To learn more about search marketing, also see our What Is SEM / Search Engine Marketing? page.

Affiliates: Trusted Allies Or Conniving Cannibals?

Jun 12, 2009 at 1:46pm ET by Ross Barnes

It is not uncommon for businesses to find that the relationship they have with their affiliates is one of the most difficult to handle. On the one hand, affiliates can be valuable partners that provide leads and sales for your company. But on the other hand, they are independent entities which require compensation for their services and have their hearts equally divided between your best interest and their own. But if you stop and think about it, this is not an unusual situation: your business probably relies on a number of providers and suppliers with whom it has built a relationship of trust [...]

Fine Tuning Your Search Campaign To Today’s Economic Environment

Jun 1, 2009 at 3:18pm ET by Siddharth Shah

It is no surprise that the recession has affected online consumer spending habits. In lean times, people are more apt to curb spending and seek out the best bargains. From a search perspective, it is now more important than ever for marketers to adapt their campaigns to these changes in consumer behavior to better optimize performance. As consumers modify their spending patterns, their search behavior—the keywords and terms they use to locate products and services—also change. We recently culled over half a million search terms containing a certain modifier. For instance, queri [...]

Search + Display Advertising = Reduced Cost Per Acquisition

May 26, 2009 at 7:00am ET by Adam Goldberg

There have been numerous reports published over the years by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft that attempt to prove how the use of display advertising, when combined with search, can increase your overall campaign performance. A recent report published by iProspect, Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Integration Study was featured in an article for MediaPost titled Study Confirms Display Ads, Paid Search Work in Concert. Robert Murray, iProspect's CEO is quoted in the article, saying "Internet users are more likely to engage and/or eventually make a purchase from brands with which they a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | How To: SEM | Search Ads: General

How To Get Resources (And Buy-In) For In-House SEO Efforts

Apr 15, 2009 at 1:22pm ET by Duane Forrester

With most large organizations, a number of key stakeholders must offer their buy-in for an in-house SEO effort to be successful. With various groups all tasked with a variety of other objectives, how do you get everyone focused on the common goal of optimizing your organization's organic search efforts? Make a sandwich, of course. Think of this sandwich as having three layers (top, middle, lower). Each layer plays a pivotal role, so don't let folks get focused too much on which layer they belong to. A closer look at these layers will reveal the following: The top layer: executives [...]

Recovering From The Blue Screen Of Death As An SEO

Apr 9, 2009 at 8:00am ET by Aaron Wall

Last week I was jolted by booting up my computer only to see the blue screen of death. The computer was dead, dead, dead and I had to replace it with a new one, going through the painful process of restoring all of my software, tools and data. The old computer was using Windows XP, while the new one had Windows Vista, which made the transfer of data a bit less easy than I had hoped. I had most of my data backed up externally via Carbonite and via a 64GB Kingston flash drive. Unfortunately, my new hard drive was in a different format than the old one. It turns out the flash drive was able to [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | How To: SEM | How To: SEO | SEM Tools

A Google Alternative For Small Business: Breadcrumbs & Business Directories

Apr 9, 2009 at 7:00am ET by David Ingram

So, you’ve junked your day job and made the commitment to your shiny new startup business. You’ve created your website, and what’s the first thing you do now? Like just about every other startup business person you do the search on Google for your business name. At this point, two things might happen: You discover you "own" the first page of Google results and you feel satisfied that you’re now on the map, or Your business is nowhere to be seen, and you lapse into a state of abject depression OK, so it’s not quite as binary as that, but you get my point. What we’r [...]

Paid Search: Building Brand Loyalty Two Seconds At A Time

Apr 8, 2009 at 12:10pm ET by Brian Yamada

There's no question that the vast majority of brand loyalty is created post click—once consumers are brought to a landing page with relevant offers and other brand messaging. However, what happens in that 2-3 second window prior to the click? A lot more brand building than you think. First impressions count Search marketers spend countless hours figuring out how to connect consumers to a brand/product, and then articulate that in an ad that won't get more than a mere glance. But despite its short lifespan, an ad must be truthful, deliver value, and resonate with consumers.� [...]

