Search Engine Marketing

Traffic from Google to your Web site for a given keyword will triple the first month your site appears on the first search results page, according to a recent study by search marketing firm Oneupweb. To help get your site on Google’s first search results page, here are some tips shared by search industry experts at Search Engine Marketing Day held last month at eTail 2006 in Palm Desert, Calif. * Build a sitemap. Even if it’s not accessible by visitors to your online store, a sitemap always should be included on your Web site, said Stephan Spencer, founder and president of Madison, Wis.-based Web

Online searchers clicked on more keywords in fourth quarter 2005 than in the comparable period in 2004. Additionally, keyword campaigns in general got larger, and the average cost per keyword increased 114 percent during the last three months of 2005, according to the recently released DoubleClick Q4 2005 Search Trend Report. ¥ 58 percent: the average increase in the number of actively managed keywords among marketers in Q4 2005 vs. Q4 2004. To be classified as active, keywords must be clicked on, so this statistic demonstrates that online searchers are indeed clicking more than they did in Q4 2004, notes DoubleClick. ¥ 107 percent:

Paid inclusion, the least-recognized type of search engine marketing, is a powerful channel that may drive additional online sales for catalogers. But to efficiently drive the most sales, you’ll need to utilize all the tools in the paid-inclusion toolbox. Extensible markup language (XML) feeds can allow you to submit robust product information more easily and effectively. For those new to paid inclusion, this tactic differs from paid placement, or sponsored listings. Marketers can submit all of the URLs in their sites to a search engine on a cost-per-click or per-URL basis with guaranteed inclusion in natural search results, without the listing being marked as

Search engines drove 18.3 percent of all shopping and classifieds site visits in December 2005, according to a recent report by Internet research firm Hitwise. Google drove 11.1 percent of all shopping and classifieds site visits, an increase of 28 percent from the previous year. Yahoo Search and MSN Search drove 4.1 percent and 0.8 percent of retail traffic respectively. The leading retail sites receiving visits from Google: eBay Amazon Froogle, Google’s comparison shopping service BizRate, a Shopzilla-owned comparison shopping service These four sites accounted for 18.1 percent of Google’s downstream retail traffic. For more, visit http://www.hitwise.com.

As a cataloger actively engaged in search engine marketing (SEM), what can you do to ensure your program doesn’t get stagnant? Consider keyword expansion, suggests James Colborn, author of “Search Marketing Strategies: A Marketer’s Guide to Objective-Driven Success from Search Engines,” (Butterworth-Heinemann). Keyword expansion is the development and addition of new keywords to a portfolio for the general improvement of the campaign. Colborn notes the best technique for expansion is to tie new keywords to other variables that might influence SEM performance. He gives the following examples: 1. Examine existing keyword performance. An existing keyword base is a great place to start expanding, writes

From this article, you’ll learn how to determine the efficiency of your online advertising efforts and how to calculate the maximum cost per click for those campaigns. The basic economics of online marketing are simple: Determine the advertising efficiency needed to make your profitability goals, then buy all the inventory you can get your hands on. But how do you determine the advertising efficiency needed to achieve your profitability goals? This article offers some practical formulas and advice. Defining Online Advertising Efficiency Ad efficiency comes down to a cost vs. benefit ratio: “What did I spend on advertising?” vs. “What did I get in

Search marketing is hot: Analysts predict the industry will reach almost $15 billion in marketing spend in 2005, up more than 30 percent compared to 2004. There are two primary flavors of search marketing: paid search, dominated by Google’s and Yahoo!’s pay-per-click networks; and natural search, also known as organic search, unpaid search, or search engine optimization. Since cost-per-click fees have risen during the last few quarters, marketers have increased their focus on natural search efforts. To help improve online sales, this article examines nine common misconceptions about natural search marketing and how you can avoid these pitfalls. It’s simply too complex. Some

“As consumers become savvier searchers, online merchants must become savvier marketers,” said Diane Rinaldo, director of strategic alliances for Yahoo Search Marketing, at the session “Search Engine Marketing Strategies for Retailers: What Are Your Choices, and How Can You Use Them Effectively?” at the Search Marketing Forum held last month in New York. Rinaldo offered the following two strategies for merchants looking to get the most out of search engine marketing: 1. Since 38 percent of sales occur four weeks after a consumer’s initial search, you need to track consumer behavior for a longer period of time, Rinaldo pointed out. “Look beyond your current cookie duration.

The rise of the search engine as a marketing tool has brought with it a bevy of other online-selling opportunities. Not least among these are the shopping feeds, Web sites that act as online aggregators of merchandise and that allow consumers to compare similar products online, then choose merchants to supply the items. Often shopping feeds are referred to as comparison shopping engines or Web co-ops. Notable examples include Google’s Froogle and Amazon (see “Five Feeds Examined,” below). While few catalogers are claiming that shopping feeds are bringing in huge amounts of money, many in the e-commerce world do admit that they’re

“The No. 1 mistake that search marketers make today is not thinking like their prospects,” said Kevin Lee, executive chairman of search marketing consultancy Did-it.com. “Marketers still seem to think customers will find their products based on the way the marketer wants the customer to, not the way the customer actually does.” Opening with that statement, Lee presented his seminar “20 Bloopers, Blunders and Mistakes to Avoid in Search Engine Marketing” at The Direct Marketing Association’s Search Marketing Forum, held last week in New York. While he asserted that figuring out how the customer thinks and searches is difficult and will vary from product to