Chapter 5 Search Engine Marketing

organic search results

The primary product of a search engine and are the listings generally found on the left-hand side on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Are not influenced by financial payment.

Search engines have four main functions:

1)They crawl the Web (via spiders). 2)They index the Web documents and pages they find. 3) They process user queries. 4)They return ranked results from the index.

Search drives targeted traffic (and therefore sales) to Web sites.

A Web search is a signal of intent from a Web user.

Index

A library of pages on the Internet.

Browser

A program that accesses and displays files and other data available on the Internet and other networks.

Algorithm

A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem, especially by a computer.

search engine

A tool for searching the Internet. Users of search engines enter keywords relevant to their search, and the search engine returns results from its databases.

Paid Search Results [pay-per-click (PPC)]

Advertising displaying of sponsored results alongside the organic results. Must be distinguished from other results. Usually displayed at the top and on the right side of the SERPs.

Search Is...

Goal-oriented Used by people to find the things they want and need

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has two parts:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) aims at improving a Web site's ranking in the natural search results. Pay Per Click (PPC) involves bidding for placement in the paid search results section of the SERP. Both SEO and PPC advertising are based around the same fundamental concept: keywords. SEO + PPC = SEM

Search engines attract and keep users through organic search, but they make most of their money from paid search.

Search engines are essential to a Web user's Internet experience

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The continuous and systematic process of ensuring that your firm comes up at or near the top of lists of typical search phrases related to your business

index

The databases for keywords created by the search engines.

White Hat SEO

the practice of optimizing website results in search through the ethical and strict application of search engine best practices and guidelines

True or False - Statistics show that users are not likely to view listings beyond the first thirty results, with the top six (above the fold) listings enjoying the lion's share of clicks.

True

Key phrases are the very foundation of search.

When a user enters a query on a search engine, she uses the words that she thinks are relevant to her search. The search engine then returns those pages it believes are most relevant to the words the searcher used.

There is a three-way relationship among search engines, Webmasters, and users.

Users want to find what they are looking for on the Internet. Search engines want to make money from selling advertising. Webmasters and online marketers want search engines to send traffic to their site.

Off-Page Factors

factors such as click-through measurement (the frequency in which users select to click a web link to sites from those identified by a specific search string) and linking.

Search Engine Results Pages

The pages containing the results after a user types a key phrase into a search engine.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

The practice of optimizing a Web site so as to achieve preferred ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Someone who practices SEO professionally is also known as an SEO (search engine optimizer).

Search engines encounter two kinds of obstacles:

Technical challenges that prevent the search engine spider from accessing content A competitive marketing environment where everyone wants to rank highly

The key to ensuring that a site's contents are fully crawlable is to provide direct, HTML links to each page you want the search engine spiders to index.

Remember that if a page cannot be accessed from the home page (where most spiders are likely to start their crawl) it is likely that it will not be indexed by the search engines.

There are four main functions of a search engine:

Crawl the Web (via spiders) Index documents and pages Process user queries Return ranked results from the index

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Language used to compose Web pages.

__________________________need to be consistently reliable to attract (and keep) users

Organic search results

Search is important for a variety of reasons: Search is goal-oriented: people use search to find things they want and need. Search engines are the doorway to the Internet. The search industry is big. Top of search equates to top-of-mind awareness. People trust organic search. Search reaches people at every phase of the buying cycle. Many users have a search engine as their browser home page.

Organic search results typically appear on the left-hand side, while the paid placement typically appears on the right. Google owns the largest share of the search market.

Which search results from, advertisers bidding for placement and paying search engines when their advertisement is clicked on?

Paid Search (PPC)

There are four things to consider when choosing a keyword:

Search volume -- How many searchers are using that phrase to find what they want? For example, there is an estimated monthly search volume of over two million for the keyword "hotel" but an estimated 385 searches per month for a keyword like "Cape Town waterfront hotel." Competition -- How many other Web sites out there are targeting that same phrase? For example, Google finds over 611,000,000 results for "hotel" but only 14,800 for "Cape Town Waterfront Hotel." Propensity to convert -- What is the likelihood that the searcher using that key phrase is going to convert on your site? A conversion is a desired action taken by the visitor to your Web site. Related to propensity to convert is the relevance of the selected term to what you are offering. If you are selling rooms at a hotel at the V&A Waterfront, which of the two terms ("hotel" and "Cape Town Waterfront hotel") do you think will lead to more conversions? Value per conversion -- What is the average value per prospect attracted by the keyword? Depending on the nature of your Web site, the average value per lead varies. Using the hotel example again, consider these two terms: "luxury Cape Town hotel" and "budget Cape Town hotel." Both are terms used by someone looking to book a hotel in Cape Town, but it is likely that someone looking for a luxury hotel is intending to spend more. That means that particular lead has a higher value, particularly if you have a hotel-booking Web site that offers a range of accommodation.

search or search marketing

The term often used to refer to the industry that has built up around search engines.

Spider

A program that visits Web sites and reads their pages and other information in order to create entries for a search engine index.

SEO is a fairly technical practice, but it can easily be broken down into five main areas:

A search engine-friendly Web site structure A well-researched list of key phrases Content optimized to target those key phrases Link popularity Emerging trends

On-page factors

Factors on your own website that you can optimize such as the underlying code and the content

Black Hat SEO

Intentional, manipulative behavior of SEO's aimed at "gaming the system" - this includes keyword stuffing, keyword spam, hidden text, cloaking, masking, link wheels, link farms, link pyramids, paid links, low quality content (pages and sites) with massive keywords, malicious redirects, exact match domains, negative SEO (to impact competition), automated content scraping / spinning and publishing and so much more. Must avoid at all costs.

Search engines look for signals of the following in order to help users find what they're looking for.

Relevance Importance Popularity Trust Authority