The Armchair Sleuth: Competitive Intelligence Via Search

Mar 4, 2009 at 8:00am ET by Lori Weiman

Would you like to have a heads-up any time your competitors are about ready to launch a new product? In many cases you can get good advance warning with clever use of search. There are specific competitive intelligence tactics that make this relatively straightforward. But first, take a step back and think about the things that you do when you are readying for a brand new product or new ad campaign. I think it goes something like this: Step 1: Get in a meeting room and brainstorm names, slogans, and ideas. Step 2: Register the new brilliant name and new catchy slogan with the United St [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: Search Marketing | How To: SEM

Tips For Optimizing Your Local Business Listings, Courtesy of SMX West

Feb 26, 2009 at 5:00am ET by David Mihm

In last month's column, I highlighted the need for search marketers, search engines, and data providers to reach out to small business owners to increase their awareness of the free opportunities to claim their businesses online. Well, the two excellent Local Search panels at SMX West, put together by Search Engine Land's own Greg Sterling, did just that. It's just a shame there weren't more small business owners in attendance! So for SMB's reading this column, I thought I'd highlight a few key takeaways related to maximizing your presence via local business listings. In the first pane [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To: SEM | How To: SEO | Small Is Beautiful

Google Analytics On The iPhone: 3 Apps Reviewed

Feb 13, 2009 at 9:27am ET by Matt McGee

You're already using your smartphone to search and surf the web. You're using it to read and write email. You might be using it to tweet, post to your blog, or network on Facebook. If your smartphone is an iPhone, you can also use it to keep an eye on all the sites in your Google Analytics account. With the recent launch of Analytics App, there are now three primary apps that bring Google Analytics to the iPhone; myAnalytics and Analytics Pro are the others. Analytics Pro also has a "lite" version. But are they any good? After using each of them during the past week, I can answer that qu [...]

How To Track Keyword-Based Tweets Within Your Twitter Stream

Feb 11, 2009 at 10:56am ET by Danny Sullivan

With our SMX West search marketing conference happening this week, I wanted to keep track of the real-time buzz for SMX on Twitter. I knew how to do this manually by checking Twitter Search, but was there a way to have this flow into my regular Twitter stream, along with posts from people that I normally follow? Thanks to suggestions from people on Twitter, there was! Ideally, I wanted Twitter itself to let me create a "person" that was really a search term, so that I could follow that person and have the matching posts appear in my stream. I still think that's an important feature [...]

How Search-Like Are Social Media Sites?

Jan 27, 2009 at 2:16pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Like search? Who doesn't -- great traffic, huge brand value and an audience ready to convert. Like social media? What's not to like -- huge growth, tons of buzz and an entire new marketing frontier that is opening up. For the search marketer looking at social media, how does it measure up? Which social media sites are most "search like?" This article looks at the issue and tries to chart it all out for easy comparison. To answer, let's start with some definitions. The terms "social media" and "social media site" are often used to describe web sites and online services that can be radically [...]

A Small Business Year-End Marketing Checklist

Dec 18, 2008 at 11:00am ET by Matt McGee

2009 is almost here, and I hope small business owners have already been thinking long and hard about their plan of attack for the new year. Those who have are ahead of the game. If you haven't given the new year much thought, start now. Successful online marketing is about developing the right combination of strategies (thinking) and tactics (doing). In this column, I'm going to focus on a short list of the latter -- quick things you can do now to help set the stage for a successful 2009. Since the holidays are upon us, and you're probably busier than normal, I'll do my best to keep it shor [...]

