Search Engine Marketing
You are invisible, and how to fix it
Presented By Hans RiemerMarket Vantage LLC
At North By North ShoreDanvers MA - Sept. 12, 2012
2
� Search Engines vs Directories
� Organic and Paid Search
� Other sources of Traffic
First, just a few BASICS
3
Search Engines and Directories
� Directories – Human-Edited
– Yahoo Directory, Google Directory / ODP (DMOZ)
� Search Engines – Crawler-Based / Algorithmic
– Google, Bing, Ask, etc.
� Recent History
– Google started making money in 2001
– Remember AltaVista? Infoseek? HotBot?
4
Organic vs Paid Search
Paid AdsOrganic Results
(2009 model)
5
Organic vs Paid Search
(2012 model)
6
Website Traffic
On-Line AdvertisingReferrals Brand Awareness(Bookmark or Direct)
Pay-PerClick
Banners& Text Ads
Sponsor-ships
ContextualAds On-Line Pubs
OrganicSearch
ReferringLinks
PR(Online / Offline)
Ads (Radio/TV/Print)
Related Sites E-NewslettersPortals
ViralMarketing
Sources of Website Traffic
PaidSearch
7
Google’s Mission & Purpose
� Satisfy two stakeholders:� Search users
– Provide the most “relevant” results
� Investors
– Generate revenue from ads (tied to traffic from Search)
� Not: “Push lots of traffic to your site so can make lots of money”
8
Who makes Google’s job harder?
� People who try to get their pages to rank higher than they would otherwise
� Why? Because if they succeed, Google’s users (searchers) may not get the best results!
9
So Google keeps tweaking,
Panda
Penguin
Venice
Caffeine
Vince
Dewey
Buffy
Big Daddy
Jagger
Gilligan
Bourbon . . .
2012
2010
2008
2006
2004
10
How do I get my website to show up at the top of ?
Without having to pay for the clicks, of course,
The $64,000 Question:
11
What Search Engines Do
12
1st Generation Search Engine Signals– Keywords and Content
� The site with the most keywords – WINS!
Keyword
Keyword
KeywordKeyword
Keyword
Keyword
13
1st Generation Search Engine Signals– Keywords and Content
The Result?
� Keyword-stuffed content
� Lots of spammy, junky websites
14
2nd Generation Search Engine Signals– Inbound Links
Google arrives on the scene
� Develops an algorithmic approach
� Patent granted for Page Rank
15
2nd Generation Search Engine Signals– Inbound Links
The Result?
� Web 2.0 allows user generated content
� Lots of spammy, junky websites
16
3rd Generation – User Experience
Data from Google’s “free” tools
� Google Search
� Google Analytics
� Google Toolbar
� Gmail
� Google+1
� Google Chrome browser (with toolbar)
17
3rd Generation – User Experience
The Result?
� Lots of pain and volatility
18
How to Show Up at the Top of Google
� Own a famous brand
� Get tons of visitors to your site
� Keep them there
19
Do’s
� Don’t try to optimize a lousy website
20
Do’s
� Keyword research is still important– https://adwords.google.com/o/keywordtool
– Or search: google keyword tool
– Use: “Exact Match”
– Understand: limitations
21
Do’s
� Google understands synonyms– No need to “stuff” keywords
– So, write web copy for humans
22
Do’s
� Natural link development– Articles still work
– Keyword anchor text isn’t what it used to be
– Directories still hold sway
– Talk to your partners
23
Do’s
� Surprise! SEO is Marketing– Crisp messaging + thoughtful word choices
– Visitor engagement
– Usefulness
– Compelling offers
– Impeccable customer service
– Follow-up and nurturing
– PR outreach
How to tell if your site got nuked
24
How to tell if your site got nuked
� Traffic
� This: instead of This:
� site:www.yoursite.com comes up empty
25
What to do if your site is banned
� Run, don’t walk, to
� Find out what needs to be fixed and fix it!
� Request reinstatement
26
And now a few words about
27
Yearly Revenue
6,332
10,625
14,413 15,723
19,443
26,145
4,160
5,788
6,7147,167
8,793
10,386
$0
$5,000
$10,000
$15,000
$20,000
$25,000
$30,000
$35,000
$40,000
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Licensing & Other Network Google.com
$ in millions
AdWords Truths
� If your site isn’t converting, the solution is not to spend more money
29
AdWords Truths
� You’re playing against Google and your fellow advertisers
30
AdWords Truths
� It’s a live auction
– Pay attention
– Don’t “set it and forget it”
31
AdWords Truths
� Target carefully
– Keyword selections
– Display sites
� Sloppy = Expensive
32
AdWords Tip
� Use AdWords Preview tool to check ads
– Impressions are costly
– Allows geographic testing
– adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/
– Or search: adwords preview tool
33
AdWords Tip
� Who is seeing your ads?
– Search: check typed keywords
– Display: check sites
34
Questions?
Hans Riemer
Market Vantage LLC
978-482-0130
Blog / Tips / Newsletter at
www.market-vantage.com
35