SEO Expertise

SEM is an approach to marketing that leverages the power of the search engines to drive qualified traffic to your web site. Traffic from a search engine is important because these kinds of visitors are on a directed search. They are looking for something right now, is that something your product or service?

Why Do I need Search Engine Marketing?

Most web site visits start with with a potential visitor to your site searching for something of interest to THEM in a search engine. Google is the most popular search engine and delivers two to three times the traffic delivered by Yahoo.

If searchers cannot find your site in the search engines then your site will receive fewer visits than it could have if your site was easier to find. The more visitors you get to your site the more people you have the opportunity to do business with.

In Business-to-business buying decisions greater than 60% of all decisions are first researched on the Internet. This research typically takes place within 90 days of the buying decision.

How can we help you today?

• I want my site to rank better in the Search Engines
• I want to advertise my company on the Internet
• I want to start using Google Adwords
• I need help with my existing Google Adwords Campaigns
• I want to do some other Internet Advertising

I’ve recently been hired by a marketing firm to provide them with outsourced SEO assistance. That’s nothing extraordinary.   I’m sure it happens all the time. What I find interesting is that every time I talk to someone at this firm they are excited to hear from me. Not only does it make me want to call them back but also feels good to experience that kind of enthusiasm.

I wasn’t quite sure why I was getting such a warm reception. It suddenly dawned on me that maybe these folks were so enthusiastic because I’d given them a little SEO primer a few years ago, long before they hired me. I did it then because they asked me to and I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to do a favour for this firm. I wasn’t sure anything would ever come of it but as the saying goes nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I also had a phone call today with a potential client. They were grilling me pretty good about what I would do to help them with their site. The call sounded a little like a fishing expedition. Even though I wasn’t sure this company was interested in paying for my services I followed Jim Crocker’s advice and gave them some free hints.   The advice I gave them was to create content on their site that people would be interested in linking to.  In the link economy you get paid for good content with a back-link.

The notion of earning a back-link is no different than the age old adage:  you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.  I’ve been able to successfully live this adage offline as well as online.  When you are developing content for your site remember to write something people would actually enjoy reading either because it helps them or entertains them.

Attending tradeshows has been a mainstay for businesses for years. In the last ten years attendance at business-to-business tradeshows has declined. The recent economic situation has made it harder for some companies to exhibit at the most popular shows. Even if you are not going to attend or exhibit at a tradeshow you can still benefit from the fact that many people will attend the show and will be looking online for information about the show.

I have successfully used the fact that tradeshows drive awareness which drives searches in order to help my clients. One of my clients still ranks in the top five search results for a tradeshow, specific to their target audience and they haven’t attended this show in two years. I have other clients that use search marketing (Adwords) to target attendees of a given tradeshow.

The reason tradeshows provide a source of relevant search traffic is that the attendees for a given show are your intended audience. The purpose of a exhibiting at a tradeshow is to attract attendees to your booth. This is the same reason you have a website. You want your target audience to visit your website. What better way to attract your target audience to your website than to provide information about a relevant tradeshow.

Here are five ways to drive traffic to your site based on an upcoming tradeshow:

1. Provide links to floor plans
2. Provide details about the location
3. Provide details about when the tradeshow takes place
4. Become a speaker and have your bio link back to your site
5. Use search marketing to target traffic looking for exhibitors at the show

A well execute search strategy built around tradeshows can drive highly targeted traffic to your website. The way to make this tactic work is by providing meaningful, timely information about the show.

The tips mentioned above apply whether or not you are exhibiting at a given tradeshow. There are additional steps you can take if you are exhibiting in order to fully maximize the time and cost of attending the show. One thing any exhibitor can do is leverage their listing on the tradeshow website to get a quality backlink to their site. In my opinion you should never exhibit at a tradeshow that doesn’t provide a quality backlink.

When is a failure not a failure?  When it’s market research.  Google Adwords are a very effective way to reach your target audience – assuming you know what search terms your audience is likely to enter. The challenge is determining which keywords to chose for your campaigns.  There are a number of tools available that can help you narrow your choices but these tools tend to be less effective in the B2B space as the search volume for a particular keyword is typically low. It’s in these cases that I like to use Google Adwords to help me determine which keywords to select for my clients.

Here is how you use Google Adwords for market research:  run a Google Adwords campaign and measure its success.  Keywords that don’t perform have just told you either you have the wrong keywords entirely or the keywords didn’t match your offer.  In either case the campaign failed to drive traffic but it did tell you what won’t work.  You can use this information to refine your approach by either selecting better keywords or refining your pitch.  The best part is that the information was free!  With Google Adwords you only pay if the viewer clicks on the ad.  Just displaying the ad is free.

Here is a real world example – I have helped a number of companies in the Records Information Management industry.  To the participants in that industry the term ‘document destruction’ is synonymous with ’shredding’.  The reality of search is a little different.  People searching for ’shredding’ do not immediately make the association with ‘document destruction’.  By running various Google Adwords campaigns it is possible to MEASURE the difference in perception.

Google Adwords uses a sophisticated matching system to match ads with keywords entered.  To help advertisers control this matching process Google Adwords provides three matching types:  broad, phrase and exact.

Broad:  matches keywords in any order – searching for milk chocolate or chocolate milk will return ads for companies that have either ‘milk chocolate’ or ‘chocolate milk’ as a keyword.

Phrase:  matches keywords in a specific order – searching ‘cold chocolate milk’ or ‘chocolate cows milk’ will return ads for companies that have ‘chocolate milk’ as a keyword but not ‘milk chocolate’.

Exact:  matches keywords exactly – searching for ‘chocolate cows milk’ will not return ads for companies that have ‘chocolate milk’.  Only companies that have ‘chocolate cows milk’ will have their ads displayed.

By using matching variations it is possible to determine certain aspects about your market.  Do searches look for my term exactly or do they modify it in some way?  By cross-referencing searches that match with actual visits to your site you can determine which keywords or word order drive visits.  You can also find discover variations that can be used to develop long tail content.

Google Adwords can also give you a sense of how big your market is. Google Adwords provides statistics on the number of times your ad was displayed, the number of times it was clicked and some other helpful information.  In most cases we want the clicks to views to  be as high as possible.  It doesn’t always happen that way though.  In some cases there are a lot of impressions for your ad but few clicks.  Don’t be disheartened.  You can always fix your ad but you can’t always find a keyword that will generate a lot of impressions.  The number of impressions is a rough way to gauge the size of your market for that particular keyword.  This isn’t an exact science but the price is right!

I’m not advocating you purposely create poor performing ads, quite the contrary.  What I’m suggesting is that you learn from what isn’t working in order to improve your business.  Google Adwords provides almost instant feedback on what your market is thinking.

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