About the Author
Sherry directs the agency’s search marketing department, including both search engine optimization and pay-per-click. Sherry has more than 10 years experience in interactive marketing for both BtoB and BtoC clients.
Using Search Marketing to Crush Your Competitors: A Simple Plan
It is common knowledge that launching a website without a corresponding marketing strategy will not generate traffic to the site. The same is true for launching a marketing strategy without a search engine marketing (SEM) plan. The statistics confirm the necessity of being found by your customers on search engines in order to generate the traffic that most companies desire.
The data varies, but 65–85% of your customers will most likely find you after they enter a search term in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, or one of the secondary search engines. To be found this way, you can either pay for your company to appear at the top of the search results as part of a Pay Per Click program (PPC), or you can optimize your website so that your company appears naturally within the search results page. This is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Together SEO and PPC result in a comprehensive Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy.
SEO and PPC programs can work in isolation. In fact, it is uncommon to find many programs that harness the power of using the two powerhouse strategies together. If the success of your business depends on your website to survive in the crowded landscape of the Internet, then every strategy, every objective, and every tactic must be right. An SEM program is critical to marketing strategy. In some cases, out-maneuvering your competition in SEM can be the deciding factor that determines whether a potential customer decides to visit your website or not.
How do SEO and PPC Work Together?
Whether you launch a new website, refresh an existing website, or begin a new marketing campaign, an integrated SEM program is recommended in the marketing mix. It is a simple plan: Use PPC for short-term results and SEO for long-term results. Following are our recommendations for a successful approach:- Research the keywords that will not only attract traffic to your website, but more important, create action. Your keyword list is generated for BOTH PPC and SEO. There is no need to pay twice for this service.
- Start a test PPC campaign to find out quickly which message or offer persuades your customers to take action.
- Use the keywords and messages from your PPC campaign to optimize each page of your website so it will become “search engine–friendly”. This will help improve your overall search rankings.
- Launch the full PPC campaign while the SEO implementation is in process. Search engines can take up to 90 days to respond to your optimization. The PPC campaign can provide you with immediate results.
- Continue the SEO project with off-site implementation. This includes building links from other sites to your site, getting your site known on social media sites, and blogging.
- Determine whether you need to continue the PPC program once your site is visible using natural search. This will depend upon factors such as the amount of competition in your industry, whether your competitors use SEM, and how you want to brand your company.
We encourage companies to use SEM if they want to compete in the marketplace. In fact, it is quickly becoming a marketing imperative. It is a fact that people depend on search engines to research their buying alternatives and ultimately take action. As an added benefit, companies who appear higher in search rankings are perceived to be the superior companies in their respective industries.
Whether you are a startup, a growing small or medium sized business, or a FORTUNE 500 company, ensuring that your core marketing strategy includes a strong and integrated SEM plan allows you to gain a competitive edge. If your success is partly or entirely dependent on your website, then you must use SEM or find a new business...fast.
