Search Marketing: SEO and PPC

Chapter 8

Search Marketing: SEO and PPC

Learning Objectives:

By the time students complete this chapter they should be able to:

· Discuss the reasons why search marketing is so important.

· Explain the difference between a directory and a search engine.

· Understand how search engines work and what is a search algorithm.

· Define SEM, SEO, and PPC.

· Understand the basic process of optimizing a website for organic search.

· Identify the basic issues in keyword bidding.

Chapter Perspective

Search marketing and email marketing (Chapter 7) are both so important—and so complex—that they easily warrant separate discussions of an hour to an hour and a half. We created separate email and search chapters for this reason. Still, search is extremely intricate and students should understand that this section of the chapter only represents an overview from a marketing manager’s standpoint. Doing search marketing requires a lot of technical knowledge and understanding of how to work on multiple platforms. That’s the bad news. The good news is that both marketers and agencies are desperate for people who can do search marketing—and many are willing to train entry-level people. If there is an emphasis on Google it is because it is the most widely used search engine. Search engines are software and algorithms, or a website based on search software, that allows users to search for content based on keywords they provide. However, in a future edition with two chapters on search we would be able to include how to create paid search ads in other search engines and social media tools and discuss these tools in more detail.

Students in my classes have gotten jobs in search from the exposure in the basic course, although typically they develop their interests more fully in our advance marketing technology course, where we do AdWords Campaigns for the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) in the spring. Students there receive a $250 budget and run a paid search campaign for a firm or NGO that has never done paid search before. They learn a lot and can win a prize, which may involve a trip to California to Google Headquarters (my teams have never won). It is possible to do the Google AdWords challenge in this introductory course alone as a project, although it is quite all-consuming for the students and works better, for me at least, in a dedicated course.

When writing this chapter there was so much detail left out that we considered writing a technical appendix for search, which may appear in the next edition. I also think that organic and paid search might each warrant their own chapters. If you have no exposure to search marketing this chapter might be difficult to grasp at first. I recommend going into Google Adwords and at least looking at the tool. Since Google remains the browser with the largest market share, I speak about AdWords and Google quite a bit, although there are many other places to run paid search ads.

Search is primarily an acquisition technique, whereas email can be used for acquisition, but works better at customer retention. Search works because the customer is looking for exactly what your firm has to offer.

The Growing Impact of Search Slides 2-6

It is interesting to begin by asking students how often they search and for what. Most of us use search engines frequently and the reasons range from serious informational needs to being too lazy to remember URLs. Students may not have thought about how often they use search engines and how influential they are on their overall Internet use. The subject of search before purchase is especially interesting and you may find strategies that go beyond the two usual ones—search and research online then purchase offline or online search leading to online purchase. Do they consider themselves among those who “couldn’t live without” search engines? Are they among the 29% that search “daily?” I often tell them about the days of yore when you actually looked at a physical map or a phone book to find information. We often forget how ingrained our search habits are.

Data from search engine marketing agency iCrossing and from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), which has a lot good information at www.sempo.org, shows that both customers and marketers use search for just about every conceivable purpose. These data make it clear why marketers feel compelled to include SEM in their marketing plans. It is a good idea to check these and other sources when teaching this chapter to get the most updated information. For example, as of writing this instructor section, Google has AGAIN changed its search algorithm (A set of structured steps for solving a problem, in this case, finding information on the web; search algorithms are proprietary to each search engine tool) to make it more like an artificial intelligence tool: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/174892/google-changes-search-moves-closer-to-becoming-ar.html. You will find that search, like all aspects of Internet marketing, changes on a daily basis. I keep up, or try to, reading the Google AdWords blog (http://adwords.blogspot.com) and other emarketing email newsletters as well as the Technology section of the Wall Street Journal. Lots of things at the search engines are in beta testing, the stage in the product development process in which a new product is released to a select set of users for testing.

It is easy to see why marketers like search. Since so many consumers are online searching it is a good way to reach their target audience. Most people begin their major purchase searches online these days. Organic search, although it requires work in web design, does not require payment every time the company name appears. You are also catching people right when they are looking for your service. This is a growing industry and growth is being fuelled by mobile applications as well. Search can help with branding, online sales, lead generation, driving traffic to the websites and just getting content in front of the right people.

The World of Search Slide 7

The first thing students need to be clear about is the difference between a search engine (e.g., Google) and a directory (e.g., Yahoo!, at least at the beginning). A directory is an aid in finding Internet websites; list of sites are usually arranged by category and the directory has a search function. On the other hand, search engines rely on automated software (spiders or bots) to build their indexes. Most of the other sites with significant market shares (e.g., MSN, the other of the “top 3”) are search engines. This might be a good place to discuss Slide 12 (Figure 8.5) listing the top search engines. Telephone directories have moved onto the Internet, making the directory presence substantial. Search engines have expanded beyond the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) and into desktop search, local search, vertical search and personalized search. Essentially, when consumers are able to tag their own content, it qualifies as personal search. When I log in to Gmail and search for just about anything Internet related, I find MaryLou Roberts’ face next to a blog post on the subject as well as information other colleagues have posted on the subject, making my search quite personal.

