Marketing on Search Engines

By Staff Writer

Nearly 86% of Internet users rely on search engines and directories every day.

Although research results vary, everyone can agree: search engines are growing in importance. Nearly 86% of Internet users rely on search engines and directories every day—that’s more than 300 million searches each day! Those users aren’t just seeking information, either. Roughly 25% of all online purchases originate from search engines. For small business owners, rising to the top of those results used to be a nice benefit. These days, it’s a necessity.

Optimizing your Web site with keywords is a crucial part of improving your search engine listing, but it’s not always a guarantee. Google, for example, is notorious for changing their search algorithms (the equations they use to rank page results) just when the public starts catching on, and many companies don’t have the time and resources to dedicate to climbing to the top. While there’s no doubt that you should continue updating your site’s usage of keywords for optimization, there’s another option for you to consider as well: search engine marketing.

Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google: The Two Strong Searches

The fastest and easiest way to get to the top of search results is by paying for placement.

Unlike submitting your site to smaller, human-powered search engines or waiting weeks for spider/crawler engines to find you, the fastest and easiest way to get to the top of search results is by paying for placement. In addition to being an inexpensive form of marketing, it also offers you the ability to closely monitor and refine your campaign over time.

The two most popular search engines to consider are Google and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Between the two of them, if your site is ranked well, you’ll be found by well over 90% of Internet users looking for your keywords.

Yahoo! Search Marketing
Yahoo! Search Marketing is a pay-per-click search engine that delivers paid page results to many major sites— including AOL, Yahoo!, AltaVista, and MSN—giving you massive reach across the Internet. When you create a keyword campaign, you bid on the phrases or words you want. For help in choosing search terms, use Yahoo!’s free keyword search. Just type in a phrase related to your business, and they’ll tell you how many people searched for that series of words last month—as well as how many performed similar searches.

Yahoo! Search Marketing offers two different sign-up options: The first, self-serve option gives you the ability to handle everything, from keyword research to bid setting to listing/copy development. The second, FastTrack option, gives a phone number for support in your campaign-from budget management to ad writing to account optimization.

By making your search terms more specific your bid price will be lower.

How much you'll need to bid depends on what kind of placement you want to purchase and how popular the terms you choose are. The more popular the keywords, the higher you'll need to bid. By making your search terms more specific (by adding a city name or greater detail), your bid price will be lower, as less people are likely to be bidding for those keywords. For example, more people search for "digital cameras" than "Akron digital camera stores." Your minimum bid is 10 cents per user click-through, with a minimum of $20 per month.

As Yahoo! Search Marketing becomes increasingly important in company’s Web presence, third-party businesses have been cropping up, eager to manage your keywords bids. This is likely unnecessary for your business, as all you’ll need to do to maximize your campaign is monitor your few keyphrases and keep track of what your competitors are bidding.


Google

Google, on the other hand, is a “spider” search engine which uses programs to “crawl” the Web, analyzing sites’ content and linking structure, and then uses its search algorithm to rank the pages. Although the majority of their search results are free, they recently added paid placement links or “sponsored results,” called AdWords, which operates on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. To see what these ads look like, just go to google.com and search for “digital camera.” In addition to the millions of listings, you’ll also see their sponsored results at the top of the page—these are paid.

Similar to Yahoo! Search Marketing, you bid for your choice of keywords and setting up an account is surprisingly quick and easy, and even offers a tutorial for monitoring your campaign. Google positions your ad based on how many clicks you get over time.

The Power of Knowledge
The most important thing you can do in the midst of the ever-growing search engine changes is stay informed. Search engine placement and optimization isn’t something you can plan, implement, and then forget. Who’s using whose search algorithms and who’s developing what technology can be useful information when you’re revising your strategy for improving your site’s ranking (and you’ll have to do so, on a semi-regular basis). And while the major search engine providers battle it out, and shifts in ownership, management, and control happen on a regular basis, updating yourself can be a powerful step in the right direction. When you rise to the top of search engine results, you’ll be well on your way to the top of your field with sales too.