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Issue #145: Frost & Sullivan

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                    SearchReturn Discussion List
             "Understanding Internet Search Technology"
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Moderator:                                          Published by:
Disa Johnson                                       SearchReturn
               http://www.searchreturn.com
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January 10, 2008                          SearchReturn Issue #145
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                   .....IN THIS DIGEST.....

// -- NEW DISCUSSION -- //

             "Frost & Sullivan"
                         ~ SearchReturn

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==> Frost & Sullivan

Next week I will be speaking in Phoenix Arizona at the Frost &
Sullivan Sales and Marketing Event.  Since I'll be visiting on a
few subjects, I thought I'd publish my tips and tricks here.

If any of the following catches your eye and you'd like to learn
more about the idea, write in via the comment link and you can
get included in a future issue.  These can make great discussion
starting points which is what I plan to use them for at the live
event.  Have fun!

Dos and Don'ts.

1. Do: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.

You can use the Paid listings platform to test gads of things
that will lead to better ROI directly from those programs.  Many
of the lessons you learn through testing Paid, can be brought
over to your natural or organic search marketing efforts.  It
will help you strike a better balance between paid and natural
listings.  You can test keywords, multiple ad creative and
landing page effectiveness.

2. Do advertise where you have a natural listing.

It is often thought of as wasteful to advertise through paid
listings when you have a top natural ranking.  You will want to
test this for your business segment, but most businesses see an
increase in natural clicks when they also purchase the paid
listing.  Why?  Because most clicks from search occur with
natural listings (6 out of 7) and the math almost always works
out for better ROI after paying for those that click the paid
listing.

3. Do ramp up your natural or organic efforts.

Paid is easy to engage.  The search engines' own incentive is to
make it so.  Therefore, often those that engage the paid listing
programs often fail in natural or organic listings.  This is such
a huge opportunity for balancing the equation, since natural
receives as many as 6 out of 7 ecommerce type search result
clicks.  Balance for you probably means more investment in
natural or organic.

1. Don't 'set it and forget it'

Setting up a paid campaign is easy enough that you may start up a
campaign because the opportunity to purchase keywords is obvious.
Don't just set it up and forget it.  Next time you see the charge
against your account, make sure to remind yourself that engaging
paid and thinking about natural or organic requires resources.
If you can't assign internal resources when the online channel is
important to you, find a vendor that can help you.

2. Don't purchase links.

In December 2007, Matt Cutts from Google was reviewing a website
that had a reported 197,000 inbound links (links from websites
pointing at the site in question).  When he logged into a private
Google tool to learn how much of that linking helped the site
rank, the number he discovered was 3.  It was because the site
owner obtained his linking through purchasing them from link
brokers.  Imagine the waste of that ongoing spend.

3. Don't bother with ranking reports.

Ranking reports actually serve to distract you from what's
important.  Look at your incoming traffic, the keywords that are
bringing in those requests, and don't bother looking up keywords
where you have no rankings.  This will get you to the real work
with paid as well.  Did you know a broad match hit on 'travel'
means your actual user might have typed 'time travel machine'?
If you run a travel site, that would be too important not to
know.  Forget ranking reports and use the extra time by examining
analytics reports. 

Stay tuned,
SearchReturn

 


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