In what has huge implications for the way people will arrive, (or not arrive), at your website, Google last week conducted a major restructuring of how organic, (the left hand side), search results are displayed. You will now notice that there is a new column on the far left of the search page incorporating tools such as blogs, videos, time-based results and more. So what does this mean for you?

1. Regularly update your site

Now there are many more filters that people can use to find what they are looking for. You need to ensure that your site is optimised to take advantage of these new methods of segmentation. This means regular updates / changes / additions to aspects of your site such as articles, blogs, pics and videos. It also mean that whoever your web designer is, they should at least know the basics of search engine optimisation (SEO) and be applying them to your site. Remember to make sure all these changes to your site are relevant to the product(s) or service(s) you are attempting to sell.

2. Embrace social media

One of the best ways to keep your site full of fresh content is to employ a social media strategy. It doesn’t need to have all the bells and whistles and you can start small and grow your campaign as time allows. Tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are good ones to start with. Check out the articles in sites like Mashable and on blogs like Thinktank Media and start the learning process now.

3. Start a Google AdWords campaign

Obviously there is a great deal of effort in trying to get onto that elusive Page 1 of any search engine, including Google. Whilst virtually every business appears at or near the top of Page 1 for their own business name, the unfortunate reality is that that is often where their ranking success ends. Some businesses manage to appear for a few keywords, but even the best ranking businesses on the left hand side will always rank better by using an effective pay per click (PPC) / search engine advertising (SEA) strategy. You can bid on as many or as few words as you like, but with recent studies showing searches are now involving many more words than in the past, a strategy employing many terms and geographic areas has never been so vital. Effective SEO and social media strategies may enhance your positioning, but effective PPC / SEA will all but ensure it.

Sure you can attempt to tackle these 3 points by yourself, but do you have the time, the knowledge or the patience? So what’s my advice?

Do some research and find a great web designer, a great social media firm and a great pay per click / search engine advertising provider. In the case of the latter, just like you’d be less likely to choose a builder that’s not a Master Builder, you should also be diligent in choosing a provider that’s a Google Authorised AdWords Reseller or a Yahoo! Certified Local Ambassador, or better still, a firm that holds both certifications.

So there you go. Do the research, get the knowledge and go kick some ass!

Have you ever looked at those listings on the top and to the right of Google, Yahoo! Bing & MSN and wondered what they were all about? Well if you answered “Yes” then hopefully you will find this post of value.

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) aka Pay Per Click (PPC) aka Sponsored Links. Whatever you choose to call this medium it has been the fastest growing method of advertising of recent years. It has seen companies such as Google & ReachLocal, both of which derive the majority of their revenues from this medium, achieve unprecedented growth levels as explained by this press release from renowned professional services firm Deloitte.

Let’s stick to the term SEA for the purposes of this post. SEA involves bidding on certain keywords (read phrases) that relate to a business. When a potential customer is searching for a product or service, they type in what they are looking for which brings up a list of ads related to that search. The person searching then looks for an ad that best describes what they are looking for, clicks on it and arrives at the advertiser’s website. Voila!

One of the main reasons that SEA has boomed in recent times can be attributed to how the advertiser pays for their campiagn. Just imagine conducting an ad campaign with traditional media but only paying for the ads that caused the audience to visit your website? Imagine trying to explain to your account manager that you don’t want to pay for those ads where the individual did not do this. They’d think you were crazy! But that’s how SEA works. Your ad could appear on Google, Yahoo! Bing or MSN millions of times and you won’t get charged a cent. You only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad and arrives at your site. In other words, it’s pay for performance. All of those occasions where your ad appears and the person doesn’t visit your website you can regard as free branding!

As SEA is a digital form of advertising it’s much easier for those that use this format to gauge the effectiveness of their campaign and to tweak it according to the information that the campaign produces. Those that run such campaigns, whether they be individuals or SEA specialist firms, typically look at which words get the most clicks and the highest Click Through Rate (CTR – the % of those who view your ad who then click through to your site) and then manipulate the keyword bidding accordingly. Another key factor taken into consideration is the cost of bidding on those particular keywords. For example, a word may have a great CTR but if it costs 5X the price of your average keyphrase, do you really want to be spending that amount of money on each click? However, the best way to optimise a campaign is to look at the keywords that cause the most conversions, ie. leads and sales and adjust the bids accordingly. The previously mentioned ReachLocal is the only company I am aware of that as well as knowing which words resulted in emails, submitted forms and online sales, also knows which words caused the phone of a business to ring and automatically adjusts the bids accordingly. Powerful stuff!

As you may expect there is a whole lot more to it than that. For example who sets the price of these words? Google? Nope. Yahoo!? Not them either. So who does determine the price? Adam Smith’s invisible hand doctrine, written more than 230 years ago is the blueprint for what sets the prices of keywords. It is also the blueprint for what we all know as the market. Similar to the stock exchange, if the market determines a word should cost $0.85 for a click, then that’s what it costs.

Aside from which words to bid for and how much to bid for them, a variety of other considerations come into play. Some of these include how to best segment a particular geographic area, choosing a budget that is appropriate for your industry and the goals of your business, how to write an effective text ad, how to tweak your website for both maximum conversions and improved SEA ranking, the vast array and quality of reporting techniques and systems … the list goes on. The capability of SEA “specialists” to manage all of the above varies widely, (believe me when I say I have seen some less than impressive workmanship), so as with most things in life it is extremely important that you do your research before committing to any contracts.

I think that’s enough information for now. Over the coming weeks I will be exploring each of the aforementioned considerations in more detail. If you feel you cannot wait that long, please feel free to get in touch and I will do my best to answer any queries you may have.

Disclaimer:

I work for ReachLocal Australia and any views that I express here are purely my own and are in no way representative of ReachLocal Australia, ReachLocal Incorporated or any of our corporate partners.