The Rimm-Kaufman Group

Don't Draw Them a Picture Search engine spiders like words and phrases, not images. Post as much content (e.g., product data, news releases, FAQs, newsletters, testimonials) to your site as possible. —Alan Rimm-Kaufman, president of The Rimm-Kaufman Group

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