Building Your Brand With Search: A Three Part Strategy

Dec 17, 2008 at 12:43pm ET by Christopher Wallace

If you're like most marketers, you spend a lot of time and resources creating and promoting your brand through offline channels such as television, radio, and newspapers. Clearly, it's something worth protecting. But what if you could improve your branding investment and make it even more worthwhile, reinforcing your offline branding efforts through search? Many search marketers doubt whether search can play a role in reinforcing brand perceptions. But evidence increasingly shows that the doubters are wrong: search can in fact play a powerful role in your overall branding efforts. Today, [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: Search Marketing | How To: SEM

Using Search to Analyze Brand Recognition Growth

Dec 3, 2008 at 3:44pm ET by Andrea Harris

What is your company's brand awareness? Measuring brand awareness is important for understanding the impact of offline and online marketing strategies. Because brand awareness is affected by so many different marketing strategies, quantifying brand awareness is not always straightforward. One way to gauge interest in your company's brand is to analyze keyword search patterns. Your analytics team may gain valuable insight by monitoring changes in search patterns for your company's brand. Relative keyword interest growth over time A tool like Google Insights for Search provides k [...]

Video Search Hacks For Checking Competitors

Sep 25, 2008 at 8:11am ET by Sherwood Stranieri

There are plenty of analytics tools available to help you measure traffic to your collection of videos. These range from the straightforward stats supplied by YouTube Insight to the complex dashboards available from TubeMogul. One area where we've not seen much progress is competitor analysis. In conventional search marketing, we have a variety of tools to help us assess the competition. Visibility in natural search results can be measured by that old standby, WebPosition. PPC activity can be mined using aggregators like LongTailAdwords. And for those with mega-budgets, Hitwise offers a bi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | How To: SEM | Video Search

Ten Copywriting Tips for B2B SEO

Sep 24, 2008 at 10:28am ET by Galen DeYoung

B2B copywriting is tough stuff. Instead of, "Wipes clean with a damp cloth," you may find yourself trying to simultaneously explain and extol the virtues of some complex mechanical system while being creative and persuasive at the same time. Copywriting for B2B SEO is even tougher. Here are ten tips to help you succeed. Watch the lingo Make sure to use generic terms on the page. In most cases, B2B searchers are more likely to use generic terms than brand names. Proprietary brand names tend to be unusual, so searchers Googling for one of your brand names will likely find your site quite [...]

How To Target Hispanic Searchers

Sep 22, 2008 at 9:56am ET by Jose Villa

As the U.S. Hispanic population continues to grow, advertisers naturally want to target this influential demographic. Search engine marketing allows advertisers to efficiently reach the Hispanic market through a number of Hispanic-focused strategies. Though it may sound obvious, the easiest way to target Hispanics is by using Spanish-language keywords (i.e., "salud" for "health" and "prestamo" for "mortgage"). For the most part, advertisers are not bidding as heavily on Spanish-language keywords, so in the bid-driven world of SEM, the cost of Spanish keywords are lower. As the Hispanic popu [...]

Marketing Video Via Paid Search

Sep 11, 2008 at 9:10am ET by Eric Papczun

In my past columns, I’ve written a lot about strategies to get search engine spiders to index and rank video in the natural results. Often, this takes some work and some waiting for the crawlers to get around to your site. But what if you have a video that’s in high demand that needs to get in front of searchers as quickly as possible? You may have noticed the McCain campaign bidding on the term "Joe Biden" in Google paid search. They have been doing this since Obama announced Biden as his running mate. McCain is using the spike in searches for "Joe Biden" as an opportunity to d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | How To: SEM | Video Search

Evaluating Google’s Response To Mapspam Reports

Sep 11, 2008 at 8:28am ET by David Mihm

Yesterday marked the two-month anniversary for the official "Report Spam on Google Maps" thread on the Google Maps Help Group. I thought it might be useful to review the instances of spam reported thus far, for insights into some of Google Maps' vulnerabilities and the implications for local business owners. A brief history of Google's mapspam reporting mechanism Google's spam reporting tool for web results has been around since November 2001 (according to Internet Archive). But unlike Google's webspam reporting tool, the mapspam thread is entirely public-at least for the time being [...]

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