80/20 Strategies for Web Marketing, Business Systems, & Personal Productivity
SEO, PPC, SERP, CPA, blah, blah, blah. Anytime I talk about my work with someone outside the web marketing world, I get that classic “deer in the headlights” stare. I always try to dress it up in general terms by saying things like “I do web marketing” or “I help people get better results from their business website” and so forth. But people always seem to push a bit further. The second I start spouting off terms like SEO or Search Engine Marketing, the eyes start to glaze over. Search Engine Optimization strategies are especially difficult to explain, let alone the whole complex and dizzying world of Search Marketing in general.
But since I seem to have the recurring fortune to participate in these types of conversations time and time again, I have decided to try and translate this world in the simplest terms possible for outsiders. So let’s get started.
Search Engine Marketing is also known as SEM for short – one of the many acronyms you’ll encounter in this industry. In a nutshell, search marketing consists of anything you do to promote, advertise, or otherwise drive traffic to a website via search engines. Of course, when we think about search engines we tend to think Google, Yahoo, and now Bing. But truth be told, there are thousands of search engines lurking out on the web. By targeting the top three engines, you’re pretty likely to hit the majority of the market.
There are two primary methods of SEM: Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Marketing. The reason for this is simple. There are also two primary components of most search engines. Those two components are “natural search results” and “paid search results.”
Natural search results dominate the left-hand side of the SERP (aka “Search Engine Results Page”). The PPC (“Pay Per Click” or “Paid Search) results show up on the right side. There are some slight variations to how natural search and paid search results appear, but this is pretty much how it works.
If you are marketing a website, you basically have two ways of capturing traffic from a search engine: 1) get your website in the natural search column, or 2) buy your way into the paid search results.
Most Internet Marketing experts will argue that “natural search” is always better, but I beg to differ. In many cases, it may be *too difficult* to bother. So let’s begin by talking about the easiest and fastest way to get in to search engines — Pay Per Click Advertising.
PPC is quick and easy for getting started, though there is a learning curve. Google Adwords is the system you’ll most likely learn first as its the most powerful PPC environment. I’m not going to launch into some how-to guide on PPC here, but just know that the best thing you can do to get started is just to get started. There are many resources available on the web for doing your own PPC campaigns and there are many services available to manage your PPC for you.
If you run with PPC for a good period of time, you will learn a lot about how search engines work and what kinds of keywords your customers are using to find your website. This is a great launching pad for getting started in Search Engine Optimization – definitely not the easiest form of Search Marketing, but almost always the most cost effective when you’re running campaigns long-term.
Again, SEO is about obtaining natural search rankings in that left-hand column on Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine. These positions are highly coveted and, well, there are only a handful of spots available on that first page. Unfortunately, new businesses are coming to market every day so competing for these positions can be a major pain in the ass if you’re not patient and strategic.
Either way, no Search Marketing Plan is complete without some form of an SEO plan. Many SEO gurus will tell you to start by aiming for the “low hanging fruit.” This means targeting 3- and 4-word keyword phrases instead of 1- or 2-word phrases, which are now incredibly challenging to nail within a short timeframe. As with PPC, strategic methods for SEO are beyond the scope of this post, though these two articles will provide a nice introduction to a simple but effective method:
Article Marketing Part One
Article Marketing Part Two
The most important thing to note here is that Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a very powerful tool for promoting your business. As a recent NY Times article put it: “Search advertising is probably the most effective form of marketing ever invented” – period. No matter how you get started and no matter how much of it you actually do, the most important thing is to start small and plan to learn big.
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Excellent introduction. I know exactly what you mean about ‘eyes glazing over.’ Another great post!
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