by Andy Brudtkuhl on December 1, 2009
One of the first questions we often get from our workshop members is “Where Do I Start”? While each answer differs based on their business (which we are able to help out with for members) we generally push them in this direction…
- Define your goals (sales, leads, etc)
- Create a hub with WordPress
- Design a landing page based on your goals
- Start with search advertising
Why search advertising over social media, email marketing, etc? Honestly, it has the best ROI and least amount of time to implement and manage… Granted – we think community building and other internet marketing efforts are must-haves. But if you are looking to do one form of internet marketing to start, search advertising is our recommendation.
A recent study from Advertise.com and SEMPO concurs saying search advertising provides the highest ROI. Their findings…
The forms of online advertising which provide the best ROI include:
- Search – 70.7 percent
- Cost-per-action (CPA) – 14.6 percent
- Email – 6.1 percent
- Social – 3.7 percent
- Other – 2.4 percent
The only drawback to this form of internet marketing is the cost associated – it’s not free like social media. But in a world where time is as big of currency as money we still think search advertising is your best bet to get immersed in internet marketing for your small business.
Low time investment + higher ROI = win
Have a question? Jump into the forums or leave us a comment!
by Andy Brudtkuhl on November 24, 2009
These charts from SEOMoz are based on research from Bill Tancer of Hitwise called “Sizing Up The Long Tail Of Search”. The basic idea is that the long tail of search generates exponentially more traffic than the most popular keyword phrases out there. From Bill’s research…
• Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic
• Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic
• Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic
• Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic
This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you’d still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.
Does that make sense? The basic idea is that more people search for obscure, multi-keyword phrases than they do popular keywords. This has a lot to do with search users becoming smarter over the years to where most people search by phrase rather than by keyword – because they’ve been trained this behavior narrows results.
What does this mean for your business? Well you should start targeting long phrase, long tail keywords in both your content and SEO strategies. Using this method you can target multiple long tail keywords and still have a better chance at generating more traffic than optimizing for a single, popular keyword.
Here’s an example… A couple weeks ago I was talking to my good friend TJ about optimizing his e-commerice site RIPTApparel (cool t-shirts by the way). We were discussing keyword targeting. My advice was to quit targeting the keyword “t-shirt” and start targeting long tail, multiple word keywords such as “cool graphic tees” and “limited edition t-shirts”. Not only do you increase your chances of being found by targeting the long tail – there is much less competition for those terms in both organic and paid search results.
So if you find that you aren’t “being found” online, try some long tail and localized keyword targeting to increase your chances… Look at the keywords coming through in your web analytics to see what long tail keywords people are using to find you and start optimizing for those. And if you have any questions at all on targeting keywords – jump into the forums and ask away!
Charts via SEOmoz | Illustrating the Long Tail.
by Andy Brudtkuhl on November 23, 2009
Google integrates product listings for featured advertisers in Google AdWords
Click Images To Enlarge
by Andy Brudtkuhl on July 30, 2009
As you have probably heard about 100 times – Microsoft and Yahoo have partnered on 10 year search deal making Bing the primary technology behind Yahoo’s search engine.
What this means is Bing’s market share just jumped from around 8% to around 30% – which means you need to pay attention to this. Ironically the day before this announcement we posted two Bing related optimization posts:
Bing SEO Tips
Bing Website Optimization Guide
We were just as irritated as you with this announcement because it adds another item on our plate to optimize and analyze – but the results will be worth it. Here are some other posts from around the web that you can use to understand what this partnership means to you.
SEOMoz – Top 10 Things the Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Changes for SEO
#1 – SEO for Bing is Worth Your Optimization Effort
#4 – Bing’s Webmaster Tools Are Important
#5 – Yahoo! & Bing Local Become More Essential
#7 – Bing Will Get Lots more Data
SearchEngineLand – What Site Owners, Web Developers, And SEOs Should Know About the Yahoo/Microsoft Deal
The big question is will this partnership significantly change market share percentages? Depending on whose numbers you use, Google has either 65% or 74% share in the US (more in some European countries). That puts the combined Yahoo/Microsoft share at 28% or 25.5%. That’s substantial traffic, sure, and worth paying attention to
Do you have any questions about this partnership? Let us know in the comments!
[image via SEOMoz]
by Andy Brudtkuhl on December 3, 2008
Keywords are a list of words and phrases that helps search engines index your website. Targeted, relevant keywords are key in a successful Search Engine Marketing campaign.
