September 2004

Search Engine Marketing Misconceptions

These common misconceptions in search engine marketing could be causing your campaign to stall from the start

A successful Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign needs ongoing maintenance, work & commitment. There is no magic formula to get to the top of the search engines and staying there, without hard graft over a long period of time, and it doesn't just involve paying to be number one across the board. Most successful search engine marketing campaigns have been done with a clear aim of what is required from the campaign, long-term commitment and integrating efforts into other online & offline marketing campaigns. Moreover, conversions should be at the forefront of a successful campaign. However, common misconceptions can cause your campaign to falter from the start.

1. Expecting quick results from the search engines
Many people new to search engine marketing still seem to expect that after a few weeks of site optimisation they will find their website ranking highly. Unfortunately it doesn't work like this. Gone are the days of stuffing your keywords into your meta keywords tag, or just relying on luck. There is so much competition out there, you have to give the search engines a good reason to rank you highly, unless you are lucky that your product or service is so niche, you hardly have any competition. Not only does this involve good keyword-rich content on your website, but many quality incoming links. If you want to gain quick results, you have to pay for them.

2. Targeting as many keywords as possible
The key phrases you choose at the time of the site optimisation, can make or break a campaign. It cannot be stressed enough how important this is. If you do target the wrong key phrases, you will need to start again or alter your optimisation. Many people still assume that you can optimise your website for as many keywords as you want, either by stuffing them all into the meta keywords tag (which bears no weighting in the search engine algorithms), or stuffing them at the bottom of the web page in greyed out text.

Firstly, when choosing key phrases, remember it isn't the volume of traffic you are after, but highly targeted traffic, that hopefully will further go on to make an enquiry or sale at your website. Choosing terms that are too broad, or simply just too many key phrases, will either not bring in targeted traffic or dilute your optimisation. Make sure you choose highly relevant key phrases to your website, only 3 key phrases per page and relevant to that page, and use different key phrases on each page - it is unlikely each page on your website is the same. Have a look at our tips page for a list of resources for researching keywords. It is a good idea to review your key phrases at least every year to ensure they are still the right ones to target.

3. Leaving your website to do the work
Probably one of the worst things you could do after starting an SEM campaign is to leave the website and let the search engines do the rest. Surely your business must have new things happening on a regular basis; news, case studies, new products, industry articles, special offers - the list could go on. All of these need to be updated regularly to make your website more interesting for visitors and to help your sales pitch. Keep on updating your web pages, adding new pages and information etc, and integrate it with other online activities such as email marketing. The more interesting your website is, the more your visitors will return and the more people will naturally link to you. You may even find the search engines will come out and crawl it more often as you regularly update information.

4. High rankings = more sales & conversions
You may find your website ranking highly for your targeted key phrases, which is good news. But it doesn't necessarily mean more sales. Just because people can find you easily, if your website is not up to scratch, unusable, or boring to your prospects, you may not get many more enquiries. Implementing some or all of the suggestions in point 3 above will help the conversions. Your website must be usable and accessible, and if your visitors are unable to find what they are looking for, they will soon surf off to your competitors. Finally, as with any bricks and mortar business, remember your sales & after sales service - bad experiences soon get told.

Never forget your website is there for your visitors, not to tell the world how great you are or your company is. The unique features and benefits of your products or services must be spelled out to convince visitors to contact you. For more information and ideas on website conversions, visit www.grokdotcom.com