Transcript Marketing Your Site

Marketing Your Site: Search
Engines, Links & PPC Ads
NMSU Extension Service
Enhancing Economic Prosperity In New Mexico’s
Frontier Communities Through E-Commerce
Mesalands Community College
Tucumcari, NM
9/8/05
Jan Zimmerman, Author
Marketing on the Internet 6th Ed., Maximum Press
Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing
4614 Sixth St. NW
Albuquerque, NM 87107
[email protected]
505-344-4230
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Search Engines vs. Directories
• SE Necessary But Not Sufficient
• Directories use categories
– Anywho.com AT&T White/Yellow Pages
– Superpages.com (GTE Yellow Pages)
– DMOZ.com (Open Directory Project)
InfoSpace Yellow Pages & Map
– MapQuest
• Search engines use content
– keywords or links
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Search Engine Market Share
June/July 2005
Google
47.0%
46.2%
Yahoo
22.3%
22.5%
MSN
12.5%
12.6%
AOL
5.5%
5.4%
– Google gets 80% of B2B searches
– Choose search engines by audience
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Search Engine Relationships
www.bruceclay.com
DMOZ
www.bruceclay.com
overture
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Get through the Search Engine Maze:
3 DIY Must-Have Sites
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google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
dmoz.org/add.html
others are “gravy”
don’t need 100,000
search engines
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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“Natural” Search Engine
Ranking
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Need first page of results to be noticed
Different search engines have different
rules
- Keywords & tags for Yahoo
- Even different keyword-based engines
weigh things differently
- Inbound links for Google
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Improve Ranking on Most Engines
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Select good search terms
– Wordtracker.com
– Overture.com
– Check competitor keywords (>view>source)
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Extra “points” for keywords in links,
navigation, headings, subheads
No tricks
– No hidden keywords or “magic” pixels
– Don’t overpopulate with high keyword density
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Keywords Tool: Free Trial or Paid
www.wordtracker.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Interpreting Word Tracker
Results
Keyword
old west vacations
large famil y vacation rentals
new mexico tourist attractions
affordable weekend getaway s
romantic
western vacations
new mexico santa fe cabins
ski new mexico
santa fe bed and breakfast
santa fe lodging
guest houses santa fe new mexico
historic new mexico
hotels santa fe new mexico
new mexico bed breakfast
historic vacations
southwest vacations
family friendly vacations
new mexico lodging
KEI
Analysis
Count
24
Hrs
Competing
..
442.531
15.538
12.800
119
43
24
34
12
7
32
119
45
12.770
104
30
847
11.772
9.000
7.122
5.192
4.942
4.000
3.661
3.281
3.059
2.822
2.046
1.659
1.500
195
3
239
53
65
2
62
44
55
39
158
36
120
56
1
68
15
19
1
18
13
16
11
45
10
34
3230
1
8020
541
855
0
1050
590
989
539
12200
781
9600
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
• Will YOUR
audience use this
term?
• Re-check by
typing word into
search engine to
make sure
businesses like
yours appear.
