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Two Categories of Search Engine Marketing

I have referred to two general categories of search engine marketing: "Pay-per-click" (PPC) services, and Organic search - the "free" listings on the main part of the search results pages.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

PPC services have several advantages:

  • They allow you to achieve prominent placement for an unlimited number of key word phrases.
  • You can achieve this placement within hours of setting up your account. It would take a long time for a new site to achieve such prominence in the organic (free) listings.
  • Your ad is displayed when someone searches on one of your keywords (an "impression"), but you don't pay unless they click on the ad (a "clickthrough") and land on one of your site's "landing pages."
  • You have tight control over how much you will spend per click, per day, per month, etc.
  • If your site offers on-line shopping or some sort of action step such as signing up for a newsletter, you can take advantage of "conversion tracking" to see how well each keyword and ad is performing - i.e., whether your return on investment (ROI) is adequate. If your intended response is to elicit a phone call, it may be harder to track ROI, but it is still possible.

In some cases, I set up extensive pay-per-click programs, covering a large collection of products. In other cases, we may proceed more cautiously, setting up one adgroup, seeing how well it performs, and fine-tuning it before setting up another.

There are hundreds of PPC services. Most of them are worthless and many are total rip-offs. The three biggest worthwhile ones are Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft Adcenter, in that order. I usually set up the first two, and sometimes the third. Facebook now runs PPC ads and allows for precise demographic targeting, since Facebook knows so much about its members.

These services syndicate their ads to other sites. For instance, Google Adwords ads are also shown on Ask.com, Netscape, AOL, USA Today, The Washington Post and over 50% of the Media Metrix Top 100 sites that show advertising—sites that reach over 80% of U.S. Internet users.

Next: "Organic" SEO

Mountain

Main Points

  • PPC Advantages
  • Rank well for a lot of Key Word Phrases
  • Achieve this within hours
  • You only pay if people actually visit your site.
  • You have tight control over expenditures.
  • "Conversion Tracking" enables you to track the performance of each ad and keyword.
  • PPC programs may be large, covering all your products, or small and focused on one product.
  • There are only a few significant PPC programs
  • Next: "Organic" SEO