Marketers conversant in today's best online marketing strategies know that search engine marketing (SEM) is a good value for the marketing dollar. Case studies have shown this to be true when comparing acquisition costs for a number of marketing strategies, both online and traditional.
So what does it take to kick off a successful SEM campaign? First, ensure that your site is designed to make those conversions when traffic starts coming in. Then make it search-engine friendly by optimizing content and HTML tags with selected keywords. Your most important first step is keyword research, analysis, and selection.
Ten Tips for Keyword Selection
Why are keywords so important? Because they bring targeted traffic to your site as users type their queries into search engines. Careful selection and placement of your strategic keywords in Web page copy and HTML tags goes a long way toward attracting traffic that converts to sales. Following are some tips for generating the keywords and phrases most likely to drive qualified buyers to your Web site.
1. Think from a Customer Viewpoint. What words would potential customers use when searching for your offering? Get feedback from multiple sources by picking the brains of your customers and suppliers as well as your brand managers and sales people.
2. Expand Your Keywords Into a List of Key Phrases. After brainstorming an initial list, put these terms into WordTracker, which is a Web-based tool that provides ideas for additional keywords by telling you how popular your keywords are on other Web pages and how many people have searched for these keywords in major search engines within the last 24 hours.
Your best terms are those that aren't overused but are still fairly popular. Another trick is to use uncommon combinations of keywords. WordTracker's Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) will tell you the number of times your keyword appears in its database and the number of competing Web pages. This reveals the keywords that might work best on your pages. A high KEI means the word is more popular and less competitive. A KEI of 100 is fairly good, but anything over 400 is super.
3. Create Multiple Permutations. Vary the order of words in your phrases to create different combinations. Create phrases that ask a question. Include synonyms, word substitutes, metaphors, and common misspellings. Include brand names and models of products sold. Use additional qualifiers to create more specific terms by creating two-, three-, and four-word phrases.
For example, if broadband is one of your keywords, you might come up with phrases like digital broadband, digital wireless broadband, wireless digital broadband, accelerated for broadband, broadband news, digital wireless broadband news, broadband wireless communication, etc. From the key phrase software solutions, try traffic analysis software solutions, traffic analysis reports, traffic reporting tools, B2B software solutions, e-commerce software solutions, etc.
4. Use Concept Qualifiers to Qualify Visitors. Specify the concept in your key phrases, such as e-commerce software solutions. Be specific enough so your key phrase is not too broad, such as e-commerce shopping cart software, e-commerce digital certificate security solutions or business-to-business enterprise e-commerce software, etc.