12 Tips for Winning at Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is hot and getting hotter. Indeed, analysts predict that retailers will spend $2 billion on paid searches in 2003, representing a third of total online advertising spending. It will generate more than $10 billion in tracked online sales for e-merchants, with additional untracked spill-over revenue going to contact centers and retail stores.

Search engine marketing works because searches are how consumers find products today: 41 percent of online shoppers report finding retail Web sites through search engines, according to eMarketer’s March 2003 study. And it’s still a bargain, averaging 35 cents per click across the industry, compared to $1 per lead from Yellow Pages advertising.

Just as e-mail evolved into the Web’s killer application for customer retention, search engine marketing will prove the Web is a killer app for acquisition.

As Terry Semel, Yahoo’s CEO, told Business Week, “Now the search war is going to get bloody.” He’s right — the big players are jumping in because the channel works, and because there’s serious money to be made in it.

How can a smart cataloger use search engine marketing to drive profits? Following are 12 tips that can help:

Tip No. 1: Optimize your site for organic search.

In addition to paid search advertising, gain the best rankings you can in the free listings by using well-written title tags.

Use text links for navigation and internal-site linking. Provide a well-organized site map. Keep your URLs simple: Avoid session IDs in the path, and minimize URLs that appear dynamic. Make sure your site loads quickly, is never down and your HTML is well-formed.

Most importantly, complement your commerce with content. Provide as much well-written, well-organized writing as possible. Content is king when it comes to organic search. To begin, hire a reputable consultant to train your Web designers and programmers in organic search best practices.

Tip No. 2: Use ethical techniques.

Don’t try to trick the spiders. Link farms, cloaking, gateway pages, keyword spamming, bait-and-switch submissions, invisible text, text placed off the viewable page — don’t waste time on unethical and outdated techniques in a misguided attempt to gain higher unpaid rankings. Such methods are dangerous and often ineffective.

Tip No. 3: Understand that tracking is essential.

Running paid search campaigns without proper tracking is like flying a plane blindfolded. At minimum, track to match your paid search advertising expense to resulting revenue and orders at the most granular level. Your site infrastructure may provide these data, or you may need to bring in third-party tracking. Advanced tracking systems should offer bid management, statistical analysis and metadata management.

Tip No. 4: Know your economics.

What should you pay for a click? It depends on your site conversion, average order, margin and profit hurdle

And, most critically, note that these key metrics vary by phrase. A more targeted phrase should attract traffic from more qualified buyers, typically generating higher conversion and possibly justifying a higher cost-per-click.

Combine solid tracking with the fundamental economics of your business to compute profitability at the phrase level.

Tip No. 5: Start broadly, then test and refine.

Test many phrases. As Babe Ruth once said, “Each strike brings me closer to my next home run.” If your “phrase success rate” — the ratio of phrases that perform profitably to the total number of phrases you’ve tested — exceeds 50 percent, you may not be doing enough testing.

Tip No. 6: Link deeply.

Bring paid search visitors directly to the relevant product or category page. Unless you’re advertising your brand name, don’t bring them to your home page. If you don’t have a relevant product page for an important phrase, create one. If you don’t have a relevant category page for a more general phrase, bring the visitor to your site’s search results for the phrase.

Tip No. 7: Make every page a mini home page.

Do you know how many of your Web sessions start at an interior page? The amount is greater than you think. So make every page on the site a “mini home page” by clearly presenting your value proposition. On every product page, tell visitors why they should buy from you. Provide clear links to services and guarantees.

Promote your 800 number. And if your site technology can handle it, serve two versions of each product page:

• your standard product page, with sidebars devoted to upselling and cross-selling; and

• an entry version of the product page, generated when your server detects a new session starting at an interior page, which uses the sidebars to hammer home your value proposition.

Remember: For many visitors, that interior product page will be their first, last and only exposure to your brand.

Tip No. 8: Beware of prospecting too deeply.

Don’t assume search-driven buyers repurchase at the same rate as catalog buyers; many catalogers find they don’t. As repeat purchases drive lifetime value, use caution when using lifetime-value arguments to justify prospecting below breakeven. At worst, aim to break even on the first sale.

Tip No. 9: Monitor response rates for search-acquired buyers.

If you find search-acquired buyers are less likely to repurchase, cut off their catalog mailings sooner. Even with lower repeat-purchase rates, these weaker segments can be mailed profitably if you employ an appropriate contact strategy.

Tip No. 10: Don’t pay for your brand name.

If your brand name is unique and you hold the trademark for it, send a legal notice to the search engines telling them not to sell to other firms any paid advertising on your trademark.

Once your competitors stop advertising your brand name, you can stop paying for it. The savings can be considerable, and you should gain the highest positions on the page naturally. You already paid dearly for this traffic — searches on your brand name are the result of your catalog mailings and ads. Don’t pay for these eyeballs twice.

Tip No. 11: Use databases and statistics to conquer complexity.

Paid search campaigns quickly get complex: You’ll probably test thousands of terms across multiple engines, crossed with different creative treatments and bidding strategies.

Well-designed databases can keep all your cells organized. Demand simple and useful reports to drive marketing decisions. Statistical approaches can help by clustering and summarizing results. When evaluating the performance of a cell, a cluster of cells or a campaign, consider the statistical uncertainty of your results.

Tip No. 12: Mine your logs.

Log the entries in your site search box and review them regularly. Scrub your server referrer logs for inbound search terms embedded in referral URLs from the search engines. Mining your logs offers useful insight into the phrases your customers use when searching for your products.

If you follow these 12 tips, you’ll enjoy success in your paid and unpaid search marketing programs.

Alan Rimm-Kaufman, Ph.D., is president of the Rimm-Kaufman Group LLC. Visit his Web site: www.rimmkaufman.com.