Optimization is similar in many ways to hanging out with the pros and networking at conferences. The book is organized as 51 “truths” about search engine optimization, each a nugget of wisdom gleaned from Lieb’s many years experience of working with writers and subject experts as Executive Editor of online marketing publication ClickZ.

Lieb’s style is conversational and breezy, and while she offers tons of tactical and how-to advice, she also deals with business and marketing issues that are sometimes overlooked in other SEO books. As such, this makes The Truth About Search Engine Optimization probably the best book in this batch to give to C-level executives or other business-types who are less concerned with nuts-and-bolts and more concerned with how SEO efforts impact the bottom line.

Search User Interfaces
by Marti Hearst
Cambridge University Press, $50.00
ISBN-10: 0521113792

With our focus on search marketing at Search Engine Land, it’s unusual for me to review an academic textbook, but Search User Interfaces is an unusual book—and I mean that as high praise.

Author Marti Hearst is a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. A primary focus of Dr. Hearst’s research is user interfaces for search, and she’s invented or participated in the development of many of the search interfaces that are now standard on the web.

For search marketers, the book offers some great insights into how people interact with search engines—what they look for, things they like and dislike, and how the overall search experience can be improved—all things that we can learn from to improve our own campaigns. Apart from being a fascinating history of the development of search interfaces, the book also discusses research that points to new developments we can expect in search interfaces in the coming years that will undoubtedly have an impact on how we practice our craft as search marketers.

What’s unusual about the book? For starters, the entire book is available free online. You can also watch videos from Dr. Hearst’s U.C. Berkeley course, Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business. Speakers include a veritable whos-who of luminaries in interface design, including Dr. Jan Pedersen, Yahoo Search, Manager of Search Relevance (also a chief architect of AltaVista), Dr. Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Search Quality, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Dr. Sue Dumais from Microsoft Research and many more.

In all, a wealth of information to satisfy the inner search geek in all of us.

Next: A Roundup Of 2009’s Best Search Advertising Books

FTC 16 CFR Part 255 Disclosure: The publishers of most of the books reviewed here provided Search Engine Land with complimentary review copies, but had no editorial influence and did not provide any compensation to be included in this roundup.

The Marketing Sherpa 2009-10 Search Marketing Benchmark Report is 213 pages, and is divided into five major sections, including:

The business of search. There’s been a lot of talk about how search marketing budgets have been affected by the tumultuous economy, and this section of the report offers some interesting data on what’s really going on out there. Contrary to other areas of advertising and marketing that have seen budgets slashed, search marketing continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace. This section has great stats about how budgets have changed, how resources are being allocated, and for the first time, salary stats for various job categories in the industry compared with other traditional marketing positions.

Search benchmark data. This section offers invaluable competitive intelligence data, collected by surveying search marketers, agencies and advertisers. The stats here cover a wide range of cost-per-click data, clickthrough rates, an abundance of info on the types, quantities and prices of keywords used by both B2B and B2C marketers, volume and conversion rates, and a new section on searcher behavior.

Measurement and testing. Over the past few years, analytics has grown from something a few geeky search marketers played around with to a core pillar of most search marketing campaigns. This section looks at both the key metrics used by most marketers, as well as the most underused metrics that could, but largely aren’t, being exploited. Testing, ROI tracking and attribution modeling also get good coverage.

Tactical issues in search. This section offers a potpourri of data culled from search marketers, offering insights into everything from targeting tactics, key SEO factors, clickfraud rates and insights into dozens of other issues that search marketers grapple with on a daily basis.

Search engine usage. This section offers good stats covering market share, searcher preference and other data covering the top general and vertical search players. There’s also good info on secondary players as well as the international search engines, with an emphasis on the rapidly maturing Asian market.

Throughout, the emphasis is on data collected both by Marketing Sherpa and about a dozen or so partners who analyze the search marketing industry. For each topic, there’s both a chart or graph and written interpretation of the data. Most of the time this interpretation is helpful, but I found myself wishing for more detailed analysis for some topics. A few times, an analysis seemed superficial, as if the writers were rushing through a topic or didn’t understand it well enough to offer meaningful insight.

Most of the information in the report is useful and compelling, though occasionally the data gets too granular and seems more like fluff thrown in apparently to fill out the page count (e.g. detailed distributions of salary ranges for all job titles). Another drawback is that the graphics are occasionally difficult to interpret, with busy or confusing charts. I found myself wishing that Marketing Sherpa’s graphic designer would follow the guidelines laid out in Edward Tufte’s classic The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

However, given the sheer scope and quality of the information presented in the report, these are comparatively minor quibbles.

