Keywords or phrases are the ‘words’ searchers type into the search engine box when they are looking for information regarding a particular topic, products, services or information. Optimising your site for the ‘right’ keywords can be the difference between a few customers and lots of customers. It’s great to rank in the number 1 position for a search phrases but if it’s not the ‘right’ search phrase (ie one people are actually using) there is virtually no benefit for you. Here are 8 tips to get you started on good quality keyword research.

1. Think outside the square and leave no stone unturned!

Make use of every source available to you for ideas – start with your own list then ask friends, colleagues and customers for their input, use suggestion tools (eg Google Suggestion Tool), your site web logs for your web traffic and if you have them the logs for the search function on your site itself will give you customized and valuable insight only you will have into exactly what your customers are searching for.

2. Relevancy is the key to success

Never try keywords that are not relevant for your site. Sure you are going to increase the traffic to your site, but will this traffic convert? NO. At best you’ll annoy your customers and at worst you’ll annoy the search engines!

3. Talk your target audience’s language

Consider the language your target audience actually uses rather than what you or others in the business might think they should search for. It’s of no benefit ranking for “jandals” if all your customers are searching for “thongs”. Likewise, there it is pointless using industry jargon if your customer does not understand these terms. Consider that most people use natural language when they search and they typically include 2-4 keywords in their search phrases.

4. Check the numbers!

There are a range of tools available online to investigate search volumes (although some are arguably better and more accurate than others). Google, Yahoo! And Microsoft all have excellent free resources for this or for a paid subscription both Keyword Discovery or Word Tracker provide excellent data.

5. Paid Search will give you a helping hand.

If you’re still not happy with the results (or need ‘real’ stats to convince a key stakeholder) a ‘trial’ pay per click campaign can be an excellent way to get real data for your local market about what people are searching on, which results they click through from and most importantly which keywords or phrases convert to paying customers!

6. Focus, focus, focus!

Once you’re at the stage of allocating words to pages remember that a page will only rank well for 1-2 key phrases. If during your research you have identified particular keywords or phrases that could have real value but you can’t seem to fit them anywhere you might want to consider developing additional pages focused specifically on these topics. Just remember to link these pages within your site structure – they should not be stand alone pages otherwise the search engines may not be able to find them or other pages on your site!

7. Revise on a regular basis.

Keyword research is not a do it once and forget it task – you will likely have to fine tune and repeat over time as markets trends emerge, terminology changes, websites are updated, new products are launched etc.

8. Practice makes perfect!

It does not have to be perfect first time – better to have your site improved from no keyword research optimisation to some optimisation rather than doing nothing until you feel you have ‘finished’. Doing the hard work at the start and regular fine-tuning of your keyword strategy will provide you with the best possible chance of driving the right kind of traffic to your website. However, if you don’t have the time available or do not feel you have skills necessary then this job should be outsourced to specialists.

By Charlotte Whiter

Welcome to part 2 of this article which examines the relative benefits of both SEO and paid search. In Part 1 we looked at the pros & cons of paid search and saw there are some very compelling reasons for using it.

Time now to switch gears and look at Search Engine Optimisation (commonly abbreviated to SEO).

SEO is relatively ‘geeky’ and so many marketers struggle getting their heads around it compared to paid search (commonly abbreviated to PPC). However to ignore SEO is a mistake because it’s a great way of driving additional customers to your website. Having said that we’ll start with looking at the cons.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Cons:

The first thing to understand is that, contrary to popular misconceptions SEO is NOT ‘Free’. Whereas PPC is a ‘pay as you go’ model, SEO has front loaded costs and is, arguably, more expensive then PPC in the shorter term. The analogy to renting versus owning a house has been made.