Search Engine Marketing Slide 8

Directories have declined in importance as SEM (search engine marketing) has risen. There are two types of SEM. SEO is search engine optimization, which to confuse things is also known as natural search, organic search or sometimes even algorithmic search. The next type of search is pay-per-click (PPC) also known as paid search. The differences in the two are outlined in Table 8.1 (Slide 7). Paid search requires allocating a budget and managing the process intensely. Natural search seems free but also requires work to keep up in the rankings.

So here are two ways of achieving ranking on a search engine. The first is to optimize your site in order to obtain a high ranking in natural/organic search. The second is to take out a paid ad (PPC or pay-per-click advertising). SEO takes a while—as much as six months to a year, especially for a large, complex site. Paid search results begin immediately.

A good exercise is just to search for something common, like shoes, which the morning I did yielded 317,000,000 results. The goal in natural search is to rank in the top five or six results on the top of the first page. Since it is not always possible to rank high in an area organically, marketers often turn to paid search to improve their visibility. Google’s PageRank algorithm indicates how important a page is on the web and a high page rank is desirable, but the holy grail of search engine marketing is to be considered among the most relevant results.

Organic Search Slide 9

Keywords are key (pun intended) to optimizing organic search, although links and other factors are also important. Keywords are search terms, words or phrases, selected by the user when making a search in a search engine. The term keywords also refers to terms that are bid on in a PPC system such as Google or Bing. Keywords also refer to a section in the HTML code for a website where site developers put the terms that they hope search engines will classify the site as when users search for those terms on the web.

An example is given in Figure 8.2 of HTML code and meta tag keywords for a particular fictional website. Meta tags are HTML tags, or coding, that provide information about the web page, primarily for the use of the search engines. Meta tags are declining in importance but it is good for the students to see the relationship between search and HTML code. In Explorer, just select view and the page source to see the HTML code for any page and examine the keywords used. In Chrome, click on the little wrench in the upper right, then tools, then view source to view the page source.

Students should be familiar at least with how HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) works. It really is a text markup tool that just helps websites display the way they wish to display. The meta tags are meant to help in SEO, but, as stated previously, are less important to search engines today than ten years ago. One of the reasons for the declining importance is that websites were using inappropriate keyword meta tags to get ranked in categories not relevant to their websites’ content. In general, it is good to limit keywords to 20 or 25 as spiders, if they are looking, will not generally look at more than that. Figure 8.2 gives a simple HTML example, below, if you don’t feel up to going online.

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Pink Handbag World</TITLE>

</HEAD>

Search Engines Slides 10-15

Students need to be crystal clear about two things in terms of search engines and SEO:

1. Each search engine has its own ranking algorithm, and they change constantly. The term algorithm is critical to understanding how search engines work. The search engines say that they are always changing their algorithms is to make them better, and that’s certainly true. It is also effective in making the job of search engine marketers more difficult, and the engines know that. They would prefer that results be completely “natural” and do everything they can to identify and discourage the activities of search marketers, even the entirely legitimate ones. There are sites that attempt to “crack” the various algorithms but we focus on some tried and true ways to get ranked in organic search.

2. The search engines are serious about manipulation attempts. They may first issue a warning to offending sites, especially if they appear to believe the offense was committed honestly. They have little patience for overt attempts to manipulate and they can ban a site for a time—until it cleans up its act—or permanently. Students look surprised and wonder if this is illegal. It absolutely is not. The search engines are clear about their policies and vigorous in policing them. See Google’s Webmaster Help Center, for example, http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291.

Slide 9, Figure 8.3, explains how search engines work and is based on Google’s own published information. Behind the scenes crawlers or “spiders” develop lists of keywords from websites and these are brought back to the index servers that attempt to create indices of the relationships between various pieces of web information.

Figures 8.4 a and b show search engine spider simulator and a keyword density chart for a particular web page. These graphics and those in Figure 8.6 did not turn out well in the book but are well reproduced in Slides 12-14. I often have students run these tools (see Interactive Exercise 8.1) on a website they are working on for their project. Word cloud generators such as wordle let your students see what keywords are used most often on the page, which is necessary in optimizing organic search. Here is a nice list of some options for word clouds http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/waiting-for-wordle-free-word-cloud-options-to-use-now. I created the simple word cloud below for http://interactivemarketing.niu.edu. I used the TagCloud generator http://www.tag-cloud.de. The larger the word the more often used on the website.

Figure 8.6 (Slide 14) shows where paid search results show up in Google and should not need much explanation. However, Google is now putting some search results on the bottom of the page. So it is probably best, if you can, to do a few live searches in class and see where the ads turn up. I recommend doing the same searches in Bing and Yahoo! and comparing the results.