Search Engine News :: Optimise Web Sites for Organic Search

Friday, November 14, 2003

The SEM Shakeout: Are You Ready?: "In search marketing, when your competition wins, you lose. That search customer your competition acquired is gone, possibly for good, as your competition builds a relationship with that customer, extracting a lifetime value revenue stream.

Are you on top of your SEM game? Assess whether you're one of the top five competitors in your industry segment in the following areas:

Online marketing efficiency, improving methods and tactics

Knowledge of best campaign-planning practices

Mastery of the various marketplaces -- rules and nuances of each

Execution of conversion marketing principles on your site

Application of appropriate analytics for search campaign measurement

Use of in-house or outsourced technology to facilitate paid search management for complex campaigns
To understand the importance of these areas to success in search marketing, let's follow the marketer's profit from search to sale:

Searcher has a need and enters a search.

Searcher sees several paid listings, perhaps several organic listings.

Searcher selects a listing based on some combination of position, domain, title, description, and offer.

Searcher clicks on a link.

Searcher lands on a site.

The page is either a good fit or a poor one.

The offer on the page is either compelling and appropriate to the search or not.

Searcher takes a desired step (adds to cart, clicks on contact form, views store location, registers, etc.).

Searcher checks out or possibly becomes a lagged (delayed) conversion in e-commerce or business-to-business (B2B).

Searcher becomes a customer.

Searcher remains a customer over time, contributing to the bottom line.
Every search listing delivers to your site searchers who have some likelihood of taking this path. Knowing how searchers interact with your site will help you to improve conversion.

The search shakeout is beginning. You have an opportunity to educate yourself and implement best practices to be in the game long term. Your firm needs to decide how important SEM is to the company's future. If you don't have the budget or resources to do search right, things may get quite challenging. Your competition is eliminating waste and capitalizing on opportunities in paid search while it improves its site conversion and business profit. "