SEO, especially in competitive areas, involves a lot more time & hard work than most people anticipate. Invariably changes to the website are required. This involves not only changes to site architecture & structure, but also changes to the content. Then the hard work really starts with link building…

Other negatives of SEO compared to paid search are:

• Limited keywords – as previously noted a page can usually only be optimised properly for 1 or 2 related search terms (keywords) which limits the number of keywords you can target compared to paid search.
• Lack of control over position – SEO is all about trying to influence search engines so they recognise your page as being highly relevant for a certain keyword phrase and thus rank it in the first page or two of organic search results. In SEO there are no guarantees in terms of ranking positions, despite what some con artists may state. The reality is you can’t guarantee what you don’t control & SEO is about influence, not control. So unlike paid search you can’t readily change where your listing is positioned in the search results. In contrast with PPC you can actively modify bids & preferred ad rank positions to test if, say, position 3 works better than position 1.
• Lack of control over landing pages - for the same reasons you do not have the same level of control with SEO determining which pages Google selects to include in its organic results compared to the high level of control paid search offers.
• Results take time – for people used to the relatively instantaneous results seen from paid search this is one of SEO’s biggest drawbacks. The plain simple fact is that SEO takes time before it shows results – and the more competitive the keywords you want to rank for the longer the wait. Generally it takes 3 – 6 + months before a site starts to rank for the primary keywords being targeted. If you need results yesterday, SEO is not the answer!

The time before results get seen combined with the limited level of control means that for most marketers SEO requires a ‘leap of faith’. For this reason we find most are far more comfortable starting off their search marketing efforts on a limited scale with paid search, then based on its success scaling that up and then later adding in SEO.

SEO Pros:

Having read about the cons you may well be wondering why you’d bother with SEO. Hang in there, the reasons are very, very compelling. Essentially it comes down to performance & cost.

1. More traffic – 70 – 75% of all search traffic is organic, rather than from paid search advertisements. The reason for this relates to the buying cycle. When people are in the early stages of information gathering & research they are far more inclined to focus on organic search results rather than paid ads. So if your SEO efforts get you ranking well in the organic results your chances of prospective buyers going to your website are enhanced.
2. Higher conversion rates – conversion rates from organic results are often higher than paid search traffic.
3. Lower cost over time – whilst SEO is definitely not free and takes more time, money & effort upfront than paid search the cost over the longer term is much lower because you’re not paying per click. For this reason getting good SEO work done on your website is a smart long lasting investment.

So which is better, SEO or PPC?

Really it depends on your objectives & situation. However we usually recommend running an integrated search marketing campaign with both to exploit complementary strengths of SEO & PPC. A typical SEO/PPC mix for a new website is often:

1. Start with PPC campaign
2. Implement SEO campaign
3. Progressively reduce PPC when SEO kicks in
4. Continue SEO with tactical PPC if needed

Do you need both SEO & PPC?

This debate frequently comes up when a client who has been using paid search for a particular keyword starts to rank well organically for it. “Great, we’re ranking organically so now we can ditch paying for this traffic using PPC”. That’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, especially for your brand name, however there are several reasons to stick with PPC even when you’re ranking well organically.

• Increased chances of being clicked on. With organic listings Google & other search engines normally will only show a maximum of 2 listings for any one website. So even if you are in the enviable position of having 2 results on page 1 of Google, by also having a PPC paid ad you increase your presence on the page by 50% & thus chance of being clicked on. Whilst you’d prefer they click your organic listing, as long as you’re bidding a sensible amount for paid search you still win.
• Paid & Natural Search Performance Synergy. There is evidence that having high organic & paid search results for a keyword leads to an uplift in performance for both – effectively a 1+1=3 effect.
• A study in March 2007 by iCrossing (Search Synergy: Natural and Paid Search Symbiosis) concluded that “Running natural and paid search campaigns in an integrated manner leads to superior online performance versus running either of them alone.”

  

• As the chart shows online performance for a range of key metrics improved significantly when natural & paid search were integrated. Why this happens is not clear – some speculate that having top results in both organic and PPC listings can help build the credibility of the site (Customer: “Hey, these guys are all over this page! They must be the industry leader” or something along those lines.)
• Other reasons for running both SEO & paid search include:
  • You have control over your brand message
  • Prevent competitor brand squatting in PPC search space (Prevent “Broad Matching” algorithms, and unscrupulous practices from putting your competitor’s ads above your natural search link for brand searches)
  • It’s insurance. If you slip from the organic rankings for a day or two, your paid ranking will maintain your presence.