While the insights in the report are valuable for anyone seeking a competitive edge in search marketing, the Marketing Sherpa 2009-10 Search Marketing Benchmark Report is probably most useful for anyone needing objective data to make a case for budgets or tactics in an SEM campaign. Many of the difficult questions asked by clients or internal executives have answers in the pages of the report, and even better, are backed by solid data.

Marketing Sherpa 2009-10 Search Marketing Benchmark Report
Sixth edition ISBN: 978-1-932353-96-9
Marketing Sherpa LLC, $447 (PDF Only: $397)

Conversion can mean many things, depending on the purpose of your web site. Conversion can mean getting people to buy, getting leads to provide contact information, recruiting subscribers for an email list—even getting site visitors to spend more time on your site and view or click on more ads. Ultimately, all commercial web sites should be about getting your visitors to convert—otherwise, what’s the point?

Unfortunately, many web sites fail to maximize their conversion potential. This failure is typically caused by many factors: search-hostile design, poor user interface, conflicting needs of key stakeholders within an organization—the list is virtually endless. But other failures are mistakes of omission rather than commission—the site simply lacks key elements that could ease and facilitate the path to ultimate conversion.

Web Design For ROI uses conversion as its focal point, while looking at both the big picture as well as the details of compelling web design. Big picture chapters include “Web design for ROI: A novel concept,” “Business case,” and “Managing for ROI.” Each of these chapters is loaded with useful information that can help marketers lobby for budget and resources, speaking the language of managers and bean-counters who may not care about the nitty-gritty details of search marketing.

The remaining chapters take a close look on key aspects of web design, again, each focused on how to improve that all-important metric, conversion rate. You’ll find great tips on creating compelling landing page, home pages, category and detail pages, forms and checkout processes. Most of these aren’t directly related to pure search marketing tasks, but all play a critical role in making sure that your search marketing efforts ultimately pay off.

It’s a gorgeous book, replete with full-color screenshots with callouts that illustrate key points. And the writing is pithy and crisp, authoritative but friendly in tone. It reminds me a lot of Strunk’s classic The Elements of Style, a book I turned to constantly when I was learning (really learning) to write.

Web Design For ROI should be essential reading for anyone just starting out at search marketing. But it’s also a book that’s valuable even to experienced web developers and search marketers, as it consistently highlights both best practices and mistakes made by even well-intentioned sites. If you’re looking for ways to improve your web site, this is a book, like The Elements of Style, that you should be referring to again and again.

Web Design For ROI
by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus
ISBN-10: 0321489829
$39.99

And that’s a mistake. Good testing can not only help you get rid of stinker ads and landing pages, it can also help you optimize winning campaigns, improving their conversion rates and making them even more profitable. And testing needn’t be difficult or time-consuming, especially if you have the right tools. One of the best tools for helping you test and refine your search marketing campaigns is Google’s Website Optimizer. Even better, Website Optimizer is a free service.

Google deliberately designed Website Optimizer to be easy to use, even though the tool allows you to run complex, multivariate tests. At its most basic level, the tool lets you test different pages or combinations of elements on a single page to see how well they perform against a “conversion outcome” that you define. Google even claims that “you can launch a simple test in five minutes” in the video tour of Website Optimizer.

The problem is that to be effective, tests should be carefully planned to measure your desired outcomes. Another problem is that the results of your testing need to be interpreted properly so that you can be sure that any implementation based on the results will perform as expected. Testing is as much art as science, and it shouldn’t be done in an offhand or cavalier fashion.

Not sure where or how to start? Try Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer, by Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-vonTivadar with Lisa T. Davis. It’s a comprehensive guide to Google’s free testing tool, written for search marketers who are more interested in enhancing the performance of their search marketing campaign than in the analytic joys of multivariate testing. The authors don’t shy away from technical explanations when necessary, but the focus is always on the “whys” of testing even when looking closely at the “hows.”

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a general overview of website testing and tuning using Google’s Website Optimizer. The first few chapters focus on the tool itself, but after that the focus changes to case studies drawn from the authors’ own search marketing campaigns. These are valuable not only as examples of how to test, but because the authors also share the processes and best practices they have developed to maximize the impact of the testing process.

Part two “What You Should Test” looks at more than 30 key factors that can impact conversion rates. These factors differ based on how conversion is defined, which also differs for publishers, retailers and lead generation web sites. Most of the chapters in this part follow a similar format, with sections on “questions to ask,” an exercise, “what to test” and “apply this to your site” tips. This is one of the best—and most thorough—guides to the overall website testing and optimization process I’ve read.

Part three, “Diving Deep For the Technically Challenged” goes into even more detail about the testing process, how things work, behind the scenes details of how Website Optimizer works and more. Meaty stuff for the more advanced search marketer who wants to know everything to gain a competitive edge.

