Search Marketing: Because you need to get found
Internet is the everyday routine of a large percentage of the population and they buy and sell on it, a lot, all the time. But the consolidation of Internet as a market brings greater competition and makes selling online more and more difficult.
The first step to business success on the Internet is just that you need to be found. This is what “Search Marketing” does, including search engine optimization (SEO), search engine advertising and social networks (PPC) and content marketing.
By creating global strategies combining website optimization, for both search engines bots and especially for visitors, advertising on Google and social networks and content creation, you can get your target audience to find you on the Internet, the first and essential step for the conversion or purchase.
Global Search Marketing Strategy
The strategy seems simple: since there are many potential Internet consumers, we are going to sell online. We just need to create a website and wait for their visits. Let´s try to explain what a global search marketing strategy is, the one that gets visits to our website.
Seo:
The first step to be found is making sure that search engines, which ultimately are the main intermediaries in the online market, are able to properly find and read our page. Then, they will know what your site is about and place your pages in its results to meet the user searches. In order to help the search engines to find us, read us and place us properly in the SERPS (search engine result pages), you need to make it as easy as possible for the robots that crawl the Internet constantly.
The good news is that robots learn from users, so when we improve the sites following technical SEO guidelines, the page is improved for both users and search engines. Basically, these guidelines are based on a clear and easy to follow structure as well as on content that is relevant, unique, complete, correct and consistent with the structure.
Advertising in Search Engines
Search engine advertising, known in the industry as PPC or SEM, allows us to display our messages to an audience that is already looking for our keywords, enabling us to do and adjust our offers virtually in real time.
The options offered by search engines (especially Google) include different formats and even inserts with banners on pages and blogs. All these allow us to sell, improve branding, introduce products and drive traffic to our websites quickly and with a controlled investment. In socialnetworks we can also do targeted advertising to its users. Again, it allows us tobewhere and when we are sought for.
Mobile Search
An important point to take in consideration is the device the users are using to search in the internet. Adapting the ads to the specifications of the hardware used by the users is a must. Below you can see examples of different ads optimized for mobile search:
Social Marketing and Content Marketing
Google has long established a popularity system on the web that is based on the assumption that pages with more links pointing to them are the most relevant. Although this has been tempered with time and now the quality is valued over quantity, people linking to us remains the key to the popularity of a website. It’s really important to design and implement strategiesthat appeal to people who find it interesting (read it, share it, review it, comment it, etc). Having a community on social networks, already involved with the brand and interested in our content, will be the basis of the success of these content strategies. Moreover, if our content is successful, our social community will be larger and stronger. If you want to be found by the right people, you need to send the right message.
Web Analytics
Something that is implicit but has not been specified: our aim in search marketing is to find the relevant audience who is looking for our offer (products, services, information) and make our proposal interesting for the users at first glance, so they will be willing to perform the conversion we expect (purchase, registration, subscription).
For any project, it is essential to measure our marketing efforts to better understand what is working. In online marketing this can be done on a systematic and regular basis. A successful implementation of a Web Analytics program (Google Analytics is the most popular) allows us to know where our visitors come from and how they behave on our website. Where is the source of the group that meets our objectives the most?
Usability and return to start…
As we see, bringing traffic to a website is a complex and expensive process, so you don’t want any part of your website to become an obstacle to achieve the coveted conversion. Is the registration form too long? Can you press the purchase button from a mobile device?
Through usability we can increase the percentage of traffic that eventually becomes caught, ensuring that the page is optimal for the user. And then, remember, we will also get ideal for search engines. And back again!
Internet Advantage is a company specialized in SEO, Search Engine Advertising and Social Media. We work with them in order to offer our clients a wider range of services.