Search Engine Marketing Blog » SEM

Cross Your Search Data Streams to Benefit SEO

matthewdiehl — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:06:25 +0000

EGON: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
PETER :What?
EGON: Don’t cross the streams.
PETER: Why?
EGON: It would be bad.
PETER: I’m fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing. What do you mean, bad?
EGON: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
RAY: Total protonic reversal.
PETER: All right, that’s bad, okay. Important safety tip, don’t cross the streams. Thanks, Egon.

Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favorite movies and the safety tip that applies to proton packs DOES NOT apply to the data you can collect from your search engine marketing initiatives.

Luckily, utilizing your analytics data, PPC reports and SEO reports as a combined data set will not result in every molecule in your business instantaneously exploding at the speed of light.

Good news, right? Now all you have to do is actually analyse your reports.

Here is a great place to start – PPC Search Query Reports.

This PPC report is useful at helping to locate wasted clicks on irrelevant keyword phrases that you can pull out to build robust lists of negative keywords to keep your campaigns targeted but, did you know that this information is also great keyword research data for your SEO campaigns?

Thats right, as you are running your PPC campaigns, it is doing keyword research for you! Double bang for your search engine marketing buck right there.

Each of the long tail keyword phrases that the Search Query report generates is a hidden gem just waiting for someone to write SEO content for. Now, you have the inside track; you have the exact phrase that people are searching on and you have impression numbers to show you which ones can result in more traffic.

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Microsoft – Yahoo Deal : Great for SEM Industry

matthewdiehl — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:08:20 +0000

With the new Microsoft – Yahoo search deal announced lets take a moment to think about the impact the joining of the #2 & #3 search platforms on the Internet will have on Search Engine Marketing spending.

In a recent post, “2009 SEM Spending Up While Executive Confidence Down“, I highlighted that SEM spending currently makes up 60% of Interactive Marketing budgets and will grow to $31.6 Billion annual spend by 2014. These stats were released before a “viable” competitor to Google was in the marketplace.

Yes, the Microsoft – Yahoo deal will create a true competitor to Google in the search and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising markets. With Microsoft & Yahoo coming to accords with the search agreement they will now have a combined control of 25 – 30% of the search market.

Businesses are now shown a clear second option for their PPC budgets and this will have a dramatic impact on SEM spending. Divided it required twice the effort to achieve results in Bing & Yahoo but with a streamlined solution businesses will begin advertising on a new platform that reaches more viewers for less cost (no brainer, right?).

Some may shift funds away from Google PPC spend and apply that to their new Microsoft-Yahoo PPC budget. However, that is a small fraction of businesses who are displeased with their Google advertising. Most businesses will begin to add on to their budgets to accommodate a second advertising avenue that will allow them the reach up to 97% of search engine users through just 2 platforms.

By simplifying the search landscape, Microsoft and Yahoo have not only created a true competitor to Google search but have created an attractive opportunity for businesses to spend their online marketing budgets.

Overall, the deal is Great for SEM Industry.

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2009 SEM Spending Up While Executive Confidence Down

matthewdiehl — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:42:04 +0000

So, do you want the good news or the bad news… Okay lets get the warm and fuzzies out of the way.

In a recent study released by Forrester Research, “Five-Year Interactive Marketing Forecast Report”, they projected a 105% increase in US search engine marketing (SEM) spending over the next five years. 2009 should close out at about $15.4 billion spent while they project 2014 to top the charts at $31.6 billion in spending.

SEM still remains the largest part of interactive marketing budgets as well. In 2009, SEM will comprise 60% of budgets and is expected to drop slightly to 57.5% of all 2014 interactice marketing budgets (losing points due to growth in social & mobile spending).

So, SEM is still poised to remain the leading form of interactice marketing through 2014.

Now for the bad news, which is just down right ugly…

In another report released by [x+1], “Search Engine Marketing in 2009″, 75% of US Senior-Level SEM Executives feel that their SEM will underperform or just meet their expectations. Additionally, 38% of those executives feel that SEM will greatly underperform their expectations. These executives completely outweigh the 25% of executives that felt SEM in 2009 will exceed their expectations.

These numbers show a complete lack of confidence in the ROI in search spending in 2009 from our own executives. Now, with search spending slated to overly double in the next 5-years this is something that needs to change. It may be time for a shake down of your staff or to rethink your SEM strategies to boost executive confidence.

Let me know how you think your campaigns are performing by taking this quick poll. I would really like to see how it compares to the other report. Thanks!
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Always Get Second Opinions on Search Engine Marketing Proposals

matthewdiehl — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:36:33 +0000

Just like getting a second opinion on a medical diagnosis or course of treatment; getting a second opinion on the proposal you receive from any search engine marketing firm is just a smart decision.

As a business owner or decision maker you may or may not know the intricate details of search engine marketing but I am sure there is another search engine marketing firm or consultant who does. The second opinion on the proposal will allow you to get real feedback on a course of action the proposal is offering from a knowledgeable source. This information could be invaluable to the decision to spend your money wisely on the right service.

Not only can it benefit you on how to wisely spending your money in our tough economy but it can also save you from getting drawn into a dirty deal. Unfortunately, there are “firms” out there that pry on those not well versed in search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Many times they will perform a shoddy job, fake reports or get your site banned from the search engines because of black hat techniques.

