Is search is part of your daily life?
Think about how often on a weekly or even on a daily basis you use a search engine. Oh, how things have changed.
It was only a few years ago when you would reach for the Yellow Pages to look up a local business or go to the library to access the Thomas Registry to find an industrial supplier. You would join AAA to have access to the “Trip Ticks” map for directions for the family vacation. Your parents purchased an expensive encyclopedia set so you could do your homework. Millions of Americans subscribed to a local or national newspaper to stay up on current events, compare prices and clip coupons.
Today search is part of our daily lives. According to Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielson and Hoa Loranger, 88% of all web traffic starts with a search. This indicates that we only go directly to a website by typing the URL in the address bar or use bookmarks or favorites 12% of the time.
If your business cannot be found on a search engine when customers are looking for your products or services don’t panic. There are strategies you can deploy to get listed on search engines that can quickly garner both immediate and long term results that will grow your business. Your options include Local Search, Pay per Click (PPC) and “Organic or Natural” listings.
Local Search
You can get listed on the local search directories for free and get enhanced and optimized local search for only a few dollars per month. This is often a perfect solution for small businesses that do business on a local level. The down side of setting up local search listings is the it can be time consuming setting up accounts on each of the search engines can often take 15-30 minutes per listing. You can use an enhanced local listing service for a small monthly or annual fee. These services will list you in 30-40 search engines and local directories such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, YellowPages.com, CitySearch.com, SuperPages.com and more.
Pay per Click Marketing (PPC)
Many savvy marketers have shifted a portion of their advertising dollars to Pay per Click. Pay per Click works like this: advertisers bid on “keywords” that they believe their target market (people they think would be interested in their offer) would type in the search bar when they are looking for their type of product or service. For example, if an advertiser sells red widgets, he/she would bid on the keyword “red widgets”, hoping a user would type those words in the search bar, see their ad, click on it and buy. These ads are called “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads” and appear next to and sometimes above the natural or organic results on the page. The advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad.
Pay per Click offers business owners many advantages such as geographic targeting, (local, regional, nationally and internationally). With Pay per Click advertising you can tightly control your budget by the day, week or month and Pay per Click works with budgets of all sizes. Time to market and reach is also a big plus. You can typically have you ads running in 1-5 days depending on the advertising platform you choose. The biggest advantage to paid search is the high degree of granular marketing feedback and reporting that is possible. With the installation of robust analytics package PPC marketing is arguable the most measurable, accountable form of advertising.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is another strategy that can be incorporated into an effective online marketing program. SEO is part art and part science. The general goal of SEO is a high “natural” or “organic” ranking in the search engines. The results take time but the rewards are increased visibility, free traffic and creditability’s. Make sure that when looking for an individual or firm for SEO services they use “White Hat” - Best Practices. Trying to “trick” the search engines with “Black Hat” quick fixes can result in your website being banned from the results.
So when planning out your Search Engine Marketing campaign consider a mix of Local Search, Pay per Click and Search Engine Optimization strategies and tactics. Your competition will loose sleep (and business) while you grow your bottom line!
