Search Marketing
The idea behind marketing is to place your message where your customers are.
On the Internet, your customers are frequently on the search engines searching for stuff.
In every other advertising medium you are putting your message out hoping that someone viewing it is interested, will see your ad and call you.
On the search engines, your customer searches for things they either want or are looking for more information on. These people are already warm leads!
There is very little waste because you are not paying to have people who are not interested in your product flip past or throw your ad away.
With search marketing, there are two areas of focus:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Optimization is concerned with the organic “free” listings on the left side of Google. The organic listings are controlled by optimizing your website for specific keywords that your customers will search for when they are interested in the product or service you sell.
Search Engine Marketing is concerned with the pay-per-click listings on the right side of Google. Pay-per-click is controlled by bidding on the same keywords that your customers search on when they are looking for the product or service you sell.
We use search marketing to:
- Generate new leads
- Sell products
- Build brand awareness (although this is secondary to making money and not valid by itself)
- Divert traffic from competitors
There are many reasons to use search engine optimization and search engine marketing in your marketing mix that goes beyond being in the top 10. For instance, you can use it to test market a new product or service you want to offer. This way you can pre-judge if there will be sufficient demand before you invest a large portion of your resources in it.
That said, being in the top 10 can dramatically increase your business because you will be where your customers are looking to find information on the products or services that you sell.
When advertising, you typically send out a large amount of ads (circulation) to find those who are interested in what you have to offer now. With the search engines (and yellow pages) customers who are interested in what you offer come to find your information when they are ready to buy.
So when using search engine optimization and search engine marketing, you need to worry about placement, but if your placement is ideal, you can expect a lot of traffic to your website. If your website is set up to acquire leads and/or make a sale, you can expect the lions share of the business in your market.