Conclusion

1. SEO & Paid Search are each very effective ways of driving additional traffic to your website.
2. For maximum search marketing performance use both together & leverage their complementary strengths.

Mark Sceats

What’s Best – SEO or Paid Search? This is a very common question we get to hear from marketers and is a subject I spoke on recently when the New Zealand Marketing Association ran one of their bi-monthly ‘Brainy Breakfast’ seminars. The seminar was about Search Marketing and a sell out. Despite an antisocial 7am start more than 230 marketing professionals from a wide range of NZ organisations attended, demonstrating the intense interest in search marketing. Is search marketing taking off in New Zealand? Absolutely!

I was one of the six presenters on the panel which also included Google New Zealand, Yahoo! Australia, plus several other search marketing specialists. (That’s me, 3rd from the left).

We all spoke about different aspects of search marketing & the specific topic I covered was “What’s Best – SEO or Paid Search?” Because of the interest I’ve decided I to cover off the presentation here.

The short answer to the question is…it depends on your objectives & situation. Both SEO & Paid Search are
incredibly effective methods for driving more customers to your website. Like all things they each have their pros & cons and understanding these will help you decide which to use.

It’s easiest to start off looking at Paid Search. That’s because fundamentally it’s media buying, so most marketers find it easier to grasp than search engine optimisation.

Paid Search (PPC) Pros:

1. Performance based – a key aspect about paid search marketing which makes it so appealing to marketers is that, unlike almost all other advertising, it’s performance based. With PPC if people don’t click on your ads you don’t pay. And not only that, when people do click on your ad they’re actively seeking you out. What a contrast to traditional interruption based media! No wonder so much advertising spend is being switched to paid search.
2. Speed of implementation – compared to SEO it’s much quicker to implement a paid search campaign and few, if any, site changes are needed (at least initially). This makes it much easier for marketers to commit to because they can comfortably put a toe in the water & retain control without it becoming a major project involving IT etc.
3. High Control – this is another appealing aspect of paid search.

• On demand. Campaigns can be turned on & off as desired (ideal for tactical purposes)
• Landing pages – you control which specific page your ad links to.
• Specific audiences can be targeted using geo-targeting so your ads are not viewed & clicked on by audiences you can’t serve
• Compared to organic search results the advertiser controls the message presented in the search results i.e. the ad copy messaging (within editorial bounds)
• The keywords triggering your ads (if you’re selling widgets & don’t want a particular keyword to trigger your ads, such as ‘free widgets’ then you simply don’t include that in the keywords being bid on &/or make it a negative keyword)

This control is illustrated here (Ferrit is NZ’s biggest online shopping site with over 80 retailers):

In addition, less obvious benefits that paid search offers is testing.

With paid search you can & should test all of the following:

1. Keywords – with SEO a page can only be effectively optimised for 1 or 2 closely related keywords. However with paid search you can literally target thousands of different keywords in a campaign. So one of the things we always recommend is using paid search as a keyword validation tool to quickly identify the most effective keywords (i.e. the ‘money’ keywords that bring traffic that converts). Those are the keywords that the site should then be optimised for.
2. Ad copy – with paid search it’s easy to split test ads to find out which generate the greatest response from both a click through rate & more importantly, conversion rate. If you’re a company renting out motorhomes should your ad headline be “New Zealand Motorhomes” or “New Zealand Campervans’? With split testing you’ll know with certainty which appeals to your prospective audience, rather than guessing. (By the way, depending on the market being targeted one of those terms way out performs the other).
3. Landing page testing – again as with ad copy split testing you can test different landing pages to see which has the greatest impact on conversions. Simply A/B split testing can be done, as well as sophisticated multi-variate testing where a range of different factors get tested (eg 3 different headlines + 2 guarantees + 2 different prices + 3 different ‘buy now’ buttons). With most websites having dismal conversion rates in the 2% region using conversion optimisation to improve conversion rates can have a massively positive impact on your bottom line.

As you can see there are many compelling reason for using paid search. But it’s not all upside, there are a few cons.

Paid Search Cons:

The biggest negative is that paid search only works whilst you’re able to keep putting money in the PPC machine. Stop, and of course your ads stop running.