The nice thing about Google’s Website Optimizer, apart from being free, is that it can be used to test campaigns running on Google or any other search engine. And the general practices discussed in the book can be applied to any testing tool, not just Website Optimizer.

Always Be Testing is an excellent book that tackles one of the most important aspects of successful search marketing. If you aren’t currently testing and want to know how to start, buy the book. Even if you are already testing and tuning your sites as part of your search marketing efforts, the case studies and best practices discussed in this book make it worth far more than the cover price when you apply the principles to your own campaigns.

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
by Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-vonTivadar with Lisa T. Davis
ISBN-13: 978-0470290637
Sybex, $29.99

This is the fifth annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide that Marketing Sherpa has produced, but its unlike any of the others I’ve seen. It’s far more comprehensive and detailed, pulling together stats compiled by Marketing Sherpa as well as “best of” research from more than 50 respected research partners. The result is nearly 300 pages of no-fluff data, with 215 charts, tables and eyetracking heatmaps covering just about all aspects of search marketing.

The Guide has five major coverage areas:

Budgeting and search. Want to know which industries are the biggest spenders on search, or how marketers plan to allocate budgets for search vs. other types of marketing next year? Or how budgets will be allocated across different categories, such as B2B, local or mobile search? How about salary information, or percent of spend on SEO vs. PPC? It’s all here. If you face challenges justifying budgets to management or fees to your clients, the information in this section provides reliable benchmarks that you can use to bolster your case.

Tactics of search. Search marketing is becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, with new tactics emerging all the time as marketers compete for searcher attention. This section offers a good overview of current cutting-edge tactics, including targeting by demographics or geography, the effectiveness of local and mobile search and others. There’s also a detailed look at the branding effects of search advertising that offers some of the best evidence I’ve seen yet that search ads can offer a brand lift—at least for certain types of businesses or products, and when it’s done properly.

Search providers explored. Stats, stats and more stats—not just about Google’s dominance, but how the other smaller players compare, and why it’s a good idea to consider targeting traffic via those other sources. This section also has useful stats on shopping comparison engines, and international search engines for search marketers looking to broaden their campaigns on a global basis.

Measuring and testing. I’m constantly surprised by the number of search marketers that don’t fully take advantage of the wealth of information that can be gleaned from their campaigns. Sure, most people look at rudimentary metrics and may tweak their campaigns slightly based on a quick scan of the data, but the most successful search marketers thoroughly analyze, test and test again, across a broad spectrum of metrics. This section looks at how analytics can be effectively applied to different aspects of a campaign, from keyword research all the way through measuring conversion rates over time.

Search benchmarks. As the Guide describes it: “All of the fundamental metrics of search marketing, fully updated and in one place, including costs per click, keyword prices, volume and conversion rates.” Enough said.

With a price of $397, the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide isn’t something you will pick up and take to the beach for some light reading. But if you’re wanting a comprehensive, authoritative overview of just about all aspects of the search marketing industry, you won’t find a better all-in-one source than this Guide.

Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide
Fifth edition ISBN: 9781932353839
Marketing Sherpa LLC, $397

The hefty 626 page book is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of search marketing, from basics like search engine friendly site design and keyword research to more sophisticated topics such as optimizing paid search campaigns and creating viral social media campaigns. Given the authors’ experience, this is all solid stuff, representing best practices that can benefit just about any search marketer, from beginner to expert.

Even better, though, Moran and Hunt illuminate their concrete tactical information with nuggets of insight and wisdom gained from years of working with large, complex campaigns where playing politics and getting groups of stakeholders with sometimes conflicting needs are just as important as getting the technical details right. Want to know how to get top management to buy in to your campaign goals? Want to know how to get teams with seemingly conflicting goals to play nice together? These and many other “soft skill” challenges are thoroughly addressed in the book.

One problem with any printed book that focuses on such a rapidly changing topic as search marketing is that content can become obsolete, or even recommend strategies and tactics that may have worked some time ago, but that are currently frowned upon. Search Engine Marketing, Inc. largely sidesteps these problems by focusing on foundational information rather than tactics du jour. If you purchase the book, you also get access to a free online version from Safari books.

Another bonus: A two hour DVD where Hunt and Moran explain and demonstrate many of the concepts in the book, and also show online resources that are valuable to any search marketer.

Search Engine Marketing, Inc. is probably the closest thing to a definitive textbook for anyone wanting to learn search marketing. But it’s also so full of practical tips learned from years of experience that it’s a great read for experienced search marketers, as well.

Search Engine Marketing, Inc.
Second Edition: ISBN-13: 978-0-13-606868-6
IBM Press, $49.99

In today’s debut post, I review the newly updated second edition of a book that can justifiably claim the title of the “bible” of search marketing: Search Engine Marketing, Inc. by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt. Read on in The “Bible” Of Search Engine Marketing.