The second opinion on the proposal should turn up any shady intentions by the company you are considering. You could also potentially walk away with a better deal on a proposal from the more sound company than the original proposal you were considering.

Many firms will be more than happy to take a look at competitor proposals; whether they charge a fee or not varies from firm to firm.

So, before you jump into a search engine marketing agreement get it checked out. The second opinion is sure to worth it.

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What is Search Engine Marketing?

matthewdiehl — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:53:33 +0000

What Search Engine Marketing is can be broken down into two major categories – Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of helping your website achieve greater visibility with the search engines for select keyword phrases that drive customers to your website.

SEO starts out with defining the exact keywords and keywords phrases that your potential clients/customers are using in the search engines. Theses keywords are then incorporated into your site in a process of on-site optimization.

On-site optimization also takes a look at the underlying code of your site, internal linking schemes and more.

There is also an off-site attribute to SEO called link building. Link building is the process of acquiring relevant and targeted links to your website from other websites.

Both the on-site and off-site optimization included in SEO should have a positive impact on how your site is indexed by the major search engines for the keywords that drive your business online.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing is, as it sounds, a method to market your website via the “sponsored link” sections on the search engine result page and you pay per click on your ad.

PPC allows you to target a wide variety of keyword phrases relevant to your services and drive customers to pages that you choose on your website offering exactly what the visitors are looking for. This allows you to better target your customer with information that they will find relevant and thus have a better chance of converting them into a customer.

One thing to keep in mind is that PPC requires a daily budget in order for your ads to be displayed to search engine users. This budget varies from industry to industry based on the competitive nature of the keywords you wish to target.

Was this helpful in explaining the question, what is search engine marketing?

If you still have questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me at matt [at] matthewsdiehl [dot] com.

You may also be interested in my post on Maintaining a Competitive Advantage in a Downturn Economy

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Maintain a Competitive Advantage in a Downturn Economy

matthewdiehl — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:25:57 +0000

Maintain a Competitive Advantage in a Downturn Economy with Search Engine Marketing

When the economy gets tough, businesses (like consumers) need to find ways to save money while maintaining the profits/revenue that keeps their business running. Many businesses will look to cut funding to one of the largest spending areas – Marketing.

If you are a business owner and you are concidering cutting your marketing budget in the slow economy – shame on you. This is the ideal time to add extra funding to the budget for marketing and especially in the area of Search Engine Marketing.

Just like you many of your competitors are going through the same steps of appropriating funds to the different areas of their budget for 2009. Just like you many of them are thinking of decreasing the amount spent on marketing in 2009 and one of the largest decreases will be to Search Engine Marketing.

This is the opportunity you have been waiting for. The number of businesses competing online in your marketplace will be less than it has been in quite some time. This creates the opportunity for your business to move in and capture a larger chunk of the online consumer market for your products or services.

Some say that the number of consumers online will also decrease. This may or may not be true but what is for sure is that they are shopping around looking for the best place to spend their money. “Shopping around” means more searches will be conducted by consumers and means more chances for your business to show up in SERPs. The repetitive placement of your businesses’ website at the top of the search results will drive better consumer recognition, trust and sales.

When the economy gets tough, the smart business markets.

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Shaping the Search Engine Marketing Industry in 2009

matthewdiehl — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:06:56 +0000

In the latest installment of SEM Synergy at WebmasterRadio.fm, Bruce Clay was asked for his top 3 items that will have an impact on shaping the Search Engine Marketing Industry in 2009.

His list consists of:

Engagement Objects

Personal & Universal Search

Rank Reporting is Dead (ROI Tracking & Analytics)

Bruce Clay’s SEM Predictions List Explained

Engagement Objects
Engagement objects started to become a buzz word when Bruce used it in an interview at the PubCon in November 2009. Engagement objects are the interactive content on a website that will have an impact on your site’s rankings moving forward in 2009. The interactive content on your site can be anything from images & video to quizzes & polls. It is not just the creation of these engagement objects but utilizing them within industry and social networks to drive the traffic and buzz your site needs to be successful. Additionally, engagement objects can help you to achieve more universal search result listings.

Personal & Universal Search
These are two of the largest changes to the SERPs that we have seen in recent years. Personalized Search is the ability that search engines (like Google) have to deliver you results based on your past searches and clicks on the results page. This results in a page that has some of your more frequented sites automatically ranking higher just for you. Bruce mentions Personal Search goes beyond that to include IP tracking to serve geo-targeted results based on the location of your IP address. Universal Search is the integration of other sources of content (i.e. video, map and news) into the SERPs. Universal Search will impact the Search Engine Marketing Industry because those who are taking advantage of incorporating more engagement objects on their sites will have a greater chance of having these items included in the SERPs. So, engage your visitors and you will be rewarded by the search engines.

Rank Reporting is Dead
Bruce reiterated that rank reporting as an ROI metric in the Search Engine Marketing Industry is no longer going to cut it. You can blame this on Personal & Universal Search and the advancements in analytics. The tools for tracking the users who visit our sites have come a long way in recent years. Search Engine Marketers should now be providing clients with traffic and conversion reports. These reports will show the true ROI on SEO and PPC campaigns.

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