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Overture.com
http://inventory.overture.com/d/
searchinventory/suggestion/
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Basic Approach (except Google)
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View>Source on high-ranking competitors
Use metatags to improve ranking
Optimize pages
Submit individual pages when possible
Check position, tweak & re-submit if
needed
• No need for monthly re-submissions
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Meta-Tag Guidelines
• Items that appear in source code for search engines to
review. Use View > Source
• Keyword tag: maximum 30
• Optimize pages for 4-5 search terms each
• Title: 5-7 words including 2 search terms
– Put business name at end after a colon
• Page Description: max. 256 characters, with 4 terms
• <Alt> Tags appear when hover over photos; use same 4
search terms
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Good Metatags
www.lunarcow.com
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<title>Lunar Cow :: Results Driven Design in Web, Print and Multimedia.</title>
<meta name="Description" content="Professional Web Design, Web Design Company, Web Design
Services - LunarCow.com Lunar Cow Design improves business opportunities for clients by
developing powerful New Media communication tools. Lunar Cow offers services in Web, print and
motion graphics.">
<meta name="Keywords" content="Professional Web Design, Web Design Company, Web Design
Services - LunarCow.com,web design, web site design, web page design, web design company, flash
web design, web design services, web design and development, internet marketing, online marketing,
internet marketing service, internet marketing consultant, internet marketing solution, internet
marketing plan, internet market strategy, web design firm, web site design company, web page design
company, flash web site design, best web site design, best web design, design web site, design, web
page, web site design firm, online branding, internet branding, corporate branding, marketing, online,
brochure design, ecommerce development, e-commerce development, business to business ecommerce,
business to business e-commerce, motion graphics, internet extranet intranet, print design, technology
integration, ohio">
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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What Search Engines Don’t See
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Frames
Pictures
Flash
Splash pages
Dynamicallygenerated or some
active server pages
(.asp, .jsp)
• Database contents
whose URLs have a
? & or = (use
special database
search and
shopping search
engines)
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Make Your Site Search
Engine-Friendly
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Avoid “not-seen” errors on prior page
Put text above photos
Use linkable footers on every page
Site index
Outbound links page
If you have a database-driven site, ask
developers to feed Google an XML index
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Identify Specialty Search
Engines & Directories
• Meta-indexes (e.g. allsearchengines.com)
• Shopping search engines
– shopping.yahoo.com
– froogle.google.com
• Price comparison sites
– shopping.com
– buyersindex.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Arabian Horse Directory
www.arabianinsite.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Cowboy Search Engine
www.cowboy.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Google Ranking: Special Case
• Need inbound links from high Google-ranked
sites that share a keyword
• Google Page Rank >5 (toolbar.google.com)
• Alexa Traffic Rank (alexa.com)
• To view links (yours or competitors)
– On Google: link:www.website.com
– Linkpopularity.com or Linkstoyou.com
• Internal and outbound links also count
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Spider To Check Inbound Links
www.linkstoyou.com/checklinks.htm
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Inbound Linking
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Find Your Audience Online
Check Competitors’ Links
Check Google & Alexa rank
Remember directories, maps, yellow
pages
Send email request
Be selective about reciprocal links
Avoid
– Free-For-All Link Sites
– Link Exchange Services
– Web Rings or Alliances
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Other Ways to Increase
Google Rankings
• Inbound links from blogs
• Press releases online with links
• Links from .org and .edu sites
– Check all the organizations you belong to
– Check all trade shows or fairs where you
exhibit
– Check local, regional, state sites
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Other Online Advertising
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
– Some shopping sites, some directories and secondary
search engines, Yahoo Express
• Pay-Per-Action (PPA)
– Some commissions or affiliates in this category
• Sponsorships of others’ newsletters
• Banner Ads
– Click-through rates average <0.8% for banners
– Use for branding and exposure
– Banner Ad Exchanges - most 2:1; not well targeted
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Google AdWords PPC
adwords.google.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Overture PPC Program
www.overture.com
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Google Adwords Vs. Overture
• Feeds AOL, Netscape,
Lycos, others
• Content sites (AdSense)
• 5¢ minimum PPC
• Set daily ad limit
• Can track conversion rate
• Geographical and language
targeting
• CPM option by impression
• Graphic ad option
• Feeds Yahoo, Alta Vista, MSN
(temporarily), others
• Content sites (Content Match)
• 15¢ minimum PPC
• Set monthly ad limit
• Can track conversion rate
• Local, Yahoo shopping, travel
targeting
• Not as much budget control
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Writing A Good Google Ad
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Like writing a classified
First line 25 characters
Second line 35 characters
Third line 35 characters
Include search term in ad
The more specific the ad, the better
Select right landing page
Include benefit or call to action
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Bidding Strategies for PPC
• Google appearance based on
clickthroughs as well as bid price;
Overture based on bid price only
• 2nd-4th position may have better
conversion rates that 1st position
• Do not pay more per click (or
cost/conversion) than a sale is worth!
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Don’t Go Broke with PPC
• Conversion code allows you to see what
% of visits from an ad/search term
result in a sale or other call to action.
Can put on thank you page.
• Revise to reach a click-through rate of
at least 1% (5% or better preferred)
• Look for conversion rate of 2-4%
• Be “ruthless” about deleting terms and
ads that don’t work.
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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Exercises
• Go to Word Tracker or Overture to
select some good search terms for your
site
• Write several Google Ads using that
search term
© 2005 Watermelon Mountain Web
Marketing
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