INVESTING IN SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING -
The New Battleground for Customers

The rapidly evolving field of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is fast becoming the new battleground for customers who research their purchases online. And to the victor go the spoils - in this case its bushels of click-throughs. That translates directly into sales leads. And these are not just your garden-variety sales leads either. Because you can learn what keywords your prospective customers are searching on, and target only those words, most click-throughs are highly qualified before they ever get to your landing page.

Bottom line: a well-designed and executed SEM strategy has the potential to give savvy marketers a quantum leap in the flow of qualified sales leads from their web site.

Buyers Do Their Research Online Before They Buy

Led by Google's astounding progress, the search engine technologies have become increasingly sophisticated at delivering "relevant results". Nowhere is SEM more important than for companies selling products and services into target customers that are inclined to research the alternative solutions online and/or buy them online. Given the complexity of most B2B Software solutions, its no surprise that Information Technology organizations are at the top of this list of search engine users.

What Is SEM and Why Should I Care About It ?

If you are not currently executing on a sophisticated SEM strategy, then it is almost a certainty that you are suffering a "leakage" of sales leads to your competition. The competitive advantage enjoyed by companies who develop and deploy effective search engine marketing strategies is staggering. For example, if your company is ranked 1st for a search term, you can expect to receive nearly 20% of all click-throughs for that term, whereas, if you are 12th, you can expect to receive just 1.6% of all click-throughs for that same term. For more on the relationship between search position and click-through rates, see our Primer on Search Engine Optimization, especially if you think that keyword stuffing your HTML still works!

Natural Search and Paid Search - the Ying and Yang of SEM

SEM breaks down into two very different categories: " natural search" and " paid search". Natural search refers to the search results themselves, i.e. the "matches" that the search engine displays as a rank ordered list of sites including one or more clickable links and a "snippet". SEM research shows that people are four to ten times more likely to click on a natural search result than on the paid search ads. From an SEM standpoint, the focus with natural search is on achieving a high rank in the search results for target keywords by optimizing web pages for those keywords. This process is called search engine optimization (SEO).

What it Takes To Achieve a High Search Ranking

While its more important than ever to get that choice position in the rankings, it now takes a whole new approach to do so. For marketers, the new search technologies mean you can't compete without a sophisticated SEM strategy along with a whole new cadre of software tools and coding techniques. Enter the fast-emerging specialty of Search Engine Marketing.

How StrateMind Can Help You Now

StrateMind has a special expertise in search engine marketing, and we help our clients quickly build and execute successful SEM strategies. By leveraging our expertise, clients don't have to learn all the intricacies of SEM tools, technologies and techniques, or spend all of their time keeping abreast of the constant advances by the search engines. Instead, our clients can focus on building and executing winning marketing and sales strategies.

Our search engine marketing engagements focus on the areas that can have an immediate impact on the flow of qualified leads from client web sites. Our service offerings include some or all of the following elements, depending on the client's needs.

• Keyword research and selection to discover the search keywords used by prospective customers
• Assessment of current position in search results for target keywords in each major search engine
• Complete, detailed analysis of the design, coding and structure of client's home page vs. best practices for search-engine-friendly web sites
• Analysis of "Link Popularity", a key metric for establishing the overall importance (relevancy) of client's web site
• Analysis of indexing frequency and depth by each major search engine
• Specific and actionable recommendations for changes to the web site to improve its rank in natural search results
• Design and execution of Link Popularity programs to increase perceived importance (from the search engine spider's point of view) of client's web site
• submission of client's web site for indexing by each major search engine
• keyword-specific analysis of paid search opportunities, monthly costs and expected number of click-throughs
• careful experimentation with alternative paid search strategies to find the most optimal ad design, ad parameters and overall ROI for client
• click-path analysis to analyze visitor's experience once they click on the natural or paid search result, from the landing page through to the desired call to action (e.g. completing a form to request a download or an online purchase)
• directed experimentation with different offers to find the most cost-effective ones to use in online marketing programs

Ready to talk to the experts? Call or email us to set up an appointment to discuss your specific needs, and join the growing list of satisfied StratiMind clients.