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BUSINESS FOCUS: Top 3 Online Strategies to Reach Prospective Customers #1 in a 3-part series: Search Engine Marketing by Susan O’Neil, CEO, @Website Publicity Y our website has been re-designed and launched: check. Now put it to use attracting qualified leads to your site to increase business. The first step? Develop a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy that includes a variety of online tactics. According to recent research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, 55 percent of B2B marketers and 64 percent of B2C marketers report that SEM is their most effective advertising method. With such a vast array of on- and offline advertising strategies available today, these statistics speak volumes. What is SEM, anyway? While SEM is commonly thought to be the same as SEO (search engine optimization), SEO is only one part of a well-designed SEM strategy. SEO is the practice of attracting continuous free traffic to your website; however, display advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and search engine reputation management (or SERM – I’ll cover more about this public relations strategy in a subsequent article) round out the overall SEM strategy – and command the majority of most companies’ digital advertising budget. Effective SEO strategies rely on understanding the search terms your prospective customers use to search for products or services like yours. These are called keywords, and using them well in your web content helps your site garner top search results – at no charge from the search engines for click-throughs to your site. With 60 percent of all organic clicks going to the top three organic search results, SEO is a proven investment (source: Business2Community). Accordingly, many businesses hire an SEO consultant as best practices change with some regularity. Also central to SEM strategies are paid search listings, or PPC. These eyecatching ads can be in text, image, and video format, and they appear above or next to organic search results. By guaranteeing high ranking placement on search engine results pages, the opportunities to generate quality leads and direct online sales skyrocket. The branding power of being at the top of the most important websites in your industry cannot be underestimated. PPC advertising also goes beyond search engines like Google; it incorporates highly targeted opportunities in social media such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as the Google Display Network, a multi-million site publishers’ network. PPC ads can be expensive, so advertisers set a daily budget and maximum bid in order to control costs. The critical elements are evaluating the effectiveness of each ad, tracking results to the penny, and meeting the goals of the advertiser, whether measuring the advertising cost per sale or per qualified lead. Get started today! Ads can be placed on the major search engines, with Google being the most popular, and, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, Google AdWords is a good place to design your PPC campaigns. It offers a helpful series of videos and other how-to tips and tools, including the Keywords Tool. This tool allows you to learn what words people use when they search for products or services like yours. Then you can “bid” on the best keywords to attract qualified leads to your business. It’s important to identify the right keywords because your prospective customers may be searching for your products using terms familiar to consumers, whereas you may be employing technical terms. To ensure the success of your SEM campaigns, make sure your site is mobile-friendly, as mobile search is now more popular than computer searches. Put your site’s URL address into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test URL tool to discover how easy (or not) your site is to view on a mobile device. If any improvements are required, don’t wait to make them – your SEM strategy is only effective if your site can retain visitors long enough to turn them into a lead or sale. If they land on a non-mobile optimized page when using a mobile device, they won’t stick around. By including SEO, PPC, and display advertising in your SEM strategy, you will reap the reward of always being there when your target market is actively searching for exactly what you sell. It’s a win-win, and that’s always the best scenario. @Website Publicity is a Google Certified Agency Partner with deep expertise in Internet marketing since 1998, providing clients with strategy and execution. From SEO and Paid Search (PPC) to video advertising and mobile marketing, clients benefit from ongoing lead generation and increased sales that meet their Cost-perAcquisition goals. 14 Depot Street, PO Box 755 Peterborough, NH 03458 (603) 924-8222 [email protected] www.websitepublicity.com March 2016 | 4