Fundamentally PPC is an auction and with increasing competition as more advertisers enter the market bid costs are increasing. NZ still an immature market with low competition but ‘keyword inflation’ is begining to happen which is a reason to get in early now. In the US paid search growth is starting to slow as many smaller to medium sized advertisers are having to cut back on PPC because bid prices are getting too expensive. This means it’s critically important to understand what you can afford to spend and having smart bid management strategies becomes increasingly important as CPC increases.

OK, to avoid this being too long an article we’ll take a break here. Tomorrow we’ll switch gears and look at the pros & cons of Search Engine Optimisation.

See you then.

Mark Sceats

Decide on why you are writing a Blog and write a clear set of goals and keep to them! Reasons why you should start a blog include;

• Sharing – sharing knowledge that’s useful to others is a great way to demonstrate your expertise in your business area and promote your product/service at the same time.
• To test ideas and get comments from your customers
• Thought leadership – this goes beyond demonstrating expertise to developing expertise in your field.
• Search Engine Optimisation – blogs create indexable content for your website and also act as link bait.
• Everyone else is doing it

Actually, if your answer is the last one you might need to rethink this whole blogging thing!

Decide on who will be updating the Blog and the frequency

• It doesn’t have to be one person. In fact sometimes it is better that a few people contribute, and make sure they are not all senior management!
• Offer incentives for contributors within your company. This is important – if blogging becomes a chore for your contributors then you will end up with low quality postings which could reflect badly on your company.
• Ensure profiles of the contributors are on the blog, including pictures if appropriate
• Keep the style informal!

Plan an editorial calendar, and start writing before you “go live”.

• Decide on when entries will be added – daily, weekly or fortnightly. Be realistic! You need to make sure you and other contributors can keep to the timeline but that the quality of your postings is maintained. Before you invest in a WordPress account or get your developer to integrate a blog into your website, I suggest you write a few test entries and see how you get on. The other advantage of this is that when you go live you will have a library of articles rather than a blank blog!

Choose a blogging platform that works for your technical ability and the goals you have written

• Your blog should look and feel the same as your website. This can be done by integrating WordPress, Blogger or other platforms into your website. If you don’t want to do this then simply sign up for a free blog and link the blog through to your website. From an SEO perspective your blog should be in a subdirectory, for example www.surefiresearch.com/blog. If your blog is in a subdomain, e.g., blog.surefiresearch.com then the SEO benefits of the blog are greatly reduced because search engines see this as a different site.

Ensure you are analysing performance and traffic. After six months ask if it is working.

• Blogging is a long term strategy and like anything in this world the more effort you put in the more rewarding it will be in the long run. Ensure you have a web analytics package installed on the blog and check every month to see how many people are reading the blog, how many people have subscribed to your RSS feed, and what postings they are reading.

Promote your blog (social media, email footers, email newsletters, submit to directories, etc.)

• Ensure your site is listed in the blog directories, that you advertise it on your site and in emails to clients and that your entries are being indexed by Google. Also look at StumbleUpon and Digg as sources of traffic (more on this, another day!)

Use images, links and Search Engine Friendly keywords and phrases.

• If you are using an SEO firm then ask them to suggest keywords and topics to blog on, and also get them to optimise entries prior to submission for the search engines. If you don’t use an SEO agency then ask yourself what words and phrases your site is not currently ranking for, but you want it to rank for and blog articles around those topics.

Integrate any other online activity you do with your blog – facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, MySpace, Flickr, You Tube, etc.

• This is a bit more of an advanced strategy but fundamentally if you have any other online presence, such as a YouTube channel, a corporate Flickr account, a LinkedIn profile or if you Twitter on a regular basis then ensure you mention and link through to all of these from your blog, and vice versa. This not only helps build traffic but will also help build links.

Only allow comments if you’re happy with public criticism

• My advice is to moderate comments from visitors to your blog to begin with and see what they post on your blog. Then, after a few months, make a decision on whether you want to allow these to be posted unmoderated, stay moderating, or remove the facility for others to post comments altogether.

Persevere! Remember you’re in this for the long run!

• Blogging in the long run will help bring traffic to your site and help its search rankings but you will need to be in it for the long run